And it was clear that Jiyong would be the one to go to Japan with him, and so he did.

Everybody thought the trip would be cancelled, and everybody was busy comforting the girl, so nobody noticed Seunghyun and Jiyong had been gone for nearly a year. They were in Japan, and they stayed, because there was nobody there who knew them, and they had no obligations, and they could figure each other and there relationship out, and they had rented a small apartment, where they could barely live together after the planned two weeks’ vacation had ended. And they actually had it very good in the cozy apartment, and Jiyong had money from when his aunt had died, because she had no kids and she liked him very much, so she gave it all to him. On the nice and warm days, they would go to a park and eat ice-cream and have a great time, but on the dark days, Jiyong would get all gloomy and sad, and he preferred avoiding all human interaction on those days. So Seunghyun would go to the grocery store, and he wouldn't talk much. He would just hold Jiyong, or look at him, or make him food or sing him songs Jiyong had written himself. Seunghyun didn't know why Jiyong was the way he was on those days, but he sort of thought he looked beautiful when he was all in his own world, so he just let it be. And then there were the days where they'd just have to look at one another, and they'd pull each other towards their small bedroom already. Sometimes, they didn't even reach it, so they ended up doing it on the couch, or when the couch was occupied by their big fluffy cat, on the floor and this one time even on the big wooden table in the kitchen.

When the winter came, Jiyong wanted to go out almost every day. He'd pull Seunghyun in to the snow, pushing him over or throwing snow on him. Jiyong loved the winter, he loved the snow, he loved how everything was white, and he loved the way Seunghyun would look at him when he was playing around in the snow.

When they came back to Seoul, a little less than a month before Seunghyun's 26th birthday, they went to Jiyong's apartment, or at least what used to be his apartment. A friend of Jiyong had occupied it all those months, and when Jiyong and Seunghyun came back from Japan, he decided the time was right to move in with his girlfriend, mostly because he didn't really have a place to stay.

The two (three actually, their big fluffy cat was there too) were quickly used to being in the small apartment all together, and they all found their ways to live around and with each other. Seunghyun had added some colour to the dark and simple interior, because he felt like Jiyong had more bad days here than he had back in Japan, and he decided that it was because of all the darkness around them. But when Jiyong's bad days would just get worse than they were before, he decided they shouldn't stay there anymore. They had quite some money, Seunghyun was a pretty talented graphic designer and Jiyong was a songwriter, and when he felt like it a singer, so he went looking for a new apartment. He found something, a bit bigger than what they had now (with two spare rooms, which meant they'd both have a room to work), above one of Jiyong's favourite stores in the centre of Seoul. When Jiyong got home from the small coffee shop nearby he would occasionally go, to write or just to get out for a while, Seunghyun told him about the thing he had seen. Jiyong liked it, at least he said so, and he said that it would do him good to get out of this place, so Seunghyun asked why he thought so. Jiyong explained that this place reminded him of everything he didn't want to be reminded of. His parents, his ex-boyfriend, his ex-girlfriend, whom he had bought the place with, the cat he had had before they got the white fluffy one (for some reason, it didn't have a name), and more of that. And on some days, that would make him sad, so Seunghyun was happy he could finally change that.

They bought new furniture for the new apartment, a bit more colourful this time. There was a big red-ish couch with black cushions, put against a black wall. A small white coffee table, a big blue table in the kitchen, which was mostly black and white. They had a big white bed with dark blue sheets, a very big white closet for all of their clothes (which they had a lot, both of them) and one of the walls was a blue-greenish colour, and it all was really nice. Seunghyun's workroom was full of old toys, a big black desk and a comfy red chair. In Jiyong's, there was a very big white table and a blue chair, and all the walls were black. Seunghyun had filled their new home with paintings, and Jiyong made sure there were a lot of small lamps, preferably blue or black. All in all, it looked really nice, but against Seunghyun's expectations, Jiyong didn't really get a lot better. He kind of started doubting their relationship at one point, but those doubts didn't last long. He knew he wouldn't survive without the guy by his side and he knew everything would be alright.

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