Sungyeol:Woohyun! You’ll never believe it! Guess what happened!

Sungyeol:Come on, guess!

Sungyeol:Come on, show me that you’re alive!

Woohyun:.

Sungyeol:You’re an .

Sungyeol:ANYWAY!!! Kim Sunggyu’s wife left him!!!! AND she took the baby with her!!!!

Sungyeol:I knew she was weird. I just got that vibe from her.

Sungyeol:Apparently, she was from North Korea and went back? Can you even do that?

Sungyeol:Wait! What if they caught her, and she was brought back? She’ll probably face serious charges for fleeing.

Sungyeol:She might even die. The kid too.

Sungyeol:No wonder why he’s so bummed out. His wife and child are dead. That .

Sungyeol:Do you think our company would make a movie about this? I think it’d do really well.

Sungyeol:They have galbi in the cafeteria today.

(the next day) Woohyun:Any news about Kim Sunggyu and his wife?

Sungyeol:He’s alive!

Sungyeol:Eung, I’ll tell you over drinks tonight.

Woohyun stared at his phone as he watched Sungyeol’s texts roll in. He should’ve known that Sungyeol wouldn’t give him the information that easily. It had been three and a half months since he’d said an actual word to Sungyeol, and yet at the same time, Lee Sungyeol was one of the very few people that Woohyun was in communication with during the switch. There was a reason for that, and a reason why Sungyeol was so faithful in texting him.

They met in college, when they were just classmates who hung out occasionally. They weren’t best or even close friends back then. Other people filled that role. But because of that, because they were friends but not too friendly, Sungyeol ended up being the first person that Woohyun came out to. The stakes with Sungyeol were low and yet Woohyun felt comfortable with him. Although Woohyun immediately regretted it moments later. He didn’t know Lee Sungyeol well enough to know that the man would continuously ask probing questions about his uality out of curiosity. However many, many moments later, Woohyun was glad that he did. Sungyeol never put him into a precarious situation and helped him out of many. Lee Sungyeol was loyal like that.

After college, they drifted apart, as casual friends often do. So it was a very pleasant surprise that, several years later, when on the first day of work, Woohyun saw that familiar face standing next to him in the line-up of new recruits for the shiny, new Seoul headquarters for their company.

They caught up quickly and soon became each other’s allies in the battlefield of business and each other’s stress relief during a long day at work. This made them closer than they had been in college. And they were often referred to as ‘best friends’ by their fellow coworkers, which was new to the both of them. They had no idea how their relationship was coming off to others, and so they accepted their newly dubbed ‘best friends’ status and acted like them all the more.

So all of this history between them probably begs the question: why didn’t Woohyun just go to Sungyeol for help during the switch? Why didn’t Woohyun talk to him?

Woohyun did have his reasons. Sungyeol would ask a lot of questions. Sungyeol would take things too far. Sungyeol would accidentally let the truth slip out of those freaking honest lips of his. Sungyeol…well, it would be easy to blame him for everything. But if Sungyeol was really to blame, then Woohyun wouldn’t have always felt guilty for not telling him.

Some of the major reasons why Woohyun didn’t tell Sungyeol was that Woohyun was offered an escape from his life and he took it, leaving his friend behind. Another reason? When by complete happenstance, or by an act of Fate, Woohyun met that man at the restaurant that night, he thought he had his solution. He wanted that man to be his solution. And Sungyeol was left out of the equation.

Now the ‘problem’ had been resolved for two weeks. Woohyun switched back. He was living his own life again. However, that life had completely changed. He lost his job, started a new career, and had “Baby Blues,” or at least that’s what Google told him that he had. Woohyun was experiencing sudden mood swings, including random spurts of crying. He couldn’t concentrate as well as he used to. People had to repeat things to him very often. As a result, people at his new workplace always remarked how ‘his head was in the clouds.’ And it was in a sense. He wasn’t having these lofty thoughts. He wasn’t daydreaming. His mind was literally cloudy, a dark grey cloudy sky. That cloudiness also affected his eating habits, sleeping habits, interests in doing anything, interests in living. And so he gradually withdrew into himself.

Woohyun went to work and he came home. That was his life for the past two weeks. Of course this worried his mother, and he thought about telling her the entire truth, especially since she might understand what he was going through. She might’ve had “Baby Blues” too. However, he gave up on that notion very quickly. It was all too weird. The truth was too unbelievable. So he kept his mouth shut and promised that he’d go see a doctor…which he hadn’t done yet. No, instead he went and bleached his entire head as if that would really lighten the gloomy grey thoughts in his mind. And it was a step further from the normalcy that he wanted to return to.

However, meeting again with Sungyeol, that might be the first step on the path to recovery, or at least the first step outside of his house that lead somewhere other than work or the salon. So while he recoiled at the idea at first, Woohyun went out that night to drink with his old friend.

However, once again, he had several reasons for going. ‘An attempt at acting normal’ was a major one, so was ‘a good reason to drink.’ But then there was curiosity. Woohyun was very curious to hear what Sungyeol had to say. It was the first time in a while that something maintained Woohyun’s interest for a sustained amount of time. He became fixated on it so much so that he finally broke his silence after months and months. Why? Apart from talking about how they’d raise the child, Woohyun and Sunggyu rarely talked about the future. Which meant that they never came up with an exit strategy for Sunggyu after the switch back.

And the bastard just decided to kill Ran Woong, all on his own! And while Woohyun acknowledge that it was probably the only way that Sunggyu could explain things. It didn’t sit well with Woohyun at all. And ever since he had heard of his alter ego’s death, Woohyun’s cloudy mind now was accompanied by a hailstorm of questions.

Hopefully, meeting with Sungyeol to night would clear it up. And actually Sungyeol’s bright and sunny smile aimed at him, brightened up his mood.

No one (except his mother) had been that happy to see him in a long while. And it made Woohyun smile too, the best he could.

“Look at you! Who are you? I haven’t seen you in 100 years. Your hair even turned white since the last I saw you,” Sungyeol joked as the other approached him at the bar.

“It’s blonde. Are you color blind?” Woohyun replied with a light chuckle. Sungyeol just shrugged, drank from his beer, and pulled out a chair for his friend. Woohyun took the seat and patted the other on the back. “Good to see you again, Sungyeol.” He then ordered a strong drink for himself. He was already starting to feel overwhelmed, tense, and just generally anxious. It had been over three months since they last talked. Of course the first thing his friend would genuinely ask was some form of ‘where the Hell have you been?’

“What the Hell happened to you, man? Did you get abducted? Recalled into the army?” Sungyeol then gasped after thinking up a new scenario. “Were you a spy for Hulu?”

Woohyun shook his head and the smile quivered on his face. “I doubt you would believe me if I told you,” he mumbled and then took a good, long drink.

“Try me.” Woohyun looked over at the other, and Sungyeol was now facing him. The man was serious and his gaze was steady. Woohyun swished the drink a bit in his mouth as he thought it over. This friend was the first person that Woohyun had come out to. Sungyeol had that expression back then too, serious and attentive. So Woohyun decided to it and tell him.

“I’ve been living the last three months as a pregnant woman.”

“Stop bullting and tell me the truth,” Sungyeol whined in response. His strong expression crumbled with impatience.

Woohyun winced and took another sip as he decided what lie to go with. “I hit a mid-life crisis in my early thirties,” that was more believable, just like Ran Woong dying.

“I can see that,” Sungyeol was satisfied with that answer. But he still had some questions for Woohyun: “So is that why you ghosted?”

“I needed a change in my life,” Woohyun replied, honestly. He spun towards Sungyeol and bragged, “I work for a tv channel now.”

“Which one?”

“The home-shopping network.” Sungyeol seemed disappointed at that, probably expecting a larger public channel like KBS or a reputable cable channel like TVN, something more worthy of leaving his old job for. But Woohyun genuinely liked his new job. It was an entirely new challenge, yet a familiar one. He liked his coworkers. And he liked how it was his joband not his life. It was healthier for him, and it also promised some opportunities that he would’ve never had at his old job, like: “They might even make me a host alongside of Ahn Heeyeon.”

Sungyeol frowned. “Who’s she?”

“The top host for home-shopping, don’t you know?” Woohyun boasted.

His friend shook his head. “I’m not really in their demographic. I’m 30 years too young,” Sungyeol joked. A broad grin then broke out on his face and he slapped his knee when he thought of: “Oh, is that why you dyed your hair? So that appeal to your audience?”

Woohyun chuckled along with him. “Something like that.”

“Something like you felt like you were losing control of your life and nothing seemed to be going right and you didn’t feel like yourself. So you dye your hair some crazy color thinking ‘ah this is the new me.’ But afterwards you’re still the old you but with a burnt scalp.” It was amazing that Sungyeol could say such depressing things with that goofy grin on his face. Woohyun frowned and looked away. Sungyeol chuckled at that reaction. “You remember when I dyed my hair red when we were applying for jobs?”

“That was a dumb idea,” Woohyun grumbled out a retort. Back then Sungyeol didn’t dye his hair a subtle red but a brilliant and outrageous red. He looked like he dipped his head in gochujang, and in his interviews, he acted as if it was normal and didn’t acknowledge it.

“I thought it would make me stand out,” Sungyeol defended himself. “And I was going through a crisis back then. So what’s your crisis?”

Woohyun glanced over at the other, while his fingers were playing with his glass. He had already tried to tell Sungyeol once and failed. Should he even try again? Or should he continue speaking in half-truths? Woohyun went with the latter: “I met someone.”

“Not this old story!” Sungyeol interrupted, tossing his head back as he lamented. He then quickly gathered himself and scooted his barstool closer to his friend so that they could discuss it more privately. “Come on, tell me his name,” he whispered. But Woohyun shook his head. Sungyeol, of course, kept insisting and tapped the other lightly. “Come on, cough it up.” Still no reply but a very small shake of his head. Sungyeol’s demeanor completely changed. He was on edge. “Woohyun, you’re scaring me. You look like you’re about to cry. Who was this person? Why can’t you tell me?” he asked.

“I want to tell you, but you won’t believe me,” Woohyun mumbled. “You didn’t believe me.”

“I’ll believe you. You’re a handsome guy, and you’re nice enough. You could get any guy,” Sungyeol insisted. “I’ll even believe if you told me it was Hong Sukchun or….Kim Jong Un. Or even an alien!” He managed to crack a smile on the other’s face with those lame jokes, so Sungyeol tried again, “So who was it?”

“Kim Sunggyu.”

“Shut the up,” Sungyeol’s tone was completely different from when he jokingly told Woohyun to ‘stop bullting’ earlier. He was dumbfounded, and he was starting to believe.

“Like I said, I spent the last three months as a pregnant woman.”

Sungyeol’s mouth hung open and his eyes darted everywhere, as he was mentally putting things together. “AH!” He did it. He could see everything clearly now. “I knew there was something weird about that woman! I knew it! It was you!” Sungyeol exclaimed, pointing his finger at the other. His eyes were bugging out. “You! You winked at me when you introduced yourself!” Woohyun was laughing now, both because Sungyeol’s reaction was hilarious and out of relief. The man groaned and slumped over the bar, his head turned towards the other as he continued, “I was freaking out, thinking that you were into me. I had half the mind to tell him…Oh !” With that he hid his face in his arms. Woohyun was laughing so much that his sides were hurting now, and he was slapping Sungyeol on the back, trying to get him to sit back up. And when Sungyeol finally did, he did what he did best and that was to ask questions: “What? How? How do you even become a pregnant woman?”

Woohyun had a few videos on his phone that were taken during the switch. He never saved them onto his phone, but they were sent in a chatroom with Sunggyu (which had sicne been inactive). It was a game that they used to have back then, to take candid and compromising videos of each other. How or why it started, who knew. It was just a fun thing to do. And like with many things, Woohyun never really considered what his future would be like with these videos on his phone. What should he do with them now?

Woohyun had tried to watch them since the switch back, once or twice before. More often he would look at the thumbnails to remind himself that those times did, in fact, happen. He’d think about watching them. He’d try to. But he’d quickly close out of the video once the audio started playing. Looking at the thumbnails was one thing, but to hear himself talk in Heeyeon’s voice and to hear himself talk to…it was too much.

It was already hard for him to have his phone in Sungyeol’s hands. Sungyeol kept replaying a short clip of Sunggyu saying ‘Woohyun-ah, stop.’ Woohyun wasn’t watching the clip with him, but he could recall it well. He had been filming Sunggyu who he found asleep and snoring on kitchen table after claiming that he was ‘just going to rest his eyes for a second’ while Woohyun was making dinner, tonkatsu and fried rice. The image came to him easily as if it happened yesterday.

“There’s more than just that one,” Woohyun remarked after hearing his name being called out for the tenth time.

Sungyeol took the hint and closed out of the video. “I know, but…” he didn’t know how to finish that and handed the phone back to the other. He was dazed now more than ever, after hearing Woohyun’s story and seeing a few videos. And the first thing he had to say about it all was, “, I was right. Our company should make a movie about this. The plot twists keep coming.”

Woohyun frowned at that. “Well, they end here,” he declared. “Everything is over.”

“Are you sure?” Sungyeol asked. Woohyun glanced over at the other, and wow, it kinda scared him to see Sungyeol look that hopeful. Sungyeol then leaned closer to the other. “Have you talked to him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not even sure that I like him. I mean really like him,” Woohyun spoke a little too loudly and sharply. He was aggravated with Sungyeol. Unlike Sungyeol, Woohyun didn’t think he could afford to hope. Woohyun could barely make up his mind if he wanted to hope. He was having a difficult time being interested in anything right now, let alone being interested in a relationship, or in Sunggyu for that matter. Things were very different now. But judging by the look on Sungyeol’s face, he couldn’t understand. So Woohyun tried to explain it to him: “Remember when you first started college and you were still dating your girlfriend in high school, but then you two broke up because, well, you weren’t in high school anymore. It’s like that.”

Sungyeol shook his head through the entire explanation. “No, I broke up with her because she cheated on me,” he argued when Woohyun was done.

“She broke up with you…”

“Shush! I’m talking!” Sungyeol cut him off and put a finger to his lips. He then continued once Woohyun pursed his lips closed, “And that’s not like your situation at all. Me and her broke up because we encountered people that we’d rather be with. You haven’t encountered anyone, you hermit! If anything you have…what’s it called? Not Stockholm…Ah! The Florence Nightingale syndrome! Yes, that’s it! You fell for the person who took care of you.”

Woohyun still kept his mouth shut. If he argued now with Sungyeol, things would get loud and heated. The whole bar would be a witness to it. And honestly, Woohyun didn’t disagree with him entirely. Yes, Woohyun might’ve fallen for Sunggyu because the man took care of him. But Woohyun couldn’t ignore the fact that he was weak and in a vulnerable situation, with strange hormones messing with his body and mind. And now, while he had “Baby Blues,” Woohyun wasn’t as vulnerable, as needy as he was then. And that’s what he was trying to say. Sungyeol and his high school girlfriend broke up because they became different people. And Woohyun was literally a different person right now. The situations were similar, but he didn’t want to get into it.

“In any case, it wasn’t real,” Woohyun tried to lay the matter to rest. “I’m not a woman.” That should have really been the nail in the coffin of the conversation.

But of course, Sungyeol had another question for him: “No, you’re not…but are we sure that Sunggyu is straight?” Woohyun glared at the other as he polished off his drink. Sungyeol was unfazed. “Well, are we?” He then leaned in closer and whispered lowly, “There were times when the three of us went for a second round and things would…”

“Sungyeol,” Woohyun cut him off. His mood was swinging dangerously low. “Can we talk about something else? Please?”

“Alright,” his friend finally let it drop and ordered the both of them another round. After a few moments of silently sitting, Sungyeol finally found the something else to talk about: “What was it like giving birth?”

Weirdly enough, in spite of everything, Woohyun talked about his experience with ease and with pleasure because he could make Sungyeol retch with his words and make him beg not to go into detail. This was the step towards normalcy that Woohyun needed.

Being normal wasn’t trying to forget or act like the past didn’t happen; it was accepting the past and accepting the fact that things were not going to be the same. Only in geometry does normal stay the same. In life, normal changes all of the time. Woohyun just needed to settle on his new definition of it.

Woohyun wasn’t the only one who needed to settle for a ‘new normal.’ Sunggyu suddenly found himself a widower. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He truly felt like it. Essentially, Ran Woong was dead, and Sunggyu hadn’t spoken to Nam Woohyun in weeks. It was encroaching on a month now. So it seemed like any real relationship that they did have was gone along with their fake one.

In some ways, Sunggyu was okay with that because he had no idea about how to act around Nam Woohyun as a man, or how to feel about Nam Woohyun as a man. But what he wasn’t okay with was the pitying looks from coworkers and the condolences. He was asked if he wanted to take time off for grieving or if he wanted to see a grief counselor. He declined. Work was going to be his therapy. He was going to try to live life as he had before and act like the past three months never happened.

It went as horribly as you would expect. Not everyone was willing to forget along with him.

“Sunggyu, why have I never got a call about your baby? I understand that you wanted to see another doctor, but you should at least told me that your daughter was born. Aren’t we friends? Are we? Or am I just some doctor to you now?”

Sunggyu had been dodging Bora’s phone calls for around a week now. She had been patient, assuming that he was a new father with limited time on his hands. But after she left a scathing voicemail in which she threatened to call Ran Woong, Sunggyu finally called her back. And that was how she answered the phone.

Sunggyu sighed and tried his best to control his temper (which had been getting out of hand recently). He called Bora during his lunchbreak, so he was still in the office, in a room meant for small group meetings. Several coworkers already walked past the room, wanting to use it as well, but they’d see the ‘widower,’ apologize, and move on. That was also irritating him, how they were being overly courteous for no reason.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” he asked.

“Short,” Bora replied. “I’m a busy woman, and I only have a 10-minute break.”

“Ran Woong and the baby are gone,” Sunggyu came out with it.

“What?”

“Gone forever. Never to return.”

“Okay, I would like the long version now, please,” Bora said after a moment of silence. She then got very worked up over it, “What do you mean they’re ‘gone forever’? Sunggyu, what happened?”

“They died,” he went with the usual lie. “Or they’re as good as dead because they’re back in North Korea now.”

Bora paused for a second and then asked, “You really expect me to believe that?” Of course, she’d be the only person to call him out on it. “Why the Hell would they go back? You want me to expect that she got caught and dragged back? Sunggyu, the guy who sold me my car was a defector too and no one…”

“Are you at a computer?” Sunggyu cut her off.

“Huh? Beg your pardon?”

“Get on the computer and look up Ahn Heeyeon. Her webpage for the home-shopping network will come up. Just do it. It’ll explain things,” he quickly added the last two statements when he heard Bora preparing to argue.

She did as she was told. “Ahn Heeyeon?” she asked to make sure. Sunggyu grunted in response, and she repeated the name as she typed it into the computer. And she was aghast at what came up. “Oh my god!” Sunggyu closed his eyes, preparing to speak the truth about the entire situation for once. But Bora jumped to a different conclusion: “Wait…Sunggyu! Did you have an affair with…”

“No!” Sunggyu shouted so loudly that he heard it echo through the room. A few coworkers turned their head to see what was going on. He quickly apologized to them and then continued talking to the doctor, “Just watch one of the videos. Just do it!”

“Then is it a twin or something?” she guessed.

“Just watch one of the highlight reels, okay?” Sunggyu ordered again.

And she finally gave in, “Fine.”

A minute past and Sunggyu could hear the clip playing, but nothing more. Bora was silent. So he prodded her, “So are you watching it?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing,” she replied.

“What do you mean?!” Sunggyu snapped. “She’s acting completely different from Woong and you know it.”

“Yes. It’s a stage persona, isn’t it? Or she has a twin, like I said,” Bora reasoned, in a bored voice. “This explains nothing.”

Sunggyu groaned. This wasn’t going to work. In fact, in the past it didn’t work, which is why Bora was married to another man and Sungyu was sitting here wishing that he was talking to someone else. Woohyun would’ve understood, he caught himself thinking. And because of that intrusive thought, Sunggyu decided just to drop this whole conversation. He was tired of it. “Forget it. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try,” she urged him. “Come on, try me, Sunggyu.”

“No,” he was firm. “There’s no point. You don’t believe in magic. You’d just say I’m delusional or…”

She cut him off, “Of course, I would. Magic doesn’t exist.”

That did it. That set Sunggyu off: “Ran Woong was really a coworker of mine, Nam Woohyun. A witch switched his body with Ahn Heeyeon. They lived like that for 3 months. They’ve since switched back. That’s the truth. Take it or leave it. Ran Woong is gone. Bobae is gone. They’re both gone.” And he hung up the phone on her. He didn’t care to hear her opinion on it. It happened. He didn’t need to hear her trying to convince him that it didn’t. It happened!

Sunggyu slid his phone away from him, across the table, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Acting like the last three months didn’t happen got him nowhere but angry and frustrated with the world and everyone in it. He needed to talk to someone about it. He was at his limit.

Sunggyu opened his eyes again and reached for the phone. He flipped through his contacts until he found the number.

“Hey, it’s been awhile. How are you doing?”

That weekend, Sunggyu was walking down the street when his phone rang. It was Bora. Surprisingly, she had made no effort to call him ever since he hung up on her. This was her first time, days later. So Sunggyu answered, curious as to why she waited so long.

“I’ve thought about it,” Bora announced as soon as he picked up the call.

“And?”

“Let’s say I suspend my gratuitous disbelief and say magic exists,” she laid down some conditions.

“It does,” Sunggyu interjected, impatiently. He hoped that this conversation would be a short one. He was meeting with someone in a few minutes.

“Fine,” Bora must’ve been in a hurry too because she didn’t even bother to argue with Sunggyu on that point. She continued, “This notion of Woong being a man trapped in a woman’s body sort of makes sense. She really seemed to know nothing about the female body, but she wasn’t a dumb girl. I mean, Woong-ssi asked me once if the baby would be okay if she took off her bra, and she had no idea what stretch marks were. Those questions were…ridiculous.”

“Woohyun isn’t dumb,” Sunggyu added when Bora finally paused. “He was clueless. But he isn’t dumb.”

“So if Woong was a man all along, there’s just one thing that doesn’t make sense, aside from the whole magic thing,” Bora said.

“What?”

She was hesitant to say it: “Sunggyu, don’t get mad at me for asking this…”

“Then don’t ask it,” he snapped. Sunggyu was nearly at his destination, at a high-rise apartment, and he had a feeling he knew what the question was.

“What’s your relationship with this Woohyun guy?” and she did ask it. Sunggyu bit his lips closed, holding back his tongue. “Sunggyu? Hello? Are you still there?”

“I told you not to ask,” was all he said in reply to her question. “I have to go. I’m about to meet with someone right now.”

“Who?” Bora asked and then gasped. “This Woohyun kid?”

“No,” he answered. “Bye.” At least he said ‘goodbye’ this time before hanging up. But he couldn’t hold the conversation much longer. There were two people waiting for him in the lobby of the apartment building.

“Sunggyu-ssi! Over here!”

Sunggyu smiled and waved back at them. “Hello, Heeyeon-ssi! Hi, Yunhee!”

Sunggyu needed to do this. He needed to drill into his head that this wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with and that this beautiful, baby girl wasn’t his. Well, Sunggyu got used to the fact that Yunhee wasn’t his fairly quickly. When Sunggyu first held her, back in the hospital, he was entranced. He thought that she was the prettiest thing and he wanted to be a part of her life. And he had all intentions of doing so, until Yunhee began wailing and Woohyun stormed out of the room. Woohyun realized it a second before he did. They were nothing to Yunhee.

Even now when Sunggyu was in Heeyeon’s apartment, holding Yunhee in his arms, he felt very little. Yunhee was an average looking baby to him, and honestly, Sunggyu couldn’t wait to hand her back to Heeyeon because his arms were getting tired.

But getting used to the fact that Heeyeon wasn’t Woohyun/Woong was difficult. This was the first time that they’ve really interacted since the switch back. And Sunggyu hated how his heart was doing flips when they met in the lobby. And he hated even more of how he had to restrain himself from touching her and from calling her…It was incredibly difficult. It didn’t help that Heeyeon was prettier in her own body, even as an exhausted, new mother who had no time to spend on herself. Her smile suited her face better. Her tone fit her voice. She dressed in better clothes. And overall her actions were just prettier. That didn’t help his heart to fall out of love with her at all.

But then they got to talking. They struggled to make conversation into anything more than questions that could be answered in a few words. It was stilted. Sunggyu foolishly thought it’d come more easily. However, Sunggyu and Heeyeon only spoken a few times before. And even when they spent several hours together in the waiting room of the hospital, the both of them were too anxious to make casual conversation. Sunggyu talked to her brother more than he talked to her. Sunggyu and Heeyeon, essentially, knew nothing about each other. And Sunggyu then realized that he expected it to be like ‘old times’ with Heeyeon, but between the both of them, there were no ‘old times’ to be had.

She wasn’t Ran Woong. She wasn’t Woohyun, which became all the more evident when Heeyeon mentioned him, “I’ve told Woohyun that he could come and see her, but he doesn’t want to.” She placed a cup of tea in front of Sunggyu and sat down in a chair across from him. She didn’t pick up Yunhee though, but the baby was also sleeping peacefully in his arms.

“I’m not surprised,” he murmured in reply. The image of Woohyun storming out of the room and down the hallway of the hospital played in his mind again.

“Would it be mean of me to bring her onto set one day?” Heeyeon asked. “I wanted to show her around. Some of our coworkers want to see her.”

Sunggyu looked down at the baby. It seemed so harmless, so soft and gentle, but he knew the world of pain she could inflict on Woohyun. Yet it was unavoidable. Yunhee existed in this life, not Bobae. “Just make sure Woohyun is kept a safe distance away,” Sunggyu replied with a small smile. He then tried to joke. “He might run away with your little girl when you’re not looking.”

Heeyeon giggled at that. “I’ll be sure to keep a very, very,very close eye on her,” she promised. “What’s he up to today anyway?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Sunggyu answered.

“Oh, you don’t?” Her brows furrowed in confusion. “Don’t you live together?”

“No,” he replied and shook his head a lot. “He moved back with his mom, I think.”

“Ah, right, of course!” Heeyeon exclaimed with a clap of her hands. “Now I remember. He did mention that before.”

Sunggyu bit the inside of his cheek. He ‘thought’ Woohyun moved back with his mother, but Heeyeon ‘knew.’ But how could Sunggyu know? Woohyun wouldn’t let him! Woohyun hadn’t called him since the switch back; he hadn’t even sent as much as a text message or any hint of being alive. Yet apparently Woohyun would tell Heeyeon every single detail of his life, and worst of all, Heeyeon expected Sunggyu to know about it too! It was irritating, much more irritating than how he was being treated by his coworkers. Probably because Woohyun wasn’t just a coworker…well, they weren’t coworkers anymore.

Yeah, Sunggyu had a problem with his temper nowadays, and it was noticeable. Heeyeon added, “Woohyun-oppa and I don’t talk very much. I only pop in once a week for a meeting. Other than that, I’m spending all my time with this little girl.” She gestured over at Yunhee, smiling warmly. She then extended her arms, “I can take her back. It’s time to put her down anyway.”

“Oh sure,” Sunggyu mumbled and handed Yunhee over carefully. He watched Heeyeon take her into the nursery (he guessed) and let out a deep exhale once she was inside. That breath soon became a groan. “Oppa?” he spoke under his breath and then groaned again. This was weird. It was all so weird. Here Sunggyu was sitting with who he used to know to be Woohyun, talking about Woohyun-oppa, and holding a baby that thought he was going to raise. His mind was breaking down, but it needed to. Sunggyu needed what he used to know to fall apart so that he could then put his mind back together, piecing it in with this new normal. And when Heeyeon came back, his temper died down (a bit), and he didn’t see Woong in her anymore. He finally accepted that this was someone else entirely.

And now he had to accept that he and Woohyun were nothing anymore. He could stop pretending to be close to him now, like he knew what was going on with him. “Heeyeon-ssi, how is he doing?” Sunggyu asked. “I haven’t heard from him since Yunhee was born.”

Heeyeon stopped in her tracks, like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh well,” she muttered as she gained her sense of mind again and sat back down, playing nervously with the baby monitor in her hands. “I wouldn’t be the best judge because I don’t know what he was like before. I couldn’t tell you if he was better or worse, not like you could. I’m also not on sets much, as I’m still on maternity leave. Like I said before, I only pop in for a meeting once a week,” she rambled off that disclaimer quickly. She didn’t want to be run over by Sunggyu’s temper. “But I would say that he’s doing just fine. He’s really taken to his job and everyone loves him there.”

Sunggyu relaxed hearing that. Well, at this point, he wouldn’t relaxed at hearing anything about him. “I’m not surprised,” Sunggyu remarked, acting as if he’d known that’d be the case. “It’s Woohyun, after all.”

“Right?” Heeyeon agreed. “He’s become an irreplaceable part of the team.”

“Really?” Sunggyu smiled, recalling all of the conversations that he had with Woohyun about their company and his old job. This was what he wanted to happen for him. “You should tell him that. He needs to hear it. Woohyun is the type of person that needs a lot of praise.”

Heeyeon nodded. “I’ll do that.”

Sunggyu left soon after that conversation ended and finished his (cold) tea. On his way home, he picked up some beer to help him nurse his heartache. Whatever his heart was aching over, he wasn’t quite sure. But it hurt like a .

He couldn’t get too drunk though, or not nearly as much as he wanted to. He was flying to China the next morning, and flying with a hangover wasn’t something he liked to do. And the last time he packed drunk, he forgot underwear. It’s not like China didn’t have underwear, but he’d rather not spend what little free time he had over there running errands. He’d rather spend his time eating, sleeping, or…was it possible that there actually was a Ran Woong in China for him to meet? Well, she didn’t have to be a defector, but just a woman that he connected with just like…

Sunggyu put the beer down. He felt like he’d drunken too much already. He was seeing things. He was seeing her, no, him on the television. Why would he be on the television? Woohyun had no business…Wait, no, he did. It was his business now. Sunggyu rubbed his bleary eyes and tried to focus them once they were open again. His television was on the home-shopping channel. How it ended up on there, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that this was the first time that Sunggyu saw Woohyun since the hospital. And it was surreal, not just to see him on tv but to see him in general. Surreal but nice, really nice.

Woohyun wasn’t hosting the show. He was just acting as a model for the pajamas that they were selling. It was a couple’s item, and he was matching the hostess. The both of them were acting out some sort of super cheesy skit of a newly wed couple. Sunggyu couldn’t laugh at it though. No, his throat was too tight for it. This domestic scene. He’d seen it before. He’s lived through it with…

Earlier today, he was searching for signs of Woohyun in Heeyeon, but they were all right in front of him now. Everything that he wanted to see was in Woohyun. His smile, his laugh, the way he stood with his chin raised proudly, the eyes that always seemed to be searching…his gaze caught the camera lens and Woohyun grinned.

“Cute.”

And Sunggyu was just drunk enough to admit that Woohyun was always like that. He always had those habits. He always was cute. And Sunggyu had always seen him like that, even before the switch.

Sunggyu sighed and turned off the television. That was enough of that. He needed to go to bed. His flight was early in the morning. He was going to China. He was going to hope to run into a real Ran Woong.

He was tired of meeting her only in his sleep.

“She grew so much.”

It was the first time Woohyun saw Yunhee since the hospital. While he knew that this day was coming, it still felt too soon, but any time would’ve been too soon, even if Yunhee was three years-old and walking. He still hadn’t fully gotten over the shock that she wasn’t his and would never be. And while the stubborn part of him didn’t want to be in her life at all if she couldn’t be his, a greater part of him still felt tied to her. He had to be in her life, whether he wanted it or not. Accepting that fact might help him get over these blues. Maybe she could be his new interest in life.

“Well, it’s been awhile since you’ve last seen her, Woohyun-oppa,” Heeyeon remarked and readjusted the baby in her arms. Back when they were living together during the switch, she started calling him ‘oppa.’ In turn, Woohyun referred to her as his ‘dongsaeng.’ They figured that they were basically siblings, since they knew each other on some weirdly intimate level. There’s something about spending three months in each other’s bodies. It allowed you to be incredibly candid with each other.

Which meant she was well aware of how much this pained him, but she knew it had to be done. And that this had to be done too: “Hold her. Look, Yunhee wants to be held by you. She’s reaching for you!” She basically put her daughter into his arms.

“Okay,” was all Woohyun could manage to mumble out as he juggled the newborn into his arms until she was safe and secure. And just like when he held her in the hospital, he felt whole, or at least more ‘complete’ than he had been feeling. It wasn’t as intense as it was back then. He’d improved since then. However it was still strong enough for him to kiss Yunhee and hold her close.

“She looks so comfortable,” Heeyeon cooed. Her eyes went up from the baby to Woohyun. She had that slightly crazed look that she usually got whenever an off-the-wall idea popped into her mind. Being very familiar with that look, Woohyun thought he’d be prepared for anything that came out of , but he wasn’t: “Do you think she remembers you? You know how children are more attuned to the supernatural? Like they can sense ghosts and remember past lives.” She paused for a moment, giving a chance for the other to respond, but Woohyun couldn’t find the words, so she continued, “I think she has to remember you.”

He shook his head. “We only met once before…like this,” he murmured as he shifted Yunhee in his arms. He didn’t even want to hope that it was true, and he couldn’t even look down the baby now to check for any signs. There wouldn’t be any. He was a perfect stranger to her.

But Heeyeon was searching for them. “It’s not your body that she’s remembering,” she whispered.

Woohyun risked a glance down at the little girl, whose eyes were open and clear, gazing back up at him. The hope that he tried to choked down now overwhelmed him. Was it true? Woohyun gently touched her cheeks. “Bobae, do you know me?”  he whispered, barely moving his lips. Yunhee moved her head. It wasn’t a nod. It was more like a roll. Her head now pressed against his chest and her tiny mouth opened. Was she trying to say ‘yes’? No wait, she’s a newborn. She was probably just yawning. Wait no, she wasn’t yawning either because that tiny mouth was now on his chest. “Oh, what’s this?” he asked with a surprised laugh.

“Oh, she definitely remembers you,” Heeyeon remarked and tried to move Yunhee’s head away. “Wrong mommy, Yunhee! You can’t drink from him, silly.”

And Woohyun couldn’t stop laughing, now out of happiness rather than shock. He pulled the baby away and shifted her so that now she was resting on his shoulder.  “She is very silly,” he wheezed between laughs. He then turned his head press a soft kiss onto the baby’s head and it. “So silly.”

“Oh I almost forgot!” Heeyeon exclaimed with a clap of her hands, startling Woohyun and the laughter caught in his throat. Heeyeon’s face softened once the excitement left. She appeared guilty now. “I used to worry about you here, if this was what you really wanted to do. I just got you a job here because it was all I could do,” she admitted. A smile grew as she continued, “But I’ve heard that you’ve been doing really well here. Those pajamas sold out! I heard that the pitch was your idea too, and you stepped up to do it. You’ve really become an integral part of the team so quickly.”

“Really?” Praise was the last thing (well, second to last thing) he expected her to say. But it was really, really good to hear. He started laughing again. “Thank you.”

“Sunggyu-ssi was right. You do like to be praised,” Heeyeon was saying all sorts of weird things today. Woohyun froze. It wasn’t like that man’s name was taboo. They’ve talked about him since the switch back. But he didn’t know that Heeyeon talked to Sunggyu and talked to Sunggyu about him. All of the joy he had turned sour, and he held on tighter to Yunhee, who was now mouthing at his shirt, to get some of that good feeling back.

“Doesn’t everybody?” he tried to remain calm, act disinterested. Heeyeon just nodded in agreement and pursed her lips shut. She knew that she let too much slip out and was now pretending like she didn’t mention that guy at all. She couldn’t even look at Woohyun now because of her guilt. But Woohyun couldn’t look away and he couldn’t keep pretending any longer. “So you’ve talked to Sunggyu-ssi recently? About me?”

Heeyeon still would meet his eye. “Sunggyu-ssi came over before his trip to China,” she answered lowly.

“China?” It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. That was a large part of Sunggyu’s job was to travel overseas, and he seemed to go there every other month. So why did Woohyun feel surprised to hear that Sunggyu is going about life as usual? And why did he feel worried?

“We talked mostly about Yunhee, but he wanted to know how you were doing,” she was giggling as she spoke, but at least she was looking at him again. “And I said what I just told you a moment ago. That was all.”

Woohyun pouted. Now he felt uncomfortable for different reasons, but did it really matter? He still didn’t like anything about this. “He could call me, if he really wanted to know,” he grumbled.

“He could,” Heeyeon agreed again, quickly. It seemed like she wanted this conversation to be over with. Her lips were sealed shut again and tucked into . She knew it wasn’t her place to say anything more. But it was her place to take her child back, which she did. “Yunhee seems hungry, given that she tried to drink from you. So I’m going to go do that,” she announced and held her arms out for Yunhee.

Woohyun gave her back. Once she was in her mother’s arms, Heeyeon began scurrying away. He waved to them as they passed by. “Alright, bye, Bobae,” he called her by name louder and he swore the baby looked back at him over Heeyeon’s shoulder.

Did she really remember him? Could she really remember that time when they were one? And even if she could now, she’d soon forget with age, right?

Woohyun supposed that he could let Yunhee forget about those times, but he wasn’t willing to let her forget about him.

“I’ll see you later! You and Yunhee!”

That made Heeyeon finally stop and turn around. She was pleasantly surprised. “Yes! Please come visit us. Anytime!”

“Will do!”

There was no Ran Woong in China. There never was one to begin with. Sunggyu was foolish to think that there’d be one there now. And it wasn’t like he had much time between meeting and training sessions to go look for her. If he could barely squeeze in time to buy one trip, why did he think he could find a wife?

And why couldn’t he just let her go? Or let the idea of her go?

Maybe it was time for him to act like a true widower and mourn her loss. Luckily for him, Sungyeol was always up for a drink. Sunggyu only had to ask, and Sungyeol reached for his coat and said that he knew the perfect place for them to go.

Perfect? Well, Sunggyu wouldn’t describe where Sungyeol took him as perfect. Honestly, it was the last place he wanted to be, standing right outside of Woohyun’s family restaurant. No, wait, the very last place he wanted to be was inside of the restaurant. Outside wasn’t so bad. He could still walk past it, if only his legs could move. However, he was a bit too frozen in shock to move an inch at the moment. Woohyun had come out of the kitchen with a bowl in his hands and sat down at an empty table. This was the closest that the two men had been since the hospital, and yet there was still several meters and a plane of glass between them. There always seemed to be something between them.

Woohyun hadn’t noticed him yet. He was more focused on the food in front of him and the television alongside the wall. And the way that Woohyun’s stare was semi-focused on what’s in front of him but also focused on things far away, with those dark eyes, it reminded Sunggyu of, well , the last time that they were at the restaurant together, when he thought Woohyun was just a stranger, just a strange woman. And Woohyun now was just being himself, not knowing that he was being watched. It was one thing for Sunggyu to see him on television as a host, but to see him like this, in a more natural state, was entirely different. Sunggyu felt much more assured that Woohyun was doing well (and was certainly eating well). He felt more comforted by this sight rather than feeling, well, panicked. And now Sunggyu could finally move on and continue down the street.

Unfortunately, Sungyeol had grabbed onto him and held him in place. “Oh, it’s Woohyun!” the man announced so loudly that it probably could be heard through the window. Sungyeol patted the elder. “I bet you haven’t seen him ever since he ghosted!”

“Hm? Oh yeah, right, when he ghosted,” Sunggyu stammered, focusing more on building an exit strategy than answering coherently. “It’s been awhile. How about…”

“How about we go in? We could get some service,” Sungyeol finished his sentence for the other and took it in the completely wrong direction. And he was now physically dragging Sunggyu in that direction too.

“A-ah!” Sunggyu stuttered and shrugged the other off of him. He stepped back several paces. “Let’s not bother them tonight. How about we go to the bar over there?” he suggested, pointing at the bar just a few shops down.

“If you really want to,” Sungyeol drawled out. He wasn’t paying any attention to where Sunggyu was pointing. His eyes were fixed on the door still, fixed on putting Sunggyu into a precarious situation. And then he finally did. “But I’m going to go inside first and invite Woohyun to see if he wants to come with us. It’ll only take a second.” With that, Sungyeol barged inside, ignoring Sunggyu’s drawn out and dramatic ‘no’ (which could definitely be heard from inside especially since Sunggyu kept shouting once Sungyeol opened the door). There was no changing Sungyeol’s mind nor was there any way of getting out of this situation.

But did Sunggyu really want to? He was split on this matter, not just in two but into several pieces. He didn’t know how to feel, especially when Woohyun was now staring at him through the window as Sungyeol was talking to him. Sunggyu didn’t know what else to do besides wave. It wasn’t even a good one. It was short and he quickly stuffed his hand into his pocket afterwards.

If it was difficult to make sense of Woohyun before, it was infinitely more difficult to do it now. Sunggyu was afraid that any wrong move would actually make the other disappear into nothingness. Woohyun essentially already had after the switch back, never contacting him.

And so Sunggyu was shocked when Woohyun stood up out of his seat, only after a few seconds of talking with Sungyeol, and came to join them. But while it took very little convincing for Woohyun to come, he still looked very apprehensive. Nervous or not, his voice and gaze was still strong when he greeted the man outside. “Hey, hyung.”

“Hey, Woohyun,” Sunggyu replied.

“Hey,” Sungyeol broke in and stepped between them. “Let’s go get drunk! Just like old times!”

This was nothing like old times. There was no way it could be, given everything that happened, and also given the fact that Sungyeol soon ditched the other two to join a girl and her friend at another table. Instead of talking to each other, Woohyun and Sunggyu settled on watching Sungyeol’s interaction with the girl as if it were a low-budget drama that their company produced. And it honestly seemed like one with the things that Sungyeol was saying to her, but now, when the girl’s friend arrived, he became a third wheel and it became less interesting to the spectators.

And Sunggyu couldn’t put up with the silence between them for much longer. He was completely sick of it after weeks of nothing. “Did he seriously just ditch us for a girl?” he started off with a joke.

But, of course, it fell flat and Woohyun answered it too seriously, “I know her. He’s been interested in her for a while.” He glanced over at the other but for just a moment and his eyes fell to his beer again. “She went to the same college as us, but Sungyeol didn’t like her then. Too quiet. But now…”

A laughter erupted from that table, breaking up their conversation (what little of it there was). The ‘quiet’ girl was now jokingly arguing with Sungyeol, probably over some conspiracy theory or something of the like. Sunggyu pulled his eyes away from the trio and onto the man next to him who had a small smile on his face while watching his friend have a good time. And Sunggyu stared at him for so long that Woohyun looked over and raised an eyebrow in question. Sunggyu then averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “You’re very close with Sungyeol, huh?”

“Yup,”

“Then why…”

“Because,” Woohyun interrupted. He didn’t want to get into why he chose to go to Sunggyu over Sungyeol back then. But Sunggyu couldn’t let the question fall from his mind. And so he kept staring at the other, hoping that he’d eventually crack. But Woohyun never did. He was trying (with great effort) to look unaffected. He zoned out, just like he used to. So it was somewhat like old times, especially since Sunggyu acted like he used to too. He dropped his gaze to his lap, appearing sad and guilty, as if he crossed a line that he shouldn’t have.

Woohyun noticed that. He couldn’t zone out as well as he used to. He couldn’t ignore the man like he used to.

Truth be told, Woohyun didn’t want to go out like ‘old times’ because those times were perhaps more confusing than him being pregnant. And that was saying a lot.

Before the switch, Sunggyu and Woohyun weren’t very close. One wouldn’t be able to tell you what the other was doing. Sure they were on different teams, but they were many functions that the company held for ‘bonding.’ The two also would normally attend second rounds after company dinners, even if it was just the two of them. It would take a significant effort for them to not know much about the other, and it did. They both of them built walls against each other and intentionally did not grow closer (even though they couldn’t stay apart either). Why? Because there was interest, because they wanted to become closer. It makes no sense, right? But so was putting up those walls and hanging out anyway, and also Nam Woohyun giving birth. Nothing about them made much sense. And this was why Woohyun was so confused back then.

It all started during a meeting that the whole company had to attend and which was a fumbling mess. No one else seemed to mind it, well, no one else besides Sunggyu, who was growing noticeably frustrated by how this useless meeting was eating into his day. Woohyun caught his eye and made a face of disgust. Sunggyu returned it, and they both sniggered afterwards. After that meeting, it became a tradition for them to talk through expressions during those meetings. In fact, this is how they mostly ‘talked.’ In the beginning Woohyun tried to approach him afterwards to make some small talk, but Sunggyu was always ‘busy’ and rushed out. Woohyun didn’t care to find out if Sunggyu was truly busy or not. He just accepted it and went on with his day.

The two would actually talk, very briefly, mostly passing remarks. They talked more while drinking, unless they went to noraebang. Then they would sing more than they’d talk. But their conversation rarely strayed away from ‘shallow’ topics: work, office gossip, the weather, sports, basically anything that wasn’t personal. However, when they got personal, they got deeply personal. Woohyun could remember the one night he went off about his parent’s divorce and the time when Sunggyu cried about his ex. Those were always the nights that they were alone together and drunker than usual, letting the walls drop for a brief moment.

There were more nights that we were with other people than they were alone (‘other people’ was mostly just Sungyeol). So they’d mostly talk with those people (Sungyeol) rather than each other. But as Sungyeol said earlier, “Are we even sure that Sunggyu is straight? There were times when the three of us went for a second round and things would…” …get flirtatious. Woohyun and Sunggyu wouldn’t exchange words often, but they’d exchange glances very, very often. They were less restrained with alcohol introduced. Stares lingered. Someone might bite their lips. And then they’d both immediately hide behind their walls. Woohyun would grow sullen, and Sunggyu would feel like he did something he shouldn’t have.

Of course today Woohyun could say that Sunggyu was ‘interested’ in him. After all, they already slept together, and Sunggyu said that he loved him, as a woman. That didn’t change the fact that Sunggyu had never been with a man before and seemed set on never being with one. And so back then, back before the switch, Woohyun didn’t know what to make of all of this or what to think about Sunggyu. And it wasn’t like he was pining over the man the whole time. He was mostly just frustrated and confused by him.

But in their time apart, after the switch, Woohyun sometimes wondered what might’ve happened if the switch never took place to begin with. Would he ever reach the conclusion that Sunggyu was attracted to his personality (at least)? If he did, would Woohyun make a move then? How would Sunggyu react if he did?

And Woohyun often came to the same conclusion: Whether Sunggyu did like him or not, without the switch, he would’ve kept the walls up, maybe even fortify them. Sunggyu would find a girl to date, most likely before Woohyun could make his move. Sunggyu liked girls and liking girls was easier. Woohyun couldn’t blame him for that, especially since Sunggyu wanted to be a dad. Furthermore, Woohyun couldn’t say that he’d be better than any girl that Sunggyu could come across. Woohyun couldn’t even say that for men. However, if given the chance and the courage, Woohyun might've told Sunggyu that they should give it a try. But even if Woohyun could manage to get out those words and Sunggyu managed to put away his reservations, most likely their relationship wouldn’t last more than a few hook-ups. And that version of Woohyun might not have minded that because they at least tried.

But those were the ‘old times’ and the promise that those times had. The switched changed everything. And they opened themselves up to each other. They were envisioning a future together, planning it and wanting it. Kim Sunggyu actually fell in love with him and Woohyun fell too.

For that reason, Woohyun couldn’t ignore Sunggyu anymore. Even if he didn’t love him currently, Sunggyu was a man that he once loved. And he was reminded as to why when he saw Sunggyu through the window earlier that night, with an uneasy smile and wave. Sunggyu couldn’t ignore him any longer either. And that meant something, right?

Was he still in Sunggyu’s heart? That’s what Woohyun was wondering while he was staring at Sunggyu in the bar. But the elder would only raise his eyes from his lap to his glass.

“Forget it,” he grumbled and took a drunk.

Forget? Woohyun snorted at that and grinned. Nah, they couldn’t ever forget; that’s why they were like this. Sunggyu glanced up at him, confused as to what he found so funny. “Anyway…how’ve you been?” Woohyun asked to deflect the confusion.

And it worked. As always, the best way to distract Kim Sunggyu was to ask him about himself. Some things didn’t change. “About the same,” Sunggyu answered. “Work’s about the same, so am I. I just came back from China.”

“Really?” Woohyun tried to act like he hadn’t heard about his trip already. “Find any North Korean defectors?” Sunggyu froze and his jaw slackened at that question. Woohyun forced out a bitter laugh. “That was a bad joke.”

Sunggyu relaxed and laughed along, but genuinely. “It was. It really was,” he remarked as he wiped tears from his eyes. It wasn’t that funny, but the two of them had been so tense that when they finally loosened up, they really let loose. Woohyun was laughing hard now too until his sides hurt. “How about you? You’re looking good, Woohyun,” Sunggyu remarked when his laughter died down.

Looking good? That was unexpected. “Really? Tell me the truth,” Woohyun dared him (or gave him the opportunity to flatter him more).

An embarrassed smile flashed across Sunggyu’s face before he took in a sharp intake of air and said: “The blonde doesn’t suit you.” His fingers played at the yellowed bangs, but Woohyun slapped them away and pouted. Sunggyu snickered cheekily. He rest his hand on the back of Woohyun’s chair as he turned to face him and leaned in.  “But seriously you look in better shape than I thought you’d be. Not many people have been through what you’ve been through. Well, not many men,” Sunggyu added the last part as a slight afterthought and laughed at it.

“True,” Woohyun agreed. He then leaned back into his seat and felt Sunggyu’s arm as he did so. And Sunggyu didn’t move it. It was comforting, which was why he felt like finally opening up to this: “Is…it weird that I feel like I’m in mourning, hyung? I feel like I lost a child.” Even though Yunhee was alive, even though Yunhee might remember him, Woohyun himself was childless, even though he carried her and gave birth. His ‘Baby Blues’ weren’t going away, and he now had to face the fact that he might’ve been grieving all along.

“You did though,” Sunggyu confirmed his fears. But what he said next was comforting again: “I’m the same too. I had the least amount of claim on the baby, but I’m still mourning as if she’s really gone.”

Woohyun let out a shaky breath. “Good, it’s not just me,” he muttered and then gulped his drink. Sunggyu’s hand went from the chair to Woohyun’s back. Woohyun put down his drink and put his face in his hands as he faced the other. “I just…I just really wanted her. I wanted to love her.” Sunggyu was nodding along and muttering ‘me too’ which encouraged Woohyun to keep going, “I got to the point that I can see Yunhee again. But it still hurts. It hurts so much.” A little sob came out with his last word. Woohyun didn’t want to cry. He wasn’t going to cry. Instead he was going to sit in his seat for a few moments with his face scrunched up and hidden behind his hands. Meanwhile, he heard Sunggyu order him another drink and felt the hand on his back moving around in circles. Was it because Sunggyu had something to drink? Is that why he was being so touchy? Woohyun shook that thought out of his mind as he put his hands down. He just needed to accept the comfort and the new drink that the bartender was handing him. Sadly, he nearly polished off that drink as soon as it entered his hands, which was probably why he confessed this when he finally put the glass down: “She remembers me, hyung.”

“What?”

“She remembers me. I know it!” Woohyun raised his voice. Sunggyu still shot him a skeptical look as he finished his own drink. Woohyun got closer to him and placed a hand on the other’s knee, getting his full attention. “Look, Heeyeon brought her in, and I held her.” Woohyun took his hand away to pantomime him holding the child. “When I called her Bo-bobae, she responded to it and she even tried to le on me.” That drew more of a laugh from Sunggyu than conviction. And Woohyun was irritated. This wasn’t a laughing matter to him. “She did!”

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” Sunggyu wheezed out as he tried to calm himself down. “It’s just…it’s nothing,” he refrained from saying any more and bit back more words from spilling out.

“It’s not ‘nothing,’ hyung. Not to me,” Woohyun grumbled. “It’s the only reason why I can endure seeing Yunhee now.”

Sunggyu puffed up his cheeks and deflated them, successfully calming down. “She really responded to Bo…Bobae?” he seriously asked (and Woohyun was seriously glad that Sunggyu was having a difficult time saying her name too). Woohyun nodded, which made Sunggyu shake his head in disbelief. “Woah,” he muttered under his breath. He then broke out into a short and very bitter laugh. “I’m…I’m jealous. So jealous. I’ve been to see Yunhee, and she doesn’t seem to care about me at all. It does hurt.” Sunggyu went to take another sip from his drink, forgetting that he already finished it. He let out a heavy sigh, looking sadly at the empty glass. “Then again, what am I to her?”

“You go to see her?” Woohyun asked him. Sunggyu nodded. “How often?”

“Not very, honestly. Just the once,” Sunggyu answered. He then ordered himself another drink. Woohyun did too. Afterwards Woohyun put his arm around the other’s shoulders. Sunggyu just seemed to small and sad, right now. He looked like he needed the comfort. And Sunggyu did. He gave the younger a small smile and tried to say more but it was difficult for him to get started: “I…I didn’t carry her like you, o-or anything like that, but…when I look at all of the stuff for her in the apartment, I can’t help but to think about her, you know?” Woohyun’s hand slipped a little down his back. Sunggyu sighed again. “It’s hard.”

“You still have that stuff?” Woohyun asked. Sunggyu nodded. Woohyun’s hand fell away from the older, and Sunggyu watched it leave him. “Why?”

“It’s not mine. It’s yours, remember?” Sunggyu reminded him. Thankfully the new drinks came then because Woohyun getting overwhelmed just at the thought of the crib, the changing table, the small, cute shoes…He took a large gulp

“Sell it. Donate it. Burn it. I don’t care. I’m not using it,” Woohyun ranted.

Sunggyu scoffed into his glass and then took a long sip from it. After wincing at the burn the followed, he asked to other. “You really don’t care what I do with it?” Woohyun shook his head emphatically, with his lips still clinging to the glass. Sunggyu reached over and grabbed the other’s glass, taking it away from him. Woohyun could only get out a whimper before Sunggyu interjected, “Woohyun, aside from Yunhee, do you not care about any of it? Anything that happened?”

Woohyun averted his eyes and folded his hands together. “I don’t want to talk about it. It was another life,” he grumbled.

“Is that why you hadn’t reached out to me?”

Woohyun faced him. “You hadn’t either, hyung,” he brought up. And that comment stunned Sunggyu enough that Woohyun could reach over and take his drink back. He took Sunggyu’s too for good measure, placing it on the other side of him.

Then Sunggyu finally came to again. “You said that you needed time! You should’ve come to me first!” he argued, loudly. His voice was ringing in Woohyun’s tipsy head. He must’ve made a face, or Sunggyu realized how his voice carried, because he leaned in closer and hissed, “I always told you to talk to me about things, but you never do.”

“You could’ve come to me first,” Woohyun mentioned again, leaning in and hissing along with the other. “If you want me to talk to you, then talk to me!”

“I didn’t know that you wanted me to talk to you. How am I supposed to, if you don’t make yourself available? You’ve been shutting everyone out!” Sunggyu was spitting now as he hissed. He was huffing too. All of this whisper fighting was taking more energy than he had. So he paused to catch his breath. It was obvious by his nasty glare that he had something more to say, so Woohyun waited and gave back an equally intimidating glare, which made Sunggyu sigh and shake his head. “I don’t feel like you trust me, Woohyun. You said that you trusted me…or was that only in your other life too?”
“I want trust you now, but…forget it,” the alcohol made a lot of Woohyun’s thoughts fall from his mind onto his tongue, but Woohyun managed to catch this one before it landed. This wasn’t the time to get into that.

“But I can’t,” this time Sunggyu whispered softly. “I can’t forget any of it, Woohyun. However…” he paused to let out yet another heavy sigh and he looked over at the other, just as softly as his voice had been. “I think we need to start where we left off in this life.”

Woohyun flinched at that. Return back to ‘old times’? No, that was the last thing he wanted. And he felt himself shaking his head before he knew that he was doing it. “What? With us not talking and just drinking occasionally?” he shot back.

“Eung. With us drinking and talking,” Sunggyu clarified. He then grinned slyly. “Can you not do it? What? Are you pregnant again?”

Woohyun scoffed. That was such a terrible joke, but a good point. The two of the needed to start at the next step that their old lives would have taken: being friends. “Okay, let’s do it,” he replied.

“We already are,” Sunggyu retorted. He then put out his hand. “Now give me back my drink.”

“Ah, I thought you wouldn’t notice, hyung,” Woohyun spoke with a laugh as he slid the other’s drink back to him. “So when do you think Sungyeol will finally ask her out? He’s been over there forever.”

“I don’t know,” Sunggyu commented, and the two resumed watching the trio at the table nearby. “He probably won’t ask with the friend there. That’d be awkward. I think he’s waiting for her to leave.”

“True but Sungyeol isn’t known for his tact,” Woohyun retorted and Sunggyu readily agreed to that. “Speaking of which, we need to be careful because I told Sungyeol everything.”

“What?!” Sunggyu exclaimed as he was choking on his drink.

“He’s a friend, and he was getting suspicious,” Woohyun defended himself. “He knew something was up!”

Sunggyu nodded with his lips tucked into his mouth. When he let them go, he responded, “I guess I should confess too. Bora wondered why she never heard about our baby, and so I told her.”

“WHY?!” Woohyun whined as he slumped over the table. And Sunggyu put his arm around him and nearly slumped over along with him, muttering apologies and his own defense about Bora calling him non-stop and needling him and refusing to believe in magic. That soon turned into them talking about everything that went happened to them since the switch back, like Woohyun’s new job and Sunggyu’s new widower-status. But mostly, they talked about how much they mourning the life that they left, along with their child, and christening a new one with far too much booze. Sungyeol was surprised to see how far-gone they were when he finally came back to the table. He decided that they should call it a night and that they should all go home.

But that was easier said than done.

“Are you two done yet?”

As the night worn on and the drinks went down and tears flowed, Sunggyu and Woohyun kept their arms around each other, seeking comfort from each other. When it came to saying goodbye, one of them turned it into a full-on hug. And it was tight and warm. “It’s good seeing you again, Woohyunnie,” Sunggyu slurred. He was leaning so much into the hug, that he was basically was relying on Woohyun for support, which he was too drunk to give. They both would’ve been on the ground if Sungyeol wasn’t holding the two of them up.

“You too, hyung,” Woohyun spoke happily. “I missed this….No!” he whined when Sungyeol successfully pulled the both of them apart.

“He’s got to go home, Woohyun. The taxi’s here,” Sungyeol grumbled as he guided Sunggyu towards the car.

“But I don’t want to go home,” Sunggyu whined but still let Sungyeol shove him into the cab.

 “I don’t care. The meter’s running!” Sungyeol replied.

Woohyun waved at the other from where he stood swaying. “Bye!” he yelled.

Sunggyu poked his head out of the car and nearly stepped out. “Don’t…Don’t be alone again, okay?” he shouted back.

“Okay! Bye bye!” Woohyun replied, waving at him now with his arms, which made him stumble a bit. So he didn’t see Sungyeol shove Sunggyu back into the car and slam the door. But he did notice the very aggravated expression on his friend’s face when he regained his balance.  “What?”

“Nothing,” Sungyeol muttered. He then came up to Woohyun and put his arm around him. “Come on, buddy. It’s your turn to go home now.”

“It’s over there,” Woohyun announced happily, pointing down the street.

“I’m surprised you can remember that,” Sungyeol grumbled and he began leading his friend down the street. It took them far too long to walk down a block. It wasn’t just because Woohyun could not stand on his own, but he also had to say ‘hi’ to everyone that passed him by.

He wasn’t going to shut everyone out anymore. And by doing so, and with every drunk step, he was getting closer and closer to his new normal.