Yongguk’s first real heartbreak awaited him not long after Seunghyun and Jiyong had bid a tearful farewell and everything was back to normal with the addition of Jiyong. Heechul had said he and Hankyung should stay home and watch Zelo since it was sports day at school and Yongguk wouldn’t be able to keep a close eye on the boy. Yongguk had only given in when Zelo gave him a tight hug and physically ushered him to leave, but he still had a bad feeling in his gut.

Jiyong was the first to take notice of Yongguk’s worry and broke away from his group despite his teacher’s yelling, jogging over to Yongguk who wasn’t listening to a word of what the teacher was saying.

“Hey man, what’s up,” Jiyong said, slinging an arm around Yongguk’s shoulders. Yongguk shrugged it off with a sigh and a frown appeared on Jiyong’s features.

“I don’t know… I left Zelo home with hyung and gege today, but something feels wrong…” he muttered. Jiyong chuckled and gave him a quick hug.

“Don’t worry, I bet they can take care of him. When you come home, he’ll greet you with a hug and you can tickle him until he giggles adorably like that again,” he said. His words brought a small smile to Yongguk’s lips, but his worry had not dissipated in the least.

He went through the sports day he usually enjoyed so much half-heartedly and he was immensely relieved once they were finally allowed to go home. He heard Jiyong and Yoseob shouting after him, but he didn’t care about them as he walked home as quickly as possible.

He knew as soon as he stepped inside that something was wrong. The air was thick as it attempted to choke him and everything was so… silent.

“Hyung?” he called out, voice shaking a little. “Gege?”

Heechul soon appeared in front of him, but his eyes were dark. He looked like he was trying hard not to cry.

“What happened?” Yongguk asked. Panic was rising inside of him, blocking his throat and making it difficult to breathe.

“Zelo,” Heechul said and Yongguk’s panic immediately doubled, “he’s gone.”

Yongguk wasn’t sure how long he stood rooted to the ground, staring at his cousin with wide eyes. Time stopped existing. Truthfully, everything stopped existing except the three words bouncing around like little annoying mosquitos in Yongguk’s head, buzzing at everything they could reach until Yongguk’s vision gradually became darker and his knees buckled underneath him.

 ~~

He awoke to the insistent, annoying ringtone of his cellphone. He threw his hand out towards with a groan and miraculously managed to answer it without even opening his eyes.

“Stop,” he groaned into the receiver, voice even deeper than usual with sleep. “You’re waking Zelo up.”

There was a moment of silence before he realized that the person wasn’t waking Zelo up — Zelo wasn’t there. He sat up with a gasp and looked to his side. Yes, Zelo’s bed was empty.

“Heechul told me,” Jiyong said in Yongguk’s ear. “Yoseob wants to come over, Kyuhyun says we should give you space. I decided to call you and hear what you wanted.”

Yongguk lay back down on his pillow, staring emptily at the ceiling. His head was spinning with a million thoughts and questions, nearly all of them circling around Zelo.

“You can come over,” he said when he finally realized he still hadn’t said anything.

“Seunghyun will come along too. And Amber and Henry,” Jiyong warned. Yongguk sighed and ran a hand over his face.

“Whatever,” was all he said before he hung up. He didn’t even move as the phone fell to the floor with a bang. He didn’t look up when his bedroom door opened and Heechul peeked inside.

“You’re awake,” he said when he noticed that Yongguk’s eyes were open, and moved over to sit on the bed.

“Hankyung wanted to bring you to the hospital, but I thought you’d be better off at home,” he said, sighing as he brushed a strand of Yongguk’s hair from his face. “Your friends coming over?”

Yongguk made a noise in the back of his throat that was supposed to be affirmative, but as it turned out, he didn’t need to make the effort; the second after, the doorbell rang. Yongguk assumed Hankyung opened it as he soon could hear rather loud introductions from the hallway — Amber, Henry and Zhou Mi were ecstatic to find out that Hankyung was Chinese too and soon started conversing with him in Mandarin.

Soon after that, Yoseob and Jiyong practically raced into Yongguk’s room, as if they were competing on who’d reach Yongguk first. The only result was tripping over each other’s feet, Jiyong hitting his head in the wall and the two of them reaching Yongguk at the exact same time. Or, well, Yoseob fell across him while Jiyong managed to stop right before he met the same fate.

“How are you feeling?” Yoseob asked once he’d managed to get off Yongguk, sitting next to him. Jiyong took Heechul’s place as he stood up to leave the room.

“Worried,” Yongguk mumbled, closing his eyes briefly as Yoseob’s fingertips ghosted over his face. He remembered that Yoseob had used to do that when they were still a couple and Yongguk was too stressed out for Yoseob’s liking. It still had the same effect and Yongguk felt his muscles relax.

“He’ll come back soon,” Jiyong murmured as he lay down next to Yongguk, breathing in his ear. Faintly, Yongguk heard more of his friends enter his room, talking to each other with low voices, but it wasn’t like he really cared. With Jiyong’s breath in his ear and Yoseob’s fingertips barely touching his skin, he felt himself relax more and more.

“Now sleep. A well-rested person deals better with stuff like this.”

It was so easy to succumb to Jiyong’s words and just sleep. Besides, what he said made sense, so Yongguk did as he was told and slept.

He wasn’t sure how long he slept for, but it must’ve been more than a few hours because he got really dizzy when he tried to sit up. Jiyong was by his side as soon as he realized he was awake.

“How long did I sleep for?” Yongguk asked, trying not to think of why his room felt so empty. In the spot where Zelo’s bed had been was nothing now, only dust. Unless you counted the chair Jiyong was sitting in.

“About six or seven hours, maybe,” he said. “I don’t know, I fell asleep myself.”

Jiyong went into the kitchen and soon came back with some soup Zhou Mi and Hankyung had made, placing it in Yongguk’s waiting hands. The rest of his friends followed Jiyong into Yongguk’s room, but they stayed slightly behind. It was only Yoseob and Jiyong who actually went up to Yongguk, touched him, spoke to him. Yongguk understood that they were scared and worried, but he wished they’d act like they normally did.

“The police is here, Yongguk,” Yoseob softly informed him while massaging his neck and shoulders. “They want to speak to you. I mean, you were the one who knew him the best. We tried to answer their questions, but all of us pretty much… well, failed.”

Yongguk merely nodded. Seunghyun, by now not as overweight as he’d been when Yongguk first met him, went outside the room and soon came back in with two policemen. They asked everyone to go, but Jiyong and Yoseob refused. Yongguk was thankful for it.

He was bombarded with question after question and answered them to the best of his abilities, but halfway through he realized that he did not know Zelo half as well as he’d wished he had — he did not know if the boy had any parents, siblings, what he liked to do, if he was easily fooled… Hell, he didn’t even know exactly how old he was! All he really knew was his silent language, he trusted Yongguk, his favorite cartoons and online games and he’d only just learnt how to read and write properly.

“You say your friend handed him over to you?” one of them asked. Yongguk nodded. “Can you tell me your friend’s name and address, please?”

“Woo Jiho,” Yongguk answered, feeling like a traitor. “He recently moved. He didn’t tell me where. But there’s no way he would’ve hurt Zelo or even taken him away from me. I mean, he gave him to me! He begged me to take care of him and Zelo… Zelo cried when he moved.”

Other than that part, Yongguk remembered none of the questioning the following day.

~~

Had Yongguk not met his second boyfriend, he might have faded away with depression and constant worry. All he seemed to be able to think about was Zelo, Zelo, Zelo even as he went through the motions of each day.

The bully that had once so harshly taunted him about Zelo apologized once the news about the missing, mute blonde came out. He actually went so far as to come up to Yongguk’s table during lunch, loudly announcing to the whole cafeteria that he had something to say and then kneeling on the dirty floor and apologizing.

“Get up,” Yongguk had said. “It’s not your fault that he’s missing.”

Jiyong and Yoseob tried to the best of their abilities to distract him; they pulled him around town to buy him things, played video games with him, asked him to do their homework, dragged him to the amusement park, forced him to read books he never remembered…

But then he bumped into Kim Himchan, quite literally. Yoseob had once more tried to drag Yongguk out to get him to do something, get over it if they were lucky, and Yongguk wasn’t watching where he was going and fell. Luckily for him, someone caught him.

When he looked up to thank his savior, the words died in his throat. He was looking straight into the prettiest pair of eyes he’d seen since… Well, since he’d last seen Zelo. And then he hadn’t appreciated them enough. The usual choking feeling of guilt that usually rose within him at such thoughts was swiped away by a feeling of awe.

“Hey,” the boy said with a grin, “you okay?”

He stood up straight, bringing Yongguk with him in the process. Yongguk could still not stop staring; it was even more difficult when he could see the boy’s whole face. He was so, so… pretty.

“Yes, he’s okay,” Yoseob said when he realized Yongguk was unable to reply. “He just seems a little, um… stunned?”

Later on, when Yongguk realized exactly what Yoseob had said, he would yell at him and say he hated him, but right now he could only concentrate on the boy’s face as he laughed.

“Okay,” he said, grinning widely as he locked eyes with Yongguk. “I’m Kim Himchan.”

“B-Bang Yongguk,” Yongguk replied, cursing his name and stuttering tongue as another little giggle escaped Himchan.

Himchan decided to take Yongguk and Yoseob to his sister’s boyfriend’s café that day, to apologize he said, and then he just stuck around.

However, it was during those two hours spent at the café that they got to know the most about Himchan.

He was as old as Yongguk and Yoseob, he was biual, didn’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend, had an older sister and a younger brother, liked singing and rapping and dyed his hair mostly to rebel against his father.

“Now tell me about you,” Himchan urged. “You looked to sad. Why is that?”

Oh, so Himchan had seen him before he fell? Yongguk blushed and stared at the hands in his lap as he thought of what to say.

“I live with my cousin since I was disowned almost a year ago by my father because I’m homoual. A few months ago, my friend…”

He trailed off. He’d completely forgotten about Zelo while he was with Himchan, but as he tried to speak of him, he felt the worry, depression and, most of all, the suffocating guilt rise in him again.

“H-he came over with a boy. He said his name was Zelo and asked me to take care of him, so I did, but then he… He…”

“He disappeared,” Yoseob filled in as he heard how Yongguk’s voice caught in his throat.

“Wait, I think I heard about this,” Himchan said. “The blonde mute that went missing a while ago?”

Yongguk could only nod. He kept his head down to hide the humiliating tears in his eyes and was quite shocked when he suddenly felt arms encircle him.

“You were quite attached to him, weren’t you?” Himchan murmured in his ear. Yongguk nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Himchan whispered. “I’m sure you’ll find him one day.”

~~

Himchan took to being with Yongguk almost as much as Yoseob and Jiyong and it meant a lot to Yongguk. One reason was that Himchan could actually make him smile, but mostly because he was there. He didn’t have a boyfriend, like Jiyong, and he wasn’t in love, like Yoseob. He was there to a hundred percent for Yongguk.

Especially when the police stopped searching a week after they’d met. He was there to catch Yongguk mid-fall when he heard the news, he was there to wipe his tears when he cried and whisper soft nothings in his ear until he calmed down. He forced him to eat when he had no appetite and forced him to smile when all he really wanted to do was disappear.

Slowly, slowly, Yongguk began to get over the loss of Zelo with Himchan’s help. Himchan was the first one to successfully elicit a laugh from Yongguk for several months, and he did it effortlessly. They were in the cafeteria at school and Yongguk was, as per usual, the first one seated at his table.

Himchan was trying to make his way forward quicker, pushing past people and shouting apologies to them that did not sound sincere at all. The final straw was drawn when he pushed Lee Sungmin himself aside and caused him to fall to the floor.

“What the are you doing, you ing idiot!” Sungmin exclaimed as he dropped all of his food in his lap. Himchan froze in position, halfway through a step, and turned to look at Sungmin, eyebrows raised.

“If you don’t mind, I am, unlike you, trying to be a good friend here,” he said, as if it was crystal clear. The look on Sungmin’s face in response to Himchan’s words was so priceless that Yongguk started laughing.

Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. It didn’t take long before everyone in the cafeteria were looking at him, including the bitter lunch ladies, and it was only partially because of how loud he was laughing; everyone knew Yongguk hadn’t laughed, even a little bit, since Zelo disappeared.

“That’s more like it!” Himchan whooped, breaking the near silence and unintentionally eliciting more laughs.

Yongguk swore even the great Lee Sungmin had a small smile on his lips by the time he finally calmed down, wiping laughter-tears from his cheeks.

~~

Yongguk and Himchan became an official couple a month and a half after they’d met. Some people — like Hankyung, Kyuhyun and Henry — thought it was too soon, but it wasn’t like either of them cared.

“Come on guys,” Yongguk said when he broke the news one night when they were all — including Heechul and Hankyung — gathered at Jiyong’s for dinner.

“Hankyung and Kyuhyun, don’t be such hypocrites. Really gege, how long did it take Heechul to charm you? As for Kyuhyun, I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight. Henry, haven’t you always said that if a person makes you happy, you should be with them?”

Yongguk’s argument was flawless and they all knew it, so no one argued more about their status, but rather started bickering about normal things; who had taken all the sauce, why did Jiyong have a bruise on his collar bone, yes Henry you look like a chipmunk, could Heechul stop being such a ert, since when had Seunghyun become so handsome, where had Zhou Mi bought his shoes, surely Himchan looked like a princess, does it smell like chocolate?!

The last one was Yoseob’s overexcited shriek and it effectively silenced all of them as they stared at him. Then Himchan, Kyuhyun and Jiyong simultaneously sniffed the air, causing everyone to break into a hysteric fit of laughter.

“You must have supernatural senses or something like that,” Seunghyun said when they calmed down, “Jiyong and I did attempt to make a chocolate cake.”

“I’m not sure it’s edible though,” Jiyong added as a warning.

The cake turned out to be very much edible, even if it was a little burned in places, and it disappeared with the speed of lightning.

~~

Yongguk hadn’t thought much of Zelo at all until his fifteenth birthday, when Himchan stayed overnight for the first time along with Jiyong. Heechul and Hankyung had said they’d go out for the night and give the boys some ‘alone time’ — Yongguk’s neck had heated even when he flipped his cousin the finger — but first they helped them set up.

Yongguk and Himchan had been engaged in a tickle fight on Yongguk’s bed when Heechul and Hankyung came down with the extra bed Jiyong would sleep in. Yongguk abruptly froze and stared at it.

“Hey,” Himchan said, touching his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to sleep in that,” Jiyong told Heechul and Hankyung.

“But it’s the only extra bed we have!” Heechul protested. Jiyong just shook his head.

“It’s Zelo’s bed. I’d rather sleep on the floor.”

“Oh,” Himchan said softly as he realized why the bed affected Yongguk like it did. He didn’t say anything about it, just enveloped Yongguk in a hug and refused to let go until he relaxed.

~~

Yongguk also lost his ity to Himchan. There was nothing grand about it really. Himchan had done it once before and volunteered to bottom. Yongguk was too eager and clumsy, but somehow managed not to hurt Himchan too severely.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered once they were both finished, tracing patterns on Himchan’s chest. Himchan gave a soft giggle and turned to look at Yongguk.

“Hey, it’s your first time. You just need some practice. Practice makes perfect, right?” he said, sticking his tongue out at Yongguk. Yongguk shut him up by that tongue into his mouth.

~~

But just like Himchan had said the first day they met, Yongguk did find Zelo one day. It just took longer than he would’ve liked it. Yongguk and Himchan had been together for almost a year — nine months — and Zelo had been missing for a year and two months when they finally re-united.

Himchan, Yongguk, Jiyong, Yoseob and Zhou Mi were out shopping when Yongguk suddenly stopped in his tracks. Had he just seen who he thought he’d seen? His heart was beating crazily in his chest and he didn’t even notice that the others had stopped and started questioning him on what was going on.

“Zelo!” he shouted without a second thought. The boy stopped. Yongguk’s heart skipped a beat. For a moment, he was frozen to the spot before he started running, not even caring that he pushed people to the ground.

Then he was, finally, standing right in front of Zelo. The boy had changed. He was a bit taller now, his hair was black and differently cut, but that was not all that had changed. His eyes no longer spoke and he saw right through Yongguk.

“Zelo…” Yongguk whispered, placing his hands on Zelo’s shoulders. “It’s me, Yongguk. Don’t you remember me?”

So slowly Yongguk was certain several years could’ve passed, Zelo blinked and lifted his gaze so he could look at Yongguk. Then he blinked again. Yongguk felt tears well up in his eyes as Zelo’s eyes stayed silent… And dead.

“Come on, let’s go home,” he murmured.

Zelo didn’t protest when he grabbed his hand in a secure grip and started leading him home.