'it's been a while.'

he smiles. not a real smile, but one out of politeness. 'yes, auntie, it has. how has life treated you?'

the small talk continues for a few minutes until the old woman turns to head back inside. 'well,' she says, fixing him with an unreadable gaze. 'it's nice to have you back, myungsoo.'

she's gone before he can even open his mouth, and myungsoo can only stand there, not knowing what to do. he huffs, slightly bitter, and runs a hand through his hair. what else had he expected? they weren't going to treat him like some sort of saint, not after what'd happened.

as if they liked him before that, though.

myungsoo lets out a laugh, quickly disguising it as a cough, and heads down the road. have they drained the lake yet? they kept saying they were going to, so no more tragedies could happen, but the neighborhood committee always seemed divided on the issue. on one hand, no more tragedies, but on the other, where else would they go to relax? the pub? the baseball field? the elementary school playground?

the rippling water comes into view. so they kept it. typical. and no one will talk about the incident; they'll all pretend it never happened. but the children know, at least somewhat, and myungsoo has no doubt that some of them would go through extreme lengths to find out the truth.

'the truth will prevail,' he murmurs, stopping at the end of the small dock. the water ripples are liquid gold in the late autumn sun, and a light breeze blows in, lifting his hair. myungsoo turns his face to the wind, closes his eyes, and lets out a large sigh, allowing the tension to flow out of his muscles. he feels exhausted, but it's barely even been a full day. he should have known what was going to happen, what was bound to happen, should have expected it and prepared himself more, closed off his heart and steeled himself against the words and glares.

but he had hoped, he thinks, he'd hoped that they would have forgiven him, would have forgotten or at the very least moved on. he'd hoped that he still had a place in the community, and yet of course he'd hoped wrong.

but he never expected them to forgive him. myungsoo sighs and sits down, dangling his legs above the surface of the water.

'sungjong,' he whispers, and the wind carries the name across the water, fleeting and ethereal like the very boy himself.

'naeun,' he whispers, and the wind picks up and blows the hair off his forehead and caresses his body like the gentleness of the girl herself.

'sunggyu,' he whispers, and the waves of the lake splash onto his shoes, the feeling of blinding cold dragging him down through the water again.

***

sungjong was the first. he was the stranger, the new boy at school, myungsoo's sudden new responsibility that he didn't have enough time for. but no matter how cold he was to the boy, sungjong still followed him around, that bright idiotic grin plastered on his face, holding onto the straps of his backpack like an elementary school kid. they were in high school, for gods' sake, and this new kid was acting like he'd never seen a classroom in his entire life.

'myungsoo?'

'you'd call me hyung.'

myungsoo knew he was older than the boy, though not by a lot. he read through sungjong's file before greeting him at the school gate and knew exactly who he was picking up because the boy in the photo and the boy in real life wore the exact same dazzling smile. bright and naive and all too happy for such a dreary school.

but it didn't matter, because it was just one day, and then myungsoo could go back to being the aloof honors student he was, doing his homework alone in the cafeteria and walking to class alone through the hallways and otherwise just being alone. it was fine, he told himself, he liked being alone, it defined who he was, but the problem was, sungjong wouldn't leave him alone.

not after the first day, when sungjong told him that 'i have to get your number, we can talk a lot and please help with my homework!'. not after the second day, when sungjong plopped down beside him during lunch with his tray of mediocre rice and vegetables. not after the third day, when sungjong caught him walking to math class and followed him down the hall because 'my class is around there too!'. not after the fourth day, nor the fifth, nor even after the weekend.

sungjong seemed to be content with being myungsoo's tail, even if myungsoo didn't actually talk to him or even pay attention to him, and after a while, myungsoo grew used to it. he even began to listen to sungjong's monologues about his life during lunch, through mouthfuls of half-cooked rice and limp spinach, and sometimes he even laughed. sungjong responded naturally, as if myungsoo hadn't been ignoring him for months on end, and sometimes turned the conversation to him, asking about his day.

myungsoo, as a person, never had much to say about himself or his life, but he found himself telling sungjong about the smallest things, the details that he noticed during the day, the feelings he had towards events that happened, and sungjong would sit and listen, eyes wide and sparkling, nodding and humming when appropriate, and soon, myungsoo found himself enjoying their conversations more and more, and he might have even called sungjong his friend.

his only friend, in fact, and it felt a little weird. it felt a little weird depending so much on this little freshman for company when he himself was a sophomore, but it wasn't like friendships across grades was uncommon. but it still felt weird, like myungsoo couldn't let go of his pride to admit that they were friends, like he didn't want to be seen in public laughing with a freshman, like he wouldn't introduce sungjong to anyone else he knew as his 'friend'.

but he didn't need to, because sungjong would do it himself, answering the curious gazes of the students who came to ask myungsoo for help on their homework, bounding up to myungsoo's own mother when they walked back home together one day, buying him a drink in the school store without any preemptive motivation other than 'you looked thirsty'.

no, he didn't need to, because it was already so obvious, though there was some twisted part of myungsoo's heart that wished sungjong wasn't so blatant about this friendship. it made him feel weird, wrong, like an itchy feeling that started in his heart and spread through his veins and burned him like fire. it made him want to hide, curl up in a ball and live out the rest of his life in a closet without ever having to come out again. he didn't know what it was, but he didn't like it, and one day, after sungjong introduced themselves to a school janitor, he exploded.

'why do you keep doing that?' he yelled, voice echoing around the empty hallways. it was sunset, they'd stayed behind for a volunteering event, and were now walking back home. sungjong started, paused, and said, 'do what? talk to people?'

'bring me into it.' myungsoo turned and walked away, but he heard footsteps behind him and knew it was sungjong following. 'i don't want to be introduced to everyone you know, and they don't need to know that i'm your friend.'

'but aren't we?' sungjong's voice sounded a little breathless, and myungsoo unconsciously slowed his pace. 'we're friends, hyung, aren't we?'

were they? they were, but myungsoo wasn't going to say that they were. 'no,' he snapped, and the look of bewilderment in sungjong's eyes dropped away, replaced immediately by hurt and something akin to betrayal. 'you thought we were friends, but we're not. it's over, don't talk to me ever again.'

and then he turned and left, each step echoing hollowly in his heart, a painful thud to make up for the silence beside him as he walked home alone with only the orange streetlights to keep him company. why was he sad? why did he feel guilty? they weren't friends, he told himself, he liked talking to sungjong and he didn't like being lonely but he still liked being alone and sungjong messed that all up. he barged into myungsoo's life and messed everything up, and now his life will go back to normal and he can sit in class and eat lunch and do homework and walk home again, alone, without anyone bothering him.

yeah. that was it. that was it, and yet the next morning, when myungsoo walked into class and found no one waiting for him, no one popping up to greet him with an idiotic grin plastered onto his face, no one to talk about normal everyday life while doing homework with, myungsoo found that he couldn't focus on class doing classwork. and when he sat in the cafeteria with his mushy rice and oily bell peppers and listened to the chatter of the other students instead of sungjong's voice and tried to do homework instead, he realized that he couldn't do the work. his eyes kept straying and he read the problems and reread them and didn't retain any information and he gave up and listened to the hubbub instead.

it was only in the last class of the day that he overheard that sungjong's family had left town. his father had been in a work accident a few weeks ago and they'd decided to leave last night. 

and myungsoo hadn't known anything. he didn't know anything about sungjong's life, nothing about his person, nothing about his likes and dislikes, and he'd told sungjong so much about himself and he'd sat and listened and remembered, and now he was gone.

myungsoo stood in the wind and felt it whistle through a hole in his heart.

---

he met naeun during the summer, during an impromptu trip to jeju with a few friends he'd known since childhood. she was jeju personified, the delicious deep blue of the ocean that sparkled with every wave and the juicy dewy green of the grass on the hills behind the sand dunes. she was a summer child through and through, and myungsoo fell in love with her.

he'd learned from his mistakes, as much as he hated to admit, and was no longer cold to everyone new he met. but he was still awkward, and to his infinite surprise, naeun was too. she hid behind her long dark hair when they met and he shook her hand and, in a moment of graceful courage, brought it to his lips with the tiniest brush across her skin. then, flaming red, he dropped her hand with an embarrassed laugh but naeun smiled and blushed and said, 'it's nice to meet you.'

the summer sparkled with infatuation, and they grew close immediately, splashing each other in the shallows and sprawling on the sand as his friends fought in the distance and nudging each other's hand from time to time until myungsoo finally worked up the courage to grab hers. suddenly, abruptly, and she froze, face as pink as the climbing roses on the walls of the cottage myungsoo's friends had rented, and buried her face in myungsoo's shoulder, staining it with her vanilla-scented lotion.

and the summer flew on, and naeun would slip her hand into myungsoo's when they walked along the coastline, watching the seagulls glide over the infinite blue sea. her dress fluttered in the wind, a light chiffon babydoll that swept around her legs and silhouetted her figure as the sun shone through it at the perfect angle. sky blue, rose pink, grass green - those were the colors that myungsoo committed to memory that summer, and the sweet subtle scent of vanilla came with all of them, all the memories of her.

the softness of her lips, the light breaths she let out that barely touched his lips before he dove in again to taste more of her, more, the intoxicating vanilla that she smelled like and ravishing blackberries they pulled off the bush just half an hour ago before they sat down underneath a sprawling oak tree. the time was ripe and myungsoo turned to her, trembling fingers pulling her face towards his, and even as she kept her eyes turned downward, their lips touched and she breathed a precious sigh of more, more.

and myungsoo gave her more, hiked her up into his lap and circled her delicate waists with his hands and she wrapped her arms around his neck and they delved into each other as if the world was ending, as if they wouldn't see each other tomorrow, as if they needed the other right then and there, and naeun's hair fell forward, framing myungsoo's face, and she smelled like vanilla, like citrus, like the watermelon shampoo myungsoo had picked out on a whim and that she'd bought with a laugh because she loved him.

she loved him, he was sure of that, and he loved her too, as he hovered over her, shaking hands running lightly over her trembling body, the sky blue of the dress stained undoubtedly green with the grass they lied on. he was sure of it, as they pulled each other close in the heat and didn't mind adding a little more heat to the area and breathed in sync and moved with motions as gentle as the waves breaking on the beach nearby. he was sure of it, even when they lied under the stars and pointed out the constellations and knew that he would have to return to seoul.

but he loved her, he loved her with his heart and soul and entire being and more, and he loved her hair and running his fingers through the shining cascade of it, loved her voice and the tiny breathy laughs she gave when he did something stupid, loved her face and the porcelain-smooth skin and the way her cheeks flushed when he kissed her, loved her lips and the rosy-pink softness of them when she bit them because he was such a tease. he loved her, loved the way she flitted around like a butterfly, loved that she loved him through the rain and storms and how she managed to calm him down when he was mad, loved her for loving him and loved her for herself.

there was no extrinsic motivation for loving her, not when she was son naeun, the daughter of jeju and its seas and lovely and perfect and stayed with the maelstrom and rode it through without a fear in the world. no, myungsoo loved her like he loved life itself, with a pure, intrinsic, instinctual love, and he never asked for anything from her, but she never asked anything of him either, not even to stay, and so he didn't.

but when summer vacation ended and myungsoo returned to the dark gray skies of the skyscrapers that make up the skyline of seoul, he missed her. he missed her innocence and pure joy and her happiness and laughter, and he missed the softness of her skin on his and sometimes, he held his hand up to his nose and tried to smell her, her lotion or her shampoo or anything at all, but she was gone.

and he stood on the balcony and let the wind whistle through a bigger hole in his heart.

---

throughout myungsoo's life, very little stayed constant. leaves turned red, skies turned gray, people left and people came, but throughout it all, there was one thing that did not change, one aspect of myungsoo's life that he could depend on and turn to when life overwhelmed him.

kim sunggyu, the neighbor's son who was just a year older than him and yet somehow too wise for his incredibly young age. they were seventeen and eighteen, junior and senior in the same school in the same town in the same country and sometimes myungsoo wondered. he wondered how incredible it was that people met. was it fate or just coincidence? was it his grace to meet kim sunggyu or was it always meant to be? what must he have done to deserve such a friend like this?

kim sunggyu was a mystery. myungsoo had known him all his life, but the older boy somehow always knew more than he should have. life and death was just an illusion, he said when he was in first grade, and kindergartener myungsoo didn't understand what life and death were, he just wanted his hamster back, but sunggyu knelt down and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief and said, let's bury him and then he'll come back in the form of another companion, and myungsoo sobbed, i don't want another one, i want him!

but they buried the hamster and sunggyu held myungsoo's hand and led him over to the hill overlooking the entire town and said, it's okay, myung, look - this is the world to us, and yet we know it's not the entire world. to you, maybe the hamster wasn't your entire world, but to him, you were. you were his world, and he must have been honored to leave in your hands. he must have been proud, being held in the hands of his world.

it was so odd, so unusually deep and poetic, for such words to come out of the mouth of a seven-year-old child, that even six-year-old myungsoo knew and stopped crying, and he leaned against sunggyu and said, okay, hyung, okay. and the next week, a bright yellow butterfly landed on myungsoo's arm, and he remembered what sunggyu said about the hamster coming back, and he laughed like a child and said, hi, hamster!

even as they grew up and myungsoo stopped believing in reincarnation and stopped being shocked by sunggyu's odd speeches, he kept this friend. he knew sunggyu was a genius, someone who would go far one day to places never before seen or heard, and he admired him, but only from far away. myungsoo was an honors student, but sunggyu was the class president, and everyone knows that the class president is too busy to hang out with someone younger than him. there was nothing more to say, but sometimes, they walked home together.

before sungjong came along, of course, and even when he left, it was sunggyu that myungsoo turned to and spilled out all his feelings, and it was sunggyu who told him that it was okay, the crowds ebb and fall and sungjong was one person who left an incredible impact on his life but whom myungsoo owed nothing to. it was a friendship, sunggyu said, standing on the edge of the wall of the roof of the school, looking out at the dreary skyline of the distant seoul. it was a friendship, and he'd never wanted more than that, gave you everything and never demanded anything back. he was a true friend, and he didn't mind that you were still trying to find yourself.

and so they walked home together, and sunggyu smiled a cryptic smile and ruffled myungsoo's hair before they parted ways and said, my friend and i are going to jeju over the summer, want to come along?

he didn't know what inspired him to say yes, but he did and met naeun, and it was sunggyu who introduced them. howon, sunggyu's friend, had lived in jeju, and sunggyu took one look at naeun and exclaimed, you need to meet myungsoo! and dragged him over and pushed him forward and the two lovers fell head over heels. similarly, it was sunggyu whom myungsoo approached asking for help getting over naeun because he knew them both and knew that the brief relationship was more than myungsoo could handle.

it's okay, sunggyu said, sitting on the edge of the wall of the roof of the school, looking out at a gradually clearing sky. she was your savior, a bright beam of light in the darkest of your days and you loved her without demanding anything, didn't you? you loved her because she was her, and you loved her because she loved you and that was all you ever needed, wanted, ever, and now she's left and you don't know what to do with your heart. isn't that right, myung-boy?

there he went again, acting like he was so much older than myungsoo, but he could only nod in misery as the clouds sent down a storm, even as the sun came out. sunggyu laughed, throwing out his hands and embracing the downpour, lying down on the wet concrete and laughing until he choked on the rainwater sliding down his throat.

myungsoo, he said with a light in his eyes. myungsoo, you'll be okay. you learned to love and be loved, and the only thing you need to learn now is how to love the darkness inside your heart.

what do you mean? myungsoo asked, but sunggyu only shrugged and turned and left, dripping wet down the staircase back to the second floor of the school. life went on, and myungsoo didn't see him for the longest time until one day, he popped up again, smile as bright as the sun bouncing off fresh snow, and said, myungsoo, how are you?

late november is a dreary time, and myungsoo rolled his eyes and said, i want to die, to which sunggyu said in horror, oh no, no, please don't. you have such a life to live, such a long happy one and please do not die, my friend, just don't. but myungsoo eyed him and judged him a little bit because what student doesn't have the fleeting thought of death? but sunggyu went on, there's going to be a storm later, myungsoo, please be careful when you go home today.

myungsoo looked out the window and saw nothing but sun and when he turned back to tell sunggyu, the older boy was gone, and myungsoo could only gape at the empty space beside his desk until his classmate asked him if he'd seen a ghost.

no, sunggyu wasn't a ghost, but sometimes myungsoo wondered if he had precognitive abilities because when he walked home that afternoon, the wind picked up and the clouds closed in and the air became still and cold and sunggyu's words flashed in his mind. but myungsoo's stupid teenager brain whispered, there's not a storm, there's barely anything, and he took a detour instead of going home and turned towards the park instead.

it was barely a park in the first place, just a nice little path along the coast of a lake, but it was peaceful and quiet and myungsoo liked to go. he liked to sit on the edge of the dock and hang his feet over the water and look to the forest on the other side and wonder what would happen if he ran away to live there. today, he sat on the edge of the dock and kicked at the air above the surface of the water and wondered what would happen if he just slipped in, just dove into the water and never came back up, and the devilish voice in his head said, do it, do it!

but then it started to rain, and myungsoo wrapped his jacket closer around himself and checked his watch and decided that 5 o'clock was too early to go home yet, and sat there some more, the cold seeping into his bones. he didn't know he was falling asleep, barely even knew he was falling, until he was already in the air, halfway between the dock and the water, and yelled and thrashed and hit the water and felt the breath being knocked out of him by the sharp icy water that surrounded him in an instant.

it was dark and heavy around him, and the more myungsoo panicked, the less he could free himself from his jacket. shiny silver bubbles emerged from his mouth, and myungsoo could only watch as the air bubbles rose up and he sank down, away from the wavery gray surface of the water, and that's when the whirlpool caught him, the water swirling around his legs and pulling him down into the jaws of the beast, and myungsoo closed his eyes and screamed and felt the water rush into his throat and choke him until he could no longer understand where the pain was coming from.

but then a hand clamped down on his wrist and dragged him up, up, away from the depths of the lake, and myungsoo's head broke water and he gasped and spluttered and tried to gulp down as much air as he could, inadverdently shoving down the person who saved him. he heard the yell, the scream garbled from water and thunder and the night was dark save for the two bright beams of light of a police car parked on the dock, the thin slice of flashlight through the night and the harsh glow of it in myungsoo's eyes as it landed on him and his savior, who had since disappeared down the gullet of the lakebeast.

it was only the next day that he learned it was sunggyu.

***

'i'm back, hyung,' he whispers, throwing petals onto the surface of the water. 'i'm sorry i killed you, i'm sorry, i'm sorry. i didn't know, i should have listened, i should have listened to you. you were right, you always were.'

no one blamed him after sunggyu died, but myungsoo always blamed himself. if only he'd listened, if only he'd gone home, if only he'd had more rationale and not pushed sunggyu underneath. if only he hadn't been so desperate to save himself and thought about the person who sacrificed everything to save him. but what's done is done, and what's over is over, and sunggyu wasn't coming back.

myungsoo doesn't remember how he made it through the rest of the year. it all seemed a blur, a hazy fever dream, and as soon as he could, he left the town and stayed at college through vacations and got a job and stayed, stayed in faraway busan and never came back for ten years until now.

until now.

'you always knew, didn't you?' he whispers to the water. the wild daisy is tattered in his hands, and he lets the ripped stem fall into the dark waters below. 'you knew i was struggling and you tried to help me and even gave your life for it. i'm sorry i couldn't pay you back.'

but he knows that sunggyu never would have wanted anything back. the kind of person sunggyu was, he never would have wanted payment of any sort. he would have wanted myungsoo to live without regrets, to cast off his guilt and doubt and live his life as he wanted, carefree and reckless and otherwise just happy. he knew what sungjong gave myungsoo and what naeun left him with, and he knew what he needed to teach myungsoo too, and it took a while, but myungsoo did learn.

'sungjong taught me how to love a friend.' myungsoo stands up, shoves his hands into his pockets. 'naeun taught me how to love a lover. and you, hyung, you taught me how to love myself.'

it took a while, but he learned. 'sometimes,' he murmurs to himself, as the clouds part way to let the sun shine through, 'without me realizing, i feel like my heart will be revealed. now i know, hyung, that it's because i needed to love myself.'

the sun bursts through the clouds, and myungsoo stops, looks up, looks at his hands. he curls his fingers, trying to catch the sunshine, the warmth of the rays, but they close on nothing. but it's okay. myungsoo smiles, and in an instant, he can feel the warmth of three pairs of hands on his. a freshman boy with a dazzling smile, an ocean girl whose lips are made of roses, an older boy standing at the edge of the world.

you helped me find me, and in our hands, we held the world.

ah yes this thing i whacked out in the middle of finals week instead of studying for my exams hmmmm i love myself. this is my... usual tired-as- writing style which is somewhat stream of consciousness except really not really... it's just me being a lol. but at least it's done?