For as long as Jiyong can remember, he’s had an inherent need to move. Walking, pacing, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It’s an itch as much as it’s an invisible hand tugging at his wrist, begging him to drop whatever he’s doing and leave. Go somewhere. Anywhere. Be it a thousand miles or around the damn block. This time, it brought him to another city on the other side of the country, far far away from everything he’d known. Not that what he knew was particularly special. Not that what he’d left behind was really worth missing. As far as Jiyong’s concerned, his existence will continue in much the same way that it did before, just in this new, unfamiliar space.
 

Sighing, he stares at all the boxes he hasn’t unpacked yet and ignores the voice in the back of his head whispering about change. Another whisper echoes in his feet—that itch under his skin telling him it would be easier to take off. Wander away from this lonely, unfurnished apartment and let his shoes eat unfamiliar pavement until they’re full. Instead, Jiyong leans against the blank, white wall of the living room, staring at floorboards coated in afternoon sunlight.
 

A walk would probably make him feel less overwhelmed, though. He doesn’t want to think about setting up internet or trying to remember which door in the basement leads to the laundry room. Jiyong could do with a little getting lost, anyway. There’s a whole network of streets waiting to be found. New buildings, new sounds. New ways to disappear. But as soon as Jiyong makes up his mind, a shadow suddenly hops across the floor. He frowns and lifts his head to the tune of knuckles tapping glass.
 

There’s a guy—crouched on his fire escape. Jiyong squints against the sun’s glare and the stranger lifts one hand, waving a bit shyly and smiling. Which is great and all, it’s just that Jiyong can’t really get past the pale pink hair haloed in gold. He immediately thinks of religious iconography. Angels and saints and ancient rulers who thought they were gods. Then the guy stops waving hello and starts waving like he’s trying to bring Jiyong back from the other end of the galaxy.
 

He blinks away the daze, blushing faintly in embarrassment as he shuffles towards the windows. From this distance he can see more details. The half frame horn-rimmed glasses, the tattoos, the fact that the guy’s wearing nothing more than boxers and a tank top. In October. The stranger’s smile twitches wider, a crease cutting into his left cheek like a parenthesis. Like a failed attempt to contain his lightbulb mouth.
 

Jiyong’s brow furrows at the same time his brain has the ingenious idea to call him the patron saint of dimples and perfect teeth.

“Hi,” Patron saint of dimples says, still grinning.
 

“Hi?” Jiyong returns, apparently so uncertain of his greeting that it sounds like a question.

“You moved in on Wednesday, right?” Dimples asks, the barrier of glass doing nothing to obstruct how deep his voice is.
 

He nods. “Yeah.”

“That’s cool.” Dimples nods as well. “I live upstairs.”

“Cool,” Jiyong echoes. He should open the window instead of standing there ogling the guy’s heavily inked arms. Not that that would make this better.

But Dimples doesn’t seem to mind, gesturing at the room behind him.
 

“You haven’t done much unpacking.”

Jiyong glances over his shoulder and shrugs. “It’s a work in progress.”
 

Dimples breaks out into another dazzling grin. “Isn’t everything?”
 

His responding laughter startles him, enough that he has to duck his head and wonder how he ended up choosing the one building with the absurdly attractive, cotton candy-haired philosopher as his neighbor. There could be others, sure. But do they own festive black boxers dotted with happy, little ghosts? Jiyong wouldn't bet money on it.
 

Sweeping his bangs out of his face, he looks up. Dimples is staring at him, lips still curved in gentle amusement, and the itch in Jiyong’s feet bleeds into his legs.

“Did you need something?” he asks, wanting this to end before his instinct to bail takes over.
 

“What?” Dimples’ thick eyebrows come crashing down and then proceed to climb up his forehead. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was gonna ask if you had any sugar.”
 

“Sugar,” Jiyong repeats slowly. Does like this actually happen in real life?

“I mean, I’d go to the store, but it’s Sunday and I can never remember what’s still open,” Dimples explains. “I already asked Francis—he lives across the hall from me, real nice guy—anyway, he didn’t have any, so you were the next logical choice. Plus I hadn’t said hi yet.” He beams, dropping his chin into his hand, brown eyes crinkling cheerily. “Y’know, two birds one stone.”
 

Jiyong would rather pretend that he didn’t have a heart at all than admit how hard it just tripped over itself. Because that’s not a lightbulb, that’s a goddamn supernova.

“Um, h-how much– how much do you need?” he fumbles like a pro and averts his gaze, shoving his hands in his pockets because the itch is spreading there, too.
 

“One cup. For the best chocolate chip cookies in the history of chocolate chip cookies,” Dimples replies smoothly.

“Right.” He offers an unsteady smile. “I’ll just...go check.”

Giving Jiyong a two- salute, Dimples’ mouth curls into a friendly smirk. “I’ll be here.”
 

When he makes it to the kitchen, Jiyong presses a hand over his eyes and thinks about bubbles popping. He knew he wouldn’t be able to exist in isolation forever. It had to happen at some point, life being what it is, and he can do this. He can talk to strangers and make friends and not be a mess for once. That’s why he’s here. Fresh start, new leaf. A chance to reinvent himself.

Jesus, who am I kidding?
 

Jiyong drags his hand down his face and ignores the ever-present itch, gaze roaming around the narrow kitchen. He has no idea if there’s sugar in one of these cabinets, because he doesn’t cook, but his mom stashed a random bag of groceries in the rental car when he wasn’t looking. He just can’t remember what was in it when he unpacked it four days ago.
 

Cabinet number one yields an unopened box of Lucky Charms, olive oil, and a bag of trail mix. Number two is full of canned soup he doesn’t even like. Jiyong only sees coffee mugs in number three and thinks he’s going to have to tell Dimples he’s out of luck when he nudges one aside, catching a flash of bright yellow all the way in the back corner. How the box of Domino sugar ended up halfway to Condiment Narnia, he has no idea. All he knows is that it’ll be better off in Dimples’ far more capable hands. Hands that Jiyong isn’t going to stare at the second he walks into the living room, wondering what the tattoos on his fingers are, but is too chicken- to ask.

Grabbing the box, he takes a deep breath and tells his feet to walk past the front door without pausing. His neighbor lights up the instant Jiyong reappears in the living room.
 

“My hero!” Dimples cheers, inked hands laying over his heart.

His lips twitch as he sets the sugar on the sill to lift the window, crisp October air flooding the room in a rush. It smells like wet leaves.
 

“I don’t have anything to measure it with. Guess I’ll just have to trust you,” Jiyong finds himself murmuring, arm outstretched, despite the fact that he’ll most likely never use the sugar anyway.

Dimples weighs the box in his grasp and even though Jiyong is peering intently out at the alley, he can see the shape of his grin.

“I promise I’m not a sugar thief,” Dimples vows.
 

“It’s okay, I know where you live now,” he answers, earning a burst of gravelly laughter.
 

Jiyong’s pretty sure laughter’s not supposed to sound that nice, and when he turns, he finds the sun still playing in messy, pink strands like they live there.
 

“, I didn’t even introduce myself,” Dimples blurts, sticking a hand out, chuckling at himself. “Seunghyun Choi.”
 

He hesitates for half a breath before extending his own hand to take it. “Jiyong Kwon,” he replies automatically and then feels weird about using his last name, because who does that? This isn't a business conference, last he checked.
 

“Jiyong,” Seunghyun repeats, his eyes as warm as his grip. Jiyong pretends he doesn’t like the way that mouth looks wrapped around his name.

“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Seunghyun adds.
 

Nodding, he lets go, sliding both hands back into his pockets.

“Thanks.”
 

“No, thank you. You’re a lifesaver.” A flicker of a frown crosses Seunghyun’s lips. “Or is that a cookiesaver?”

“It’s really no problem,” Jiyong huffs, shoulders hunching when the itch seems like it might crawl inside his stomach next. “Anything for the best chocolate chip cookies in the history of chocolate chip cookies.”

“Seriously, you’re a hero,” Seunghyun says. He tilts his head, eyebrows raised. “But I should probably get back upstairs before the eggs decide to revolt. I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.”
 

“Awesome.”

Wiggling the box of sugar in the air, Seunghyun gives him one last supernova smile and then bounces his way up the metal stairs. Jiyong watches through the grate as his new neighbor disappears into the open window of his apartment. A chilled breeze skates by, ruffling his hair. He nods to himself now and shuts the window, wandering towards the bedroom to grab his hoodie.
 

Jiyong leaves the lonely, unfurnished apartment and doesn’t start to feel less overwhelmed until he hits block five, glad for every lungful of autumn air. City air. All the smells he can’t identify yet because he’s never been here. The strangeness of it is relaxing in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. He can move without being noticed and knows that if someone does, it’ll be without a single trace of recognition. Like Jiyong is merely another unexceptional part of the scenery.

It was harder to do this back home. Small towns are always smaller than they first appear, especially when you’ve lived there for the entirety of your own short, remarkably boring twenty-six years. In high school, he got creative—sticking to the less popular nature trails during the day and navigating sleepy, suburban neighborhoods at night. In college, Jiyong was too busy writing papers. Too busy reading, memorizing, regurgitating. Cramming sleep in the gaps when he could find them. And for what? He didn’t even graduate. He just moved back, worked at his cousin’s ty hardware store for almost five years, and pretended he couldn’t feel the itch. It drove him ing crazy.
 

Which is why he essentially closed his eyes and pointed at a map out of desperation. Because the sleepy, suburban neighborhoods weren’t really cutting it anymore and he didn’t know what else to do but leave when the tugging told him enough was enough.
 

Here, wherever “here” really is, might not be the answer. Jiyong doesn’t even know what the question is. In the end, it was just an exit from a life he had no idea how to operate anymore. And a way to satisfy the itch.

Hanging right onto a more crowded street, he follows the river of people, gratefully swallowed up in their kinetics. He stares mostly at the cement that swims between armies of feet and lets them lead. Cars and voices pass in a wash of sound, faces blur. Jiyong waits at crosswalks, files away the street names when he needs to, and tries not to jiggle his leg in the time it takes for the signal to change. He doesn’t think about home. He doesn’t think about looking for a job. He doesn’t even think about Seunghyun and his parenthetical grin or how awkward that conversation was. It’s just him, the city, and the comfort of being set adrift. Something he'd been so desperate to feel again that he almost can't handle the way it blankets him in this weird sense of peace. Needless to say, it's not exactly an emotion he's used to experiencing very often. If at all.
 

When he finally makes it back to the building, it’s after dark—orange street lamps shining through orange leaves, casting eerie, transparent shadows against the brick. He only falters at the door for a second before unlocking it and climbing the stairs to the fifth floor. Jiyong feels worn out enough to actually sleep tonight, absently kicking his shoes off when he steps into the apartment, leaving the lights off as he pads through the darkened living room. But somewhere in the middle, he freezes. Because even in the dark, the glow of the street lamps is enough to see that there’s something taped to the window.

Jiyong backtracks, flips the switch, his eyebrows scrunching together in bewilderment.

But he’s not imagining things. There really is a drawing of a T-Rex holding two cookies in tiny dinosaur hands, scrawled on a piece of yellow, lined paper ripped from a legal pad. A speech balloon emerges from its toothy grin, proclaiming “a humble gift for the gallant hero” in bold, black letters. He snorts and looks down, finding the box of Domino sugar safely packed in a ziploc bag on the ledge, right beside a plastic tupperware container. The container has a note, too. “I’d tell you to be careful, but where’s the fun in that? Enjoy your chocolate chip demise :)” and below, a lopsided heart with the letter ‘S’ scrawled inside of it.
 

For a moment, Jiyong feels like he can’t breathe. And when that moment passes, his heart begins to tap out an uncomfortable rhythm, every molecule of peace that had settled inside of him dissolving, just in the span of thirty seconds. He shouldn’t be losing his over cookies. Or the unwarranted kindness of charming, pink-haired strangers who make his face do stupid things. Like smile.

Jiyong chews on his lip, but it doesn’t help. Aggressively massaging his cheeks doesn’t help, either, and he sighs, feeling something hot flare up inside of him as he opens the window. The heat doesn’t fade with the burst of cold night air. It doesn’t fade when he gathers the box and the container and carefully peels the drawing from the glass. It’s still there in the kitchen. And the living room as he turns off the lights. Jiyong impulsively re-tapes the drawing to the bedroom wall across from the mattress where it sits on the floor and feels his skin prickle.

Removing his hoodie and his jeans, he crawls into bed, arms pillowed beneath his head and blankets already tangled around his legs. In the weak city glow spilling through curtainless windows, he stares at the T-Rex—that heat blooming in his stomach—and he thinks about religious iconography. Bubbles popping. Happy ghosts. And the consequences of being known.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

A blaze of light invading the bedroom rouses Jiyong from sleep in the early afternoon, setting the backs of his eyelids on fire. He groans and flops over onto his side, not wanting to get up, but it’s so bright, it’s like the ing sun itself is inside the room, filling every corner until it hurts to even squint. Jiyong lies there in low-key agony wondering why the apartment hasn’t burst into flames yet. Wondering if today will be the day he somehow develops the motivation to finish unpacking, despite not having anywhere to put anything.
 

Jiyong glares weakly at the boxes he can see through the crack in the door, knowing already that he won’t touch them. It’s not the deadline yet, anyway. He still has a couple weeks to splash around in his kiddie pool of indifference before he has to get serious. He promised himself. No half-assing it this time.
 

The voice in the back of his head calls him a liar. Jiyong lurches up from the mattress and doesn’t give it the satisfaction of listening.

Walking into the kitchen, he stares blankly at his almost empty fridge, stomach gurgling at him in anger. There’s the cereal, but he doesn’t have any milk. Pasta, but no sauce. Soup he hates. Box of sugar. Jiyong’s brain skids to a halt and he turns around.

There, sitting innocuously on the opposite counter, just waiting for him to notice. The cookies.
 

He’s on them in seconds, ripping the lid off and tossing it aside with a dull, plastic clatter. The smell hits him first—baked dough, butter and chocolate wafting up to assault his nose—and he can’t help it, he groans, fingers reaching for one flawlessly golden morsel. Jiyong brings it to his mouth, the multitude of flavors hitting the back of his throat before he even takes a bite.

If god really does exist, he’s pretty sure they’re wandering the earth in the form of his upstairs neighbor.
 

“Holy ,” Jiyong mumbles, still chewing.
 

Chocolate melts onto his thumb and his index finger, crumbs falling from his lips as he jams the whole cookie in all at once without shame. It’s like a perfectly balanced explosion. Not too salty, not too sweet. Crispy on the edges and soft in the middle. There’s something else he can’t place, something that’s achingly familiar and yet frustratingly elusive. Jiyong picks up another one, shoving at least half of it into his mouth. It’s literally on the tip of his tongue and he may or may not eat all twelve just to figure it out.

He isn’t successful, but he does decide that Seunghyun is an . Because now he knows the taste of nirvana and no chocolate chip cookie will ever compare to what he just experienced.
 

Frowning at the empty container, Jiyong slips a hand under his shirt to rub at his too-full stomach. A very microscopic part of him regrets doing this when he doesn’t have milk to neutralize the sugar overdose. The rest of him would do it again twenty minutes from now. Maybe less. But there aren’t any more and he should go upstairs to thank Seunghyun for the gift he definitely didn’t deserve.

However, that would involve talking to him. And putting on pants.
 

Jiyong his fingers clean, weighing the pros and cons as he collects the leftover crumbs and goes to wash the container out in the sink. It’s not like he was planning on doing anything today. Talking to Seunghyun would at least postpone the inevitable feeling of apathy from binding itself to every atom in his body. Even though talking in general isn’t very high on his list of favorite activities.

He heaves a sigh and looks out the kitchen window. There’s no trace of the itch today, not yet. So he concedes defeat to acting like a normal human being, dries the container off, and then puts on his jeans.
 

It’s stupid that he feels like he’s going to war as he steps out of the apartment and into the hallway. Because if that was actually true, he is wearing some really ty armor. He doesn’t even have socks on. Jiyong glances down at his bare feet and then rolls his eyes at himself, pocketing his keys and walking along the hall to the stairs. He pretends the flutter in his stomach is from eating too many cookies and nothing else. Except that with each step, it seems to mutate from a flutter into a very compact, anxious hurricane.

By the time Jiyong is standing in front of Seunghyun’s door, he’s thinking about just leaving the container on the floor and retreating downstairs. Thinking, but not doing, because now he’s pretty sure he’s glued to the spot and he’ll have to spend the rest of his life as a poorly placed living statue.
 

Music filters through the heavy door. He listens for a moment and easily identifies it as Led Zeppelin's “Houses of the Holy”. Jiyong would recognize those guitar riffs anywhere, even muffled through an inch of solid wood. Seunghyun confirms it for him a few seconds later when he starts belting along with Robert Plant about satan’s daughter and he huffs out a quiet laugh. The hurricane dials back into a summer storm, one of his hands lifting without permission to knock. He gnaws on his bottom lip and doesn’t think about how awkward he’s probably going to make this.

Robert Plant’s scratchy whine erupts into the hallway as soon as Seunghyun flings the door open, an incandescent smile working its way onto his face when he sees Jiyong there.
 

“Hey! What’s up?”
 

Jiyong’s heart catapults itself into his throat at the sight of those dimples. The way a chunk of Seunghyun’s pink hair sticks out from the side of his head like it’s trying to fly away. He doesn’t know why that’s cute. Or why his brain wants to fixate on trivial details, such as the holes in Seunghyun’s t-shirt and the fact that he’s not wearing socks, either.
 

“Uh, hi,” Jiyong manages, fidgeting with the tupperware container in his hands. He focuses on the dead space above Seunghyun’s left shoulder.

In the pause between words, the song changes, “Trampled Under Foot” tumbling from the speakers and floating into his ears. Jiyong manages to prevent an all-out flush, but he doesn’t appreciate having a song about ing as the soundtrack to this particular exchange.

“I take it you liked the cookies,” Seunghyun says, smiling wider, if possible.

His own lips curve in a sad attempt to reciprocate. “Yeah,” he replies, nodding. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
 

Seunghyun rubs at the back of his head, fingers tearing through already disheveled strands, and he laughs.
 

“Well, they were always for you, but I ruined the surprise.”

“I was still surprised,” he admits, gripping the container a bit tighter. “Do you make cookies every time someone moves in?”
 

“No.” Seunghyun crosses his arms and tips over to lean against the door frame, lip briefly caught in his teeth before he continues. “Just seemed like you needed it. I hope that was okay?”
 

Jiyong’s more surprised that the plastic doesn’t crack in his hands with how hard he’s clenching it, gaze dropping as he peers intently at the floor like that’ll make it easier to digest what Seunghyun said. Observant strangers who do nice things for him don’t exist in his world. However, Jiyong isn’t in the same reality he used to inhabit and maybe he needs to get used to that.

“I ate all of them in about five minutes if that answers your question,” he ends up blurting.

“, seriously?” Seunghyun chuckles.
 

Lifting his head, Jiyong shrugs, a timid smile pulling at his mouth.
 

“They were really good.”
 

“I can’t take all the credit, it was my mom’s recipe,” Seunghyun says, seeming pleased nonetheless. “I started tweaking it in college and I can’t even remember what the originals used to taste like.”
 

“Did you use cinnamon?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Seunghyun’s eyes shine brightly. “And almond extract.”
 

Jiyong releases an amused breath and feels ridiculous about feeling better now that he knows. “So that’s what it was. I couldn’t figure it out,” he says.

He also feels ridiculous because this is the only kind of incredibly stimulating conversation he’s capable of having with people he doesn’t know. Which is essentially everyone on the planet. But Seunghyun is looking at him like he’s actually interested in Jiyong’s ability to taste flavors. Like he’d listen to Jiyong talk about his tastebuds for more than thirty seconds or talk about anything, just talk. It’s weird. And as “Trampled Under Foot” fades into the iconic “Kashmir”, a familiar itch starts to crawl up from the soles of his feet.
 

“How, um...how are you settling in?” Seunghyun asks, trying to catch his eye.

Jiyong avoids it. Robert Plant's voice fills the silence while he thinks of how to answer without answering.

Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dream.

I am a traveler of both time and space, to be where I have been.

Instead, he remembers reading about how Robert Plant struggled to write these lyrics, because he thought the music itself was bigger than he was. Jiyong closes his eyes and decides that that’s a pretty accurate metaphor for his life.

“I’m not,” he finally says and relinquishes his death grip on the cookie container to let his hands drift, gaze flickering over Seunghyun’s face and away as he laughs at himself. “I’ve– I dunno, I’ve never really been good at that,” Jiyong continues. “Moving, yeah. But not– not being still.”
 

He inhales deeply, arms falling to his sides. The itch might be in his lungs now. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”
 

Seunghyun’s responding smile burns at a lower wattage this time and Jiyong isn’t sure what to do with the sympathy lurking behind it. Or the sad arc of those thick eyebrows while this song of all songs plays in the background.

“Well, if you need anything, just let me know,” Seunghyun offers. “You’re welcome to come hang out whenever, if that’s, y’know, if you ever want to. I’m usually home during the day.”

“Yeah,” Jiyong murmurs; doesn’t know what else to say. Except maybe, “Thanks.”
 

“I mean it.”
 

Seunghyun reaches for him then, tattooed fingers molding to his shoulder and squeezing. His heart squeezes, too, and the imprint of unexpected physical contact remains even after Seunghyun’s hand is gone.
 

“Are you always like this with strangers?” he has to ask.
 

For once, Seunghyun flounders—a nervous sound leaking from his mouth while he adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

“Strangers are still people.”
 

“Yeah,” Jiyong repeats, nodding again, even though that wasn’t technically an answer.

He’d press the issue, but at this particular moment, he kind of needs to not be standing here anymore, so he holds the container out in lieu of asking anything else.
 

“They were really good.”
 

“I’m glad you enjoyed them,” Seunghyun replies, lips tilted upwards at the corners.

Jiyong automatically goes for nod number three and gives Seunghyun a wan smile, waving slightly as he lets his feet shuffle backwards and spin and carry him down the hall, the stairs, into the apartment and directly into his waiting sneakers. He doesn’t care that he’s not wearing socks, that’s one more thing stopping him from leaving.

Zipping his hoodie up, Jiyong walks right past the short towers of untouched boxes, locking the apartment door behind him. When he takes the stairs two at a time, he can still hear Led Zeppelin playing above him, and he doesn’t let himself imagine Seunghyun standing there in the doorway, wondering if he could’ve said something more to make Jiyong stay.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

On day nine of being in the new apartment on the other side of the country, Jiyong celebrates his autonomy by lying on the living room floor in starfish formation, watching the light evolve. Unemployment seemed like a good idea when he had it a few months ago. He didn’t really take into account how boring it would be without anything else to do. But he didn’t do very much even when he was working, which begs the question: why did he think anything would be different?

He’s not different. He’s exactly the same, just doing it...somewhere else.
 

Jiyong would still rather be “somewhere else” than where he was. The thing is, he doesn’t quite understand what that means yet. Because growing up somewhere isn’t the same as belonging. He’s not sure he’d even know what that felt like if he had it, honestly. Everything—family, school, work, friends—it all seemed like something he was required to participate in, so he did, despite never having a single ing clue what the hell he was doing it for.
 

Maybe he’s broken. Like he didn’t come with all the parts he was supposed to come with when he ended up here. Something that no one ever asked if he wanted in the first place.
 

For the next hour, Jiyong tracks the evening sunlight reflected against the ceiling as it moves at a near imperceptible crawl, thinking about what kind of place the world might be if you could protest your own birth before it happened.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

On the tenth day, Seunghyun insinuates himself into Jiyong’s life again to the tune of knuckles tapping glass.
 

Not that he actually left. Jiyong tried not to think about him in the four days since they talked, but that was generally pointless when Seunghyun was sort of always there even when he wasn’t. A flash of pink in the grocery store, someone he passed on the street wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, the sound of his deep voice strong-arming its way through the ceiling just to make sure Jiyong didn’t forget he existed.

The last one made him curious, because he rarely heard any other voices talking back.
 

Another few taps resound against the window before he can swing from the kitchen into the living room. Seunghyun grins and Jiyong falters, beginning to resent his body’s inability to function whenever his neighbor so much as blinks. It doesn’t help that the guy looks just as good in black skinny jeans as he does in boxers. That he’s no less adorable with his pink bird’s nest tucked up and away underneath a beanie, instead of poking out into the air like it’s sentient.

A small part of him is genuinely grateful for the distraction. Even if that distraction is this.
 

Opening the window, he pushes his hair out of his face and shields his eyes from the late afternoon glare. “Hey.”

“What are you up to tonight?” Seunghyun asks.

Jiyong stares up at him; notes the uncertainty his grin can’t hide, since all of Seunghyun’s emotions live in his eyebrows.
 

“If I say nothing, are you gonna make me go do something?”

Seunghyun laughs and it sounds easy, one inked hand lifting to scratch at his scalp through the thick material hugging his head.
 

“Can’t really make you do anything, because I’m not a psychokinetically abled supervillain,” Seunghyun explains, pausing to study Jiyong’s face before continuing. “However, I do bartend most nights and thought you might be interested in coming by later? It’s a ty dive about a twenty minute walk from here. Generally hipsters and locals, but it’s really cheap and they play good music.”
 

It’s instinct for him to say no. Instinct and, admittedly, fear. Jiyong excels at pretending, he’s just not sure he’s ready to do that again so soon, no matter how much Seunghyun looks at him like a hopeful Cocker Spaniel.

“Can I think about it?” he asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course, you can do whatever you want.” Seunghyun smiles. “The invitation always stands, though. Just so you know.”

Jiyong inhales and then exhales, making an effort to hold the weight of Seunghyun’s gaze. He wonders if it won’t always be so heavy.
 

“Thanks.”
 

Seunghyun nods, expression going soft. “No problem.”
 

There’s a lull—Jiyong unsure of himself in situations like this, where he can see the opportunity for friendship materializing right in front of him. City sounds float up from the street and in through the window. Car horns, shouting, laughter, music. He folds his arms, wishing he knew why Seunghyun cared. He could ask. Jiyong’s pulse jumps and he thinks better of it.

“Are you headed there now?” he asks instead.
 

“I am,” Seunghyun replies. “Gotta train some fresh blood.”

The edge of his mouth twitches at that, almost involuntarily. “I’ll walk with you,” he says, and that’s involuntary, too. Jiyong clears his throat, gesturing vaguely at nothing. “So I know where it is.”
 

Another nod, another soft smile unfurling into something Jiyong can’t endure for longer than a glance.
 

“I’d like that,” Seunghyun says, quiet, voice as happy as the slope of his eyebrows.

Jiyong throws another useless gesture over his shoulder and retreats into the bedroom to find his hoodie. So what if he has ulterior motives. So what if he already went on a walk today. He’s allowed to admit to himself that his curiosity might be eating away at his apathy, all right. He’s allowed to try taking a step outside of his comfort zone, which he doesn’t think about at all as he jogs into the foyer, slipping his shoes on. He also doesn’t dwell on the part where they’re going to spend more than ten minutes together. That more questions will be asked and that he’ll be expected to answer them. Or, more importantly, that Seunghyun is still the first person Jiyong’s shared space with since he had dinner at his mom’s the night before he left.

It doesn’t mean anything. And yet it does at the same time.

When he makes it back to the living room, Seunghyun offers a hand to help, and he does that without thinking, too—stomach lurching from more than just the brief defiance of gravity. Jiyong feels his skin tingle and itch where their palms meet; feels the way Seunghyun hesitates to let go and the warmth of his scrutiny when Jiyong refuses to make eye-contact. He turns away and closes the window.

“Ready?” Seunghyun asks.

Not exactly, he wants to say, but Seunghyun is already moving.

Their feet clang on the stairs as they go down, the sound reverberating back and forth in the alleyway. It’s a temporary placeholder for the conversation they’re about to have, but Seunghyun still tries to communicate with the slant of his lips every time they hit the next landing. Jiyong stares at the back of Seunghyun’s beanie-clad head and wonders which alternate universe it was that he fell out of.
 

Once he has solid ground beneath his soles, though, he relaxes marginally, somewhat more okay with the glances being thrown his way.

“You still haven’t unpacked,” Seunghyun states.
 

There’s no judgment in his tone, just curiosity. Jiyong supposes that’s why they’re both here right now.

“I know,” he replies. “But I don’t have anywhere to put anything.”

“Furniture might be a good start.”
 

He snorts and can’t stop himself from smirking. “Yeah, it might.”

Seunghyun gives him a broad grin, long legs matching his pace easily. Not many people can do that and Jiyong doesn’t file this particular piece of information away into a Seunghyun-shaped box, because there isn’t one. Or wasn’t. He ducks his head and keeps walking.

“So, where’d you move from?” Seunghyun asks.
 

“Does it matter?” Jiyong counters, focusing on the cracks in the pavement.

“Guess not.”

He winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Seunghyun says and knocks their elbows together like it really is.

Looking over, Jiyong sees the traces of Seunghyun’s amusement lining his face, living in his eyes, and he doesn’t beat himself up over his reflex.

“How long--” he cuts off, darting to the side to let another body pass between them. “How long have you lived here?”

Seunghyun hums in thought. “Six years, give or take.”

“And you like it.”

They stop on the curb and wait for the signal to change, slow traffic migrating in both directions.

“Yeah, I love it,” Seunghyun answers sincerely. Sunset reflects off of his glasses in fragments of orange as he regards Jiyong for a prolonged moment. His lips quirk and he turns away. “Our frequencies ride the same wavelength. Coming here was like learning I’d been tuned into the wrong radio station my entire life.”
 

Jiyong stares at Seunghyun’s profile and then out at the intersection, registering light and shape and color but not really in a conscious way, too hung up on the words. On the new way to categorize how he feels about pretty much everything. He’s so spaced out that he doesn’t realize they’ve got the walk sign until Seunghyun tugs on his hoodie sleeve. Once, twice. Jiyong sways forward and follows.

“What about you?” Seunghyun asks.

He shrugs. “I’ve only been here for ten days.”

“Yeah, but I see you go out all the time,” Seunghyun reveals as he hops onto the opposite curb. “You can’t tell me this place hasn’t left some kind of impression yet.”

Jiyong experiences conflicting emotions about being noticed. Discomfort, and directly below that, pleasure. Except he’s probably not going to own up to the second one anytime soon. “It’s all right,” he mutters.
 

Chuckling, Seunghyun shakes his head, apparently at a loss. Jiyong wants to welcome him to the club.

They cross four more streets, exchanging silence and the occasional shoulder bump when the stream of people gets too thick. It makes him antsy, because he can’t take strides long enough to satisfy his legs, but then Seunghyun nudges them around a corner onto a quieter street—further away from the crowds and the tangled city noises. Jiyong catches the quick smile Seunghyun flashes him and doesn’t wonder how he could tell.

Here, autumn leaves whisper above their heads instead of rumbling truck engines and street chatter and without that to distract him, he remembers he had more questions, too.

“Do you talk to yourself when you’re alone?” Jiyong asks, trying not to laugh at the bemused expression on Seunghyun’s face. “I hear you a lot,” he clarifies. “Not the words, just your voice.”
 

Thick eyebrows raise in understanding, a new type of grin stretching Seunghyun’s lips as he peers up into the trees for a while. At first, Jiyong thinks he’s never going to get a response, but then Seunghyun spins and starts walking backwards, something new about the way his dark eyes glint in the fading light. Something magnetic.
 

“I may be a servant of spirits to the great unwashed, but that’s not the only entry in my dictionary definition,” Seunghyun begins, posture loose and fingers dancing through the air as he speaks.

“Because my spark—the thing that sits in my chest like a neutron star, burning me up from the inside out—is the alchemy of sound. The art of plucking words from the ether and making them vibrate across time as they were meant to. Sending every syllable on a journey—from the infinite space behind my teeth to the eternity between your ears, allowing them to be reborn as something else. Something you. A sigh, a sneeze, the way you say my name.”

Seunghyun holds Jiyong’s attention with every pause and breath and the warmth in his voice. His eloquent hands. That supernova smile.
 

“I play with prose and revel in the plasticity of our vernacular, so that I might take my reality and collide with yours, hoping to hear how we resonate.”

When Seunghyun finishes, Jiyong realizes that he's slowed to a stop, an odd weight to his limbs from standing still after being in motion. He opens his mouth; closes it. Seunghyun bites his lip and Jiyong hears his voice ring clear in his thoughts—tries to keep it there as much as he tries to decide what the hell just happened.
 

“What the .”

Releasing a delighted burst of laughter, Seunghyun steps closer, closing the gap. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”
 

“Did you just pull that out of your ?” Jiyong demands.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Who answers questions with improvised, spoken word poetry?”

Seunghyun blushes and ducks his head. “I’ve been doing like this since high school,” he explains, toying with the zipper on his jacket. “Kinda got into it by accident.”
 

“By accident.”

“Lost a bet Freshman year. The punishment was joining Poetry Club, except it wasn’t a punishment at all, and I kept going every week until I graduated.”
 

Jiyong feels a smile coming on.

“That’s pretty nerdy.”
 

“It was high school,” Seunghyun shoots back, eyes narrowed.
 

His smile grows and he lets it. “I’m allowed to pass judgment, I was a member of Chess Club.”
 

Seunghyun arches a teasing brow. “Is that your spark?” he asks.
 

“No,” Jiyong scoffs. “Pretty sure I’m sparkless.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Brushing past Seunghyun, he starts walking again, certain his new neighbor will be right behind.

“You don’t even know me, how can you believe anything?”
 

“A healthy sense of optimism?” Seunghyun offers in return.
 

He cracks another smile at that. “I don’t know what that is.”
 

“Ha, ha,” Seunghyun snarks, elbowing him a little less gently this time. Jiyong surprises himself by elbowing back.

“The funny part is that I’m actually serious,” he murmurs.

In his periphery, he sees Seunghyun give him a weird look. Not sad, just concerned, maybe, and he doesn’t know why that bothers him. Especially because it seems like Seunghyun doesn’t know, either. Jiyong sighs and jams his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. The tree-lined street opens up into another major intersection, city sounds rushing back in to fill the quieter spaces. Seunghyun points right, leading them over one block and past a few bustling restaurants to the darkened windows of a bar. The sign reads “Willow Street Tap” in chipped, retro typeface, its front door buried under years of graffiti.

“This is me.”
 

Jiyong nods.

“You can come in now, if you want. Val won’t mind,” Seunghyun continues.

“Maybe another time,” he replies. He hasn’t decided yet if he means it.

“No worries.”

Seunghyun’s smile isn’t as animated, but it still climbs up into his eyes.

“I’ll see you around,” Jiyong says, because he’s not done wandering, and he needs to keep moving, feet already migrating further along the sidewalk.
 

“Jiyong, the building’s that way,” Seunghyun calls after him.

Turning, he lets his mouth curve one last time.
 

“I know,” Jiyong says, only meeting Seunghyun’s gaze for a handful of seconds. “But I like walking.”



 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

There’s a map of this city in Jiyong’s head that doesn’t look like a map at all. It’s incomplete and incohesive, made up of unraveling threads that don’t go anywhere. He knows what streets are the most chaotic—those are for when he wants to disappear. He knows what streets are empty but not lifeless—those are the ones he takes when he feels too lonely, because it’s easier to share space with a single, strange body passing by and remember that this is what he is, too.

Then there are the slivers where no one exists but him. Jiyong likes those the most, because they’re unexpected. He can’t plan for them, they just are, and sometimes those scraps in time help more than any of the others.
 

Back home, he’d walked the same streets so often that he wondered why his feet weren’t carving grooves into the pavement. Why the earth wasn’t acknowledging that he’d been there before. A part of him didn’t mind. What was the point of leaving a mark? He’d never wanted to stand out. Another part of him felt cheated, because he obviously wasn’t going to leave anything else behind, so why not that?

Here, in this city that isn’t his, Jiyong develops a fondness for being a single, microscopic point out of millions. In feeling small, insignificant, momentary. He doesn’t need to leave anything behind. He just needs to exist until he doesn’t anymore.

Isn’t that enough?

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

On the twelfth day, Jiyong buys a bookshelf and assembles it in the living room. He sets it against the far wall, across from the windows. But it makes the soles of his feet itch when he looks at it—half painted in the cold, autumn light spilling in from outside—and he leaves without filling any of the empty spaces.




 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Day thirteen, Jiyong wakes up before noon to the tune of knuckles tapping glass. He wonders how his neighbor always manages to make it sound so ing cheerful.

Shuffling out of the bedroom, he rubs at his eyes, not ready for the intensity of Seunghyun’s everything when he isn’t even human. Jiyong opens the window and the October air bites his skin hello.
 

“What?” he croaks.
 

Seunghyun puts his hand over his mouth, eyebrows already apologizing on his behalf. “, I totally woke you up, didn’t I.”

“You did.” Jiyong tries to give him a reassuring smile. “But it’s fine. I should’ve gotten up earlier.”

“I’m sorry,” Seunghyun apologizes anyway.
 

He shakes his head. “It’s cool.”

And it is. He just needs to be not as groggy in order to convince himself.
 

“Can I buy you coffee to make up for it? I was gonna ask if you wanted to tag along.”

Seunghyun looks at him the same way he did on Friday—that hopeful optimism written all over his face, but not so confidently that he isn’t simultaneously expecting Jiyong to shoot him down.
 

What his neighbor doesn’t know is that he really, really likes coffee.

“Sure,” Jiyong accepts, and it’s kind of incredible to watch how Seunghyun’s relief at hearing the simple word manifests itself. Which makes him think he needs new ways to categorize what his stomach does whenever Seunghyun decides to impersonate an atomic bomb.

“Great,” Seunghyun beams.
 

Jiyong’s gut twists, hands finding their way into his armpits as the chill creeps into the room. “Do you…” he trails off, clearing the indecision from his throat. “Do you wanna come in? It’ll only take me a few minutes.”

He steps back from the window and long legs extend into the apartment, shoes hitting the floor with a sense of finality that Jiyong is positive he’s imagining.
 

“Hey, you got a bookshelf!” is the first thing Seunghyun says when he rights himself, and he’s so genuinely excited about it, Jiyong has to laugh, probably harder than he’s laughed in a while, and he stops as abruptly as he started.

“Now I just have to use it,” Jiyong huffs, kind of embarrassed about the outburst.

Seunghyun leans over to nudge him in the arm. “Baby steps.”

His lips pull into a wry curve. Humor and fledgling familiarity swim around in Seunghyun’s eyes, seeming to reach out to him. Jiyong isn’t surprised when he nudges Seunghyun back and takes the nervous flutter in his chest with him as he walks into the bathroom and shuts the door.

For as long as he can remember, there’s always been that inherent need to move. There’s also never been anyone who gets it. “It” being any number of things, but all of them indescribable and falling outside the realm of what it means to be “well-adjusted”. Not his mother, not the people who were supposed to be his friends. Not even his therapist back in high school.

Part of the problem is that he’s never known how to articulate it. He barely knows how to articulate it to himself, but he thinks Seunghyun might understand what he’s looking at even if he doesn’t know what the whole picture is.
 

Staring at his own reflection, Jiyong stuffs his toothbrush into his mouth and lets that marinate. By the time he’s done—mouth clean, face clean, hair brushed, clothes changed—he concludes that he doesn’t hate the idea as much as he thought he would. Feeling confused, depressed, misplaced...it doesn’t mean there isn’t something inside of him that wants to connect to something else. Real connection. Not the hollow, make believe bull he’s had to deal with for most of his life. Or all of it. Probably all of it.

Jiyong pulls his hoodie on and looks at the drawing of the dinosaur taped to his wall. He thinks about bubbles popping and Seunghyun’s voice when he said “baby steps”. About being lonely and momentary and small.

A humble gift for the gallant hero.
 

He’s not a hero. But maybe he can still be something other than what he currently is.

The living room’s empty after he comes out of the bedroom. Which, by process of elimination, means Seunghyun is in the kitchen. Jiyong pads through the apartment to the foyer and slips his feet into his shoes.

“Ready when you are,” he announces softly, drawing Seunghyun’s attention away from his phone where he leans against the counter, earning a lopsided smile.

“Always ready,” Seunghyun replies.

And in the few seconds that Jiyong holds his gaze, he decides that inevitability is a truly terrifying thing.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The Black Cat Cafe isn’t that far away, only twenty minutes in the opposite direction of the Willow Street Tap, and he wonders if this is Seunghyun’s version of a bubble. Everyone has them—constructed out of habits and the things that make us comfortable and safe. It becomes clear to Jiyong that the coffee shop is one of those places when an older man standing behind the counter radiates joy the instant they walk in the door.
 

“My favorite handsome !” the man greets enthusiastically, tattooed arms spread wide.

Seunghyun cackles and steps around the counter to pull him in for a hug. “My favorite bearded bean wizard.”

Jiyong likes the way the man chuckles in response. It sounds hearty and round, like the ringing of an old bell cut short.
 

“I bet you say that to all the baristas.”
 

“Trust me, your luxurious whiskers have zero competition,” Seunghyun grins, reaching up to wiggle his fingers into said beard. “No barista in this city has facial hair as impressive as yours.”

The man swats him away and laughs again. “Uh-huh,” he grunts dryly, smirking, honey-brown gaze seeking out Jiyong’s over Seunghyun’s shoulder. “Who’s this?”
 

“This is my friend Jiyong.” Seunghyun turns and motions him closer. “He just moved here.”
 

“Always glad to welcome new friends,” the man smiles. “I’m Ethan.”

Jiyong ignores the way being called friend settles weirdly in his stomach. “Nice to meet you,” he replies, taking Ethan’s hand.

“How’d you find this loser?” Ethan asks. Seunghyun smacks him in the arm and that draws out another peal of bell-laughter.
 

“We live in the same building. I’m in the apartment below his,” Jiyong answers.

Ethan sobers, frowning solemnly.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”
 

“Hey!” Seunghyun almost shouts, but Ethan just pushes him aside and tries not to smile too big when Seunghyun pushes back.

It’s this one exchange—simple and effortless—that tells him how close they are, and Jiyong doesn’t know why it makes him as uncomfortable as being named a friend did.
 

“He’s not so bad, I guess,” Jiyong murmurs, mouth quirking as he catches Seunghyun’s eye.
 

Seunghyun stops shoving at Ethan and all but preens.

“Thank you.”

Jiyong’s mouth betrays him by quirking a little more and he looks away, clearing his throat awkwardly. He feels the weight of two gazes now, but all he can see is Ethan, staring at him with this sly glint in his eyes like he knows something Jiyong doesn’t.
 

“You want the usual?” Ethan asks Seunghyun, who nods in Jiyong’s periphery. “What about you?”

He glances at both of them. “What’s the usual?”

Seunghyun grins. “Make that two.”
 

“Aye, aye cap’n,” Ethan says, giving them both a lazy salute before sauntering off.
 

“Am I gonna regret this?” Jiyong asks.

“I hope not,” Seunghyun laughs, still grinning.

They find an empty booth in the row of booths lining the far wall. Voices from other tables flood the cozy space—the harsh sound of the milk steamer, glasses clinking, a melody drifting from the speakers that he can’t place. Now that Jiyong is paying attention, he notices the layer of Halloween decorations coating the windows and the ceiling and can’t believe the month is already halfway over.
 

His focus returns to the lacquered wood grain under his palms; to Seunghyun regarding him curiously from across the table.

Jiyong reclines in his seat. “What?”
 

“Nothing, just–” Seunghyun stops, smiles, pulls the beanie from his head to drag fingers through rumpled pink. “You don’t seem as melancholy today.”

There are a few seconds where he feels pressure against his ribs. A fleeting panic of recognition. The fact that Seunghyun took the trouble to recognize a difference at all says more than enough, but he still has to swallow the itch.
 

“Some days are easier than others,” Jiyong admits, hands sliding from the table top and into his hoodie pockets.
 

Seunghyun slumps forward onto his elbows. “Yeah, no kidding,” he agrees, and his eyebrows curve in understanding.

Tilting his head back, Jiyong finds himself arching an eyebrow of his own.

“You mean you’re not this happy all the time?”
 

“No.” Seunghyun scoffs. “Definitely not.”

“That’s oddly reassuring,” he murmurs.

This earns him a burst of quiet amusement and Jiyong wonders how Seunghyun makes it seem so easy. Like he’s got it stocked up and ready and doesn’t have to send out a search party whenever he thinks something is funny. In that way, Jiyong envies him. Because it’s been too long since he laughed without it practically being a revelation. Or having to think about it first.
 

Ethan calls Seunghyun’s name from behind the counter and Jiyong watches him slip from the booth and weave through tables to go get their drinks. But when Ethan looks over, he quickly averts his gaze to stare out the window instead. Jiyong studies the river of people on the sidewalk—sees the movement more than what’s moving—and tries to brush off the prickling heat under his skin that’s becoming uncomfortably familiar.

“Fair warning, Ethan thinks he’s a comedian,” Seunghyun says when he returns, setting the two coffees down.

Jiyong’s brow furrows, but Seunghyun just starts chuckling as he takes a sip.

“Read the cup.”
 

Picking up the paper takeaway cup, he twists it around until he sees blue sharpie scrawled on the side. It says “Joey McIntyre” in loose cursive. Jiyong looks at Seunghyun, then back at the cup. His lips pull and spread all on their own, stretching wider still when Seunghyun dissolves into giggles.

“What does yours say?” Jiyong asks, gesturing with his chin.

“Sylvia Plath,” Seunghyun wheezes and scrubs a hand over his face, sighing as he calms. “It’s a different poet every time. I’m impressed he hasn’t run out of names yet.”
 

A soft chuckle escapes from his mouth before he even realizes it’s happening, dying on his tongue when his teeth clack shut out of habit. Jiyong can’t kill the smile, though. Not when Seunghyun’s dimples seem like they’ve been permanently carved into his cheeks.

He spins the cup idly on the table in front of him, curiosity making him ask, “How long have you been friends?”

“Four years,” Seunghyun answers, taking another sip. “He’s a prick, but I love him.”

Jiyong runs his thumb along the edge of the plastic lid and nods.
 

“I like the way he laughs.”
 

When he looks up again, Seunghyun’s eyes are crinkled at the edges in tiny starbursts and Jiyong ducks his head, blushing, because he likes that, too.

“You gonna drink that or just play with it?” Seunghyun asks after a moment.
 

Biting down on another smile, he brings the cup to his lips. Rich toffee splashes over his taste buds, followed by the more bitter flavors of a dark roast—something earthy that fills his mouth and lingers. Jiyong’s eyebrows raise, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

Seunghyun slaps his hand lightly against the table in what appears to be victory. “Damn right.”

He hiccups out a snort and keeps drinking.

Cafe noise builds around them. The cash register popping open, orders called, more steaming milk. Jiyong can tell by the way Seunghyun taps his inked fingers on the table that he’s working up to a new question.

“So,” Seunghyun starts, quieter than he usually is. “If where you came from doesn’t matter, can I ask why you came here?”

Is there an award for persistence? He’s pretty sure Seunghyun deserves it.
 

Then again, this is what people do, isn’t it? Know things about each other. Motivations, aspirations, the facts that define us. Make us relatable. Jiyong never understood the point, even when he played along for the sake of all these unwritten social rules. It never felt real. The trivia exchange and always waiting for your turn to drop an anecdote from your, no doubt, very exciting life that no one really listens to.
 

Maybe he never met the right person. Never had the right conversations. Jiyong looks at Seunghyun and thinks about every way that his neighbor has been different.
 

“I thought I knew, but I don’t,” he says, fiddling with the coffee again instead of drinking it. “I thought going somewhere else was– I dunno, better, or something. But I’m still…” he trails off, Seunghyun’s slight smirk enough to know that he’s not buying this version of the story. Jiyong sighs. “Being really vague,” he finishes.
 

“You are,” Seunghyun agrees.

“Sorry.” Jiyong shakes his head. “It’s not worth talking about, anyway.”

“Sure it is.”
 

He squints, not sure he buys that himself. “Because talking about sad is a great way to make friends.”
 

“I love sad ,” Seunghyun insists. “Sad is my favorite thing in the entire world.”

Jiyong actually does laugh at this and means it and Seunghyun grins from behind his coffee cup, as if getting him to laugh is a prize and not a pain in the .

“Did you always know you wanted to be a poet?” he asks. It might seem like a change of subject, but it isn’t.
 

“Hell no,” Seunghyun answers, scrunching up his face. “None of that gelled until after college, when I moved here and started working at the bar.”

“What changed?”

“Willow Street has an open mic night. First time I worked that shift, it was legit like I’d seen the light,” Seunghyun explains. “The heavens cracked open and poured down holy, glittering sunbeams, I heard angels warbling in exultation, the earth shook,” he continues, voice low and smooth. “Doing the spoken word thing feeds me and keeps me going, but as far as like, a career and ? I’m just as clueless.”

Just as. Jiyong thinks it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s in the same boat. Still, Seunghyun being clueless never occurred to him. He knows he isn’t the only directionless up in the world, but most days he feels like he missed the memo. About everything.

Jiyong spins the cup in both hands. “Really?”

Seunghyun nods. “Really.”
 

It takes him less than thirty seconds to give in to impulse.

“I spent three years on a degree I never completed and another five after that working in my cousin’s hardware store,” Jiyong admits, glancing up. “Eight years and I still can’t tell you why I bothered.”

“Is there anything you do care about?” Seunghyun asks.

He offers a thin smile and an even thinner laugh.

“I don’t know.”
 

Sipping at his coffee, Seunghyun leans forward on the table again, expression half-serious and half-teasing.
 

“Walking, perhaps?”

Jiyong’s mouth twitches. “I walk because I have to, not always because I want to,” he replies.
 

Seunghyun’s eyebrows appear confused, so he elaborates.

“It’s–” Jiyong tries, grasping for the best way to put this into words. “It’s kind of like what you said the other day. There’s something that won’t let me sit still for too long, like there’s too much– going on in my head or whatever. Noise, energy, anxiety, I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

“That’s why you go out every day,” Seunghyun states.

“Yeah.” He nods and then tips his head to the side. “Sometimes more than once.”

It’s not as difficult as he thought—talking about it. Jiyong feels the itch, but not like he does when he’s panicking, it’s just there. Present and not making demands. Not even when Seunghyun stares at him from across the table as if he wants to crack Jiyong’s skull open like an egg and see what falls out. The thing that surprises him here, is that for a brief moment, Jiyong almost wishes he would.

“We’ve been sitting here for a while, you wanna roam?”
 

His wandering gaze snaps to Seunghyun’s. He doesn’t smile, but his heart seems to be doing that for him, the way it skips in his chest, secretly elated.

“Sure,” Jiyong says.
 

Seunghyun beams, putting his beanie back on. Jiyong curls his fingers around his coffee cup and concentrates on the warmth of it against his skin instead of the warmth everywhere else.

Ethan is busy when they leave, waving hands communicating their farewells before they step out into the chill. Jiyong chooses a direction at random and for several blocks they don’t say anything. He’s not used to someone being with him when he does this. He also isn’t used to anyone not thinking he’s weird as hell, but Seunghyun is pretty low on the scale of what’s considered normal as far as he can tell.
 

They’re on a vacant side street, the muddled clamor of the city behind them, when Seunghyun breaks the silence.

“Where do you go when you walk?”

Jiyong watches the dead and dying leaves pass beneath his feet when he answers.

“Depends on how I’m feeling.” He bites the inside of his cheek, considering how much to give. “Sometimes I need to get lost. I use the busiest streets for that. And sometimes I just wanna move to remember that I can.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Seunghyun murmurs, the magic words Jiyong hasn’t heard nearly enough. “What about right now?”

He looks over, willing to not be afraid of the intense curiosity and the persistence and the recognition in Seunghyun’s eyes if it means hearing that again.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jiyong replies, holding his gaze even if it’s still too heavy. “Right now I’m okay.”
 

Which is so true, he’s kind of having trouble believing it. But Seunghyun—Seunghyun, the strange, unanticipated event of a person who infiltrated his life to the tune of knuckles tapping against glass—he illuminates in slow motion. A forty watt light bulb. A low-burning candle flame, more heat than light.
 

“Good,” Seunghyun says, and Jiyong can tell that he means it.