sunggyu first meets nam woohyun when he is 17 years old.

 

click. he hears the knob unlock, and the door creaks open. myungsoo’s home. 

 

sunggyu looks up from his homework, something about algebra and polynomials, when he realizes that his brother is not alone. 

 

“hyung,” myungsoo greets him with a smile. he looked exhausted, probably because he tried out for their school’s soccer team today. “this is nam woohyun. he just transferred.”

 

“hi,” woohyun shows sunggyu a small bow. “nice to meet you, sunggyu-ssi.”

 

sunggyu nods his head in acknowledgement, forcing a smile to come out of him. he pretends to go back to his homework, tapping his pencil on the kitchen counter, jittery. it only takes him a second to lift his gaze back up to the visitor, who was in the middle of taking his shoes off. 

 

hmmm, sunggyu examines the younger boy. black hair, sharp nose, looks nice enough, probably doesn't sell drugs— he stops when he realizes that woohyun’s looking back at him now. 

 

“let’s go upstairs.” myungsoo sets his shoes on the side and starts leading the way. woohyun follows closely behind him. 

 

woohyun glances back to the older male and bows his head again, politely.

 

dinner comes by quick, and woohyun eats with them. sunggyu’s mother is always so overly fond of guests, and woohyun was no exception. he sits by the round table, in between sunggyu and myungsoo, and stuffs his face without saying a word. 

 

the only time woohyun ever speaks is when his mother asks him a question, or when myungsoo makes a dumb joke and woohyun laughs at it. they’re talking about the soccer tryouts now, and sunggyu thinks that this is good. woohyun seemed like a quiet, nice kid to have around. and if he’s being honest, myungsoo could learn a thing or two from his friend on how to keep his mouth shut.

 

 

 

sunggyu realizes that first impressions don't really last when woohyun visits their house again, three days later. 

 

“hey, hyung!” 

 

he winces at the endearment. this is only the second time they’ve met, and woohyun’s already upgraded on his formalities. 

 

“uh, hi.” sunggyu shoots myungsoo a glare, who only looks back at him with his shrugged shoulders and sheepish smile. 

 

“guess what?” myungsoo puts an arm around woohyun, who was a few inches shorter than him, and says, “woohyun and i are officially part of the soccer team!” 

 

sunggyu’s face lights up in an instant. “really?” a smile forms on his mouth, a proud one. “congrats! i knew you’d get in this time.” 

 

“thanks, hyung.” myungsoo looks to his side, and realizes that woohyun had an expectant grin on his face. sunggyu notices it, too. 

 

“what?” sunggyu didn't mean to sound rude, but the woohyun’s eager smile was weirding him out.

 

“i got in, too,” woohyun states, as a matter of fact. sunggyu finally realizes what he wanted to hear.

 

“well, uh, congrats…?”

 

the smile on woohyun’s face grows bigger, his eyes glinting under the fluorescent light of their living room. sunggyu sees the slightest tint of red on the boy’s cheeks, but he gives no meaning to it as he watches the two younger boys head up the stairs. 

 

 

the next time sunggyu sees woohyun is in school the next morning. sunggyu is getting stuff out his locker just before first period starts when he hears a familiar voice down the hall. he turns his head around to see woohyun, with a bunch of other students his grade, walking over to his direction.

 

sunggyu narrows his eyes at them. freshmen. 

 

“good morning, hyung!” woohyun sees him almost immediately. 

 

sunggyu sends him a tight-lipped smile and then closes his locker door shut. “morning.” then he starts walking the other way, failing to see the slight falter on woohyun’s smile. 

 

at lunch that same day, sunggyu sits with the same group of friends he’s known ever since freshman year. on his left is dongwoo, blabbering on about how a blue whale’s tongue is as big as a baby elephant. on his right is sungjong, who was flipping the pages of his book, quietly. sunggyu liked sungjong. sunggyu liked quiet. 

 

“hey, hyung!”

 

sunggyu nearly jumps out of his seat as a voice greets him right by his ear. he turns back just in time to see that annoying smile on woohyun’s face, and right behind him was myungsoo, snickering along. 

 

“you know that kid?” dongwoo asks once sunggyu turns back to the table.

 

“no,” he grunts in reply. 

 

sunggyu looks to his side to see sungjong still stuck on his book, unbothered by the noise around the cafeteria. sunggyu could only sigh. if only everybody were like sungjong—quiet and studious. 

 

after school, sunggyu is walking out with dongwoo when they pass by the school field. he glances towards it, hoping to see his brother, when woohyun blocks his line of sight, all sweaty and panting. the younger boy waves an arm in the air, mouthing a “hi, hyung!” before turning back to his training without waiting for sunggyu to respond. 

 

“you told me you didn't know him,” dongwoo says, looking confused. 

 

“he’s just the annoying kid myungsoo befriended the other day,” sunggyu grumbles as he starts walking away. “we’re not that close.”

 

 

sunggyu soon realizes that woohyun visiting their house is not a one time thing, nor is it a two time thing, but more like an everyday thing. 

 

every single day after soccer practice, woohyun would tag along with myungsoo back to their house and eat dinner with them. no one in the kim family seemed to mind, except that of sunggyu that is. his mother loved the extra company, and myungsoo had soon labeled woohyun as his bestest-friend-forever-and-ever, which meant that woohyun was welcome into their abode every single time he pleased. 

 

eventually, sunggyu soon learned to get used to woohyun’s presence. even if he was loud (sunggyu couldn't even believe how he first thought woohyun was quiet), he was kind of fun to be with. woohyun always made myungsoo laugh, which in turn made sunggyu laugh because of myungsoo’s unique laughter mixed with a little bit of snorting here and there. and despite not looking the part, woohyun was actually pretty smart. he’d often tutor myungsoo on the classes they had together, and myungsoo’s grades skyrocketed after that. 

 

it was one evening later when sunggyu realizes that myungsoo and woohyun were not back from training yet. usually by 6pm, they’d already arrive home, but it was already 30 minutes later and there was still no sign of them. 

 

sunggyu reaches over to his phone, dialing up his brother’s number.

 

“hello?” it was woohyun. 

 

“where are you guys?” 

 

“hyung!” 

 

sunggyu grimaces at the blaring voice over the line. “where’s myungsoo?”

 

“right here.” 

 

there was some shuffling on the line before myungsoo finally speaks up. “hello?”

 

“yah, where the hell are you?”

 

“woohyun and i ate at this new ramen place after training. the one right behind school?”

 

sunggyu frowns. “without me?”

 

there was some shuffling again, and it was woohyun talking to him now. “i can take you, hyung. just the two of us.”

 

“whatever.” if only woohyun could see sunggyu’s eye roll right now. “i’m hanging up.”

 

“wait!”

 

sunggyu ends the call, suppressing a smile as he recalls woohyun’s words.

 

just the two of us.

 

he feels his cheeks warm up for a few seconds, his heart beating a little bit too fast than normal.

 

what’s wrong with me? sunggyu asks himself. shaking his head, he turns back to his homework and does his best to block out woohyun’s words from his mind. and his heart.

 

 

before sunggyu even realized it, he started anticipating woohyun’s arrival. everyday after school, he would sit by the kitchen counter and watch the clock tick until it’s time for his brother and woohyun to get home. 

 

“were you waiting?” myungsoo asks one evening, and sunggyu scoffs.

 

“no,” he lies. he turns back to his homework in chemistry, pretending to think about the answer to number seven. 

 

“matter,” a voice behind him says.

 

sunggyu spins around his chair, eyes wide in surprise when he realizes that woohyun was now right behind him, wearing that same dumb smile that sunggyu has learned to adore. 

 

“what?”

 

“the answer to number seven. anything that has mass and takes up space? it’s matter, right?”

 

sunggyu really couldn't care less about what woohyun’s rambling on about right now because all his mind is filled with is the younger boy’s scent—how he smells like he’s been under the sun for a few hours (which he has because of soccer training), mixed with that strong, boyish perfume he always carried around him. 

 

“hyung?”

 

sunggyu blinks back to reality when he realizes that he was spacing out. “i knew that,” he retorts to the younger boy, a little bit of sass in his voice, before he turns back to his worksheet to write it down. 

 

he hears woohyun chuckle behind him, before the said boy walks over to the couch with myungsoo to watch episode 117 of naruto shippuden. 

 

 

the first time woohyun stops going to their house is because of this:

 

it was a wednesday, and sunggyu is having a migraine. he has two assignments due the next day, as well as a history project he has yet to start. and his partner, hoya, thought it was funny to let sunggyu do everything by himself. 

 

stupid hoya, sunggyu rolls his eyes. i’m gonna have a word with him first thing in the morning.

 

on top of that, woohyun and myungsoo picked that day of all days, to be like hyperactive monkey freaks. apparently, they were having their first ever soccer match that saturday, and they were excited. and noisy.

 

myungsoo leans his elbows on the kitchen counter, face close to sunggyu. “hyung, wanna watch with us?” 

 

sunggyu pushes his brother away. “no.”

 

shrugging, myungsoo pulls woohyun along with him to the couch where they start laughing at how sakura thinks she’s on par with sasuke and naruto. on a different day, sunggyu would probably be laughing with them (because sakura’s useless in his eyes), but today is not one of those days. 

 

“can you tone it down?” 

 

myungsoo complies immediately by shutting down the tv. 

 

sunggyu’s finally done with his worksheets when myungsoo and woohyun were eating dinner by the table, sharing some laughs over some baby pictures. sunggyu’s mother had a whole stack of them. 

 

he hears his stomach grumble, but sunggyu ignores it as he opens up a slideshow presentation for his history project. the food can wait, he thinks. 

 

woohyun’s deep laugh erupts from the dining room, and sunggyu glances a little bit just to catch a glimpse of woohyun’s face. the latter looks back at him, half-smiling, as he presents to him sunggyu’s baby picture. 

 

“hyung, look at you!” woohyun’s face is beaming. “you look so cute!” 

 

“thanks.” sunggyu tries to ignore the fact that woohyun had just called him cute. he looks back to his work, ready to start again, when myungsoo’s loud laughter interrupts him. “i told you to keep it down.”

 

myungsoo was laughing at a picture of a five year old sunggyu, crying at a petting zoo. he watches woohyun take a glance at the said picture, also laughing at it like there’s no tomorrow. 

 

sunggyu remembers that day. the zookeeper told him that the goats were friendly, and baby sunggyu was excited to pet it. however, the goat suddenly went berserk and started prancing around his little fence, frightening the baby sunggyu.

 

“it’s not funny,” he deadpans. 

 

myungsoo, being the idiot that he is, imitates sunggyu’s crying face. his face contorts into an unusual expression, and woohyun is just dying from laughter. 

 

sunggyu sighs deeply, trying not to let himself succumb to anger, as he turns to face his project in the hopes of finishing it by tonight. thankfully, the two freshmen suddenly become quiet as they start browsing through a different photo album, one with less funnier pictures, sunggyu supposes. 

 

sunggyu is finally done with his project when he decides to join myungsoo and woohyun by the table. they looked like they were also finished looking at the photo albums, when woohyun starts chuckling at a picture. 

 

“what is it?” myungsoo scoots closer to his friend, an excited smile on. 

 

woohyun drops on the table, still laughing, and sunggyu realizes what picture he’s holding. 

 

it was a picture of sunggyu and myungsoo when they went to get their first haircut. myungsoo, as usual, looked handsome for a two year old baby. sunggyu, on the other hand, seemed to hate his hair as his face is decorated with a very obvious frown. his hair is all spiked up, gelled, and overall just ugly. 

 

woohyun turns to sunggyu, his face always so happy. “why don't you and myungsoo look alike, hyung?” he seemed genuinely curious, but sunggyu is grumpy, hungry, and tired. so he snaps back with: “why don’t you ever stay at your own house, woohyun?”

 

. sunggyu immediately regrets his words the moment they escape from his lips. he knows that woohyun’s parents are rarely home, and woohyun would get lonely. how could he forget? myungsoo always told him about it.

 

wooh