henry;

Nobody tells him to come to the funeral, but Sungmin goes uninvited, and some people talk behind him, who is this boy, I've heard that he's-- oh, let's not, not here. He doesn't really know if he should care what he hears. Words are not stones after all, but glances cut through him like a thin piece of paper would to the skin, swift and sharply, no gentleness intended, at least not as far as Sungmin can tell. He breathes in slowly, not really feels like letting it out though, and falls on his knees in front of the white coffin.

Sungmin doesn't lift his gaze. Simply stares at the freshly polished wood and wonders if there was any need to doll up this entire thing more than they already did. Every thing from the expensive roses to the red carpet on the floor to the sweet perfume on the neck of some ladies is so obnoxious that Sungmin frowns, lets his face darken a little. Sooyoung's never liked roses, damn it. Thinking about it makes him angrier than he should be given the circumstances. But they're her parents. They should have know. They should have.

He lowers his head when he's about to get up, doesn't eye the beautiful corpse sleeping in the wooden box yet. Not entirely at least. Just catches a glimpse of the shyness and the sick paleness of her skin, the wound on her cheek and the bandage covering her head. 

Her hands look alive though. Like they wait for a certain person to touch them, pull them and pinch the flesh and kiss the lines and whisper nice words against them, so Sungmin does that, but in a more subtle way. Slips his hand underneath her own. Warms it a bit because the coldness is harsh this time of the year. 

Why don't you get up, Sooyoung-ah? Get up and let me take you to Paris, let me show you the towers and the russian dolls, let me...

Kyuhyun, who stands next to him, black shirt closed up to the neck, stiffens a bit when Sungmin bumps into him by mistake. He looks sad the moment Sungmin turns around to squeeze his hand, and there's something completely bitter and utterly painful in the way tears shine in the back of his eyes, but Kyuhyun lets out nothing. He's cold, and blue, and, without reaching out for Sungmin when he walks past him to get out of this place, Sungmin knows inside his soul that this is the best thing Kyuhyun has ever done in all his life. The normal thing mature people choose. He took the right decision this time.

To not stop Sungmin when he walks away this time around.

Sungmin has noticed when they've talked, days before, when Sooyoung was still in coma and the rain drops were hitting against a window pane somewhere in London, that they weren't like before. Something broke. Autumn came too fast. Something whithered and disappeared without any of them knowing, and Sungmin has decided to let the rope slide through his fingers, because there was no force left to keep it and it started burning.

"I'll go after the funeral."

Go where, why, what will you do, Kyuhyun was screaming back, desperately holding onto the thing strand of hope, but there was none. Just water and some sand in their shoes.

It was Kyuhyun's lips he was kissing. Kyuhyun's skin he was breathing against, but when he pulled away to see him better he realized that he didn't know that person. They weren't friends. They didn't have a childhood together. Kyuhyun wasn't Hyukjae or Donghae or Sooyoung, but just guilt and freedom and imaginary space between two mouths eager for each other.

Some call it past. It hurts Sungmin to call it like that, so he just names it nothing and throws it in the garbage can like an used bottle of soda.

He walks out the church few minutes after the rain stops pouring.

The wind is still cold, but the sun makes its way through the clouds slowly, and Sungmin looks back one more time to see Kyuhyun bowing politely in front of Sooyoung's father. Kyuhyun with his hands shaking, asking for forgiveness. Trying to integrate in some place where he doesn't belong to, fitting into a circle though he's a square and things don't make sense, but maybe with a little will and a some sleepless years Kyuhyun will strive, because deep in his heart he has always been a fighter. Good or bad, white or black, Kyuhyun has always been a winner

It's Hyukjae the one picking him up and driving him back home, on the longer route, just to see the town one more time.

It's Hyukjae the one helping him pack up his clothes and giving him some warm food his mother made earlier because I don't want you to collapse , and then showering him with nice words because that's the way Hyukjae works, and Sungmin gulps in a cry because maybe they haven't spent enough time together.

"Where are you going anyway?"

"Somewhere warm," Sungmin tells him, keeping himself busy with the twist of the door knob while Hyukjae struggles tying his shoe laces. 

"Well then," Hyukjae says, "call me when you get there."

They part after a hug that lasts less than Sungmin has wanted it to.

" Hey, Hyukjae!"

"What?"

"Take care."

His smile is reflexive.

*

Tokyo looks older than he remembers it to be. The buildings are young though, freshly painted, with nice lights beaming through the windows when days roll into nights, and for some reason Sungmin thinks of Kyuhyun. The shy smile plastered on his face. The hand hold and the eye glare and the flex of his fingers, the smell of rain and dust on his skin. And he thinks of calling him for a moment or so, but then he remembers that they don't really have something to talk about, just trivial things that happened between greedy people, and he's drifted away into his own thoughts until some random guy at the end of the alley throws him one of the most beautiful smiles Sungmin has ever seen in all his life. And Sungmin smiles back.

Few days later, he finds himself a place to stay because of some nice lady Hyukjae knows. The place is nothing big nor pompous, it looks rather swollen with the sick color of yellow all over its walls, making Sungmin uncomfortable and out of place though that sensation has been crawling onto his back since minute one, but Sungmin is thankful. 

The lights of the city blind him, but he manages to blink them away. After a while, Tokyo doesn't feel that much of a burden, pushing its leftovers into Sungmin's soul, waiting for him to fight back, strong and confident, though Sungmin has never been that type; after a while actually, what Tokyo feels like is home. Sungmin learns, as time passes, the little secrets of the big city; where the good restaurants are, the best bars in town and the nicest people, the neighborhood where every lady owns at least two cats.

Sungmin takes things easy this time around.

Promises he won't fall in love ever again because love hurts and makes him sad and unprofessional,  but he guesses that it was the blush of his cheeks that caught that guy's attention last week when he went to a so called interview for a job in a small library at the romantic side of Tokyo, and he was hired immediately.

"You can start from today if you want to."

"I have some problems with the language though," Sungmin has told him, nervously rubbing a finger against the palm of his hand because he's seen this look before and it brought him no good.

The stranger's arm flew in the air for a second or so, and then a smile filled up his sight. "You don't have to talk. That's why we have the american kid here, to help you with it."

The american kid, as the stranger has named him, was a tall boy around twenty with chubby cheeks and pink lips and eyes brighter than the sun, running from here to there and smiling at the name of Henry. Sungmin has recognized him immediately; the glow in his eyes, the weak grip of hand at the prospect of finding someone like him.

" Things are easier than they look," Henry tells him one day when Sungmin asks him to come over to his place to watch a movie together.

"Maybe. But starting all over is hard, you know?"

Henry stares at him for a bit. Looks like he doesn't really know what to say, but Sungmin raises his lips up to assure him that there's no need for a piece of advice now. 

For now they're good. Being a little sad is okay, too.

*

Sometimes,when Henry leaves the city, Sungmin feels alone without knowing why. Henry hasn't been there enough for Sungmin to feel his absence, but he does.

Usually, every two days, Henry calls.

"Bought you this nice fridge magnet from Kyoto", he says," I bet you'll like it."

"Yeah, well, fridge magnets are my favorite thing so..."

Henry laughs through the phone. "You don't have to be so bitter."

"You'd be, if you were in my place. You left, and then the boss decided he should leave, too, and so I'm staying here between a mountain of books and..."

A sigh. The strange noise at the other end lets Sungmin know that Henry's having a good time, probably making fun of him while eating noodles or something like that, so he remains silent for a while. Listens to Henry's soothing breath through the phone because lately that's been the only thing to make him calm and dizzy at the same time. He lays on the floor of the library, just behind the desk, and puts the phone on loudspeaker.

"Henry?"

He imagines him at the gate of a temple somewhere too far from him, but close to God, skinny chopsticks in his hand, having a hard time talking on the phone while struggling with a box of warm noodles.

"Yeah..."

"Come back quickly."

A moment of silence and then, "But I want you to miss me, hyung."

The tone of Henry's voice is half-amused.

*

The sound of Henry's violin is probably the most beautiful thing there is.

He tells him that one day, and Henry smiles.

They're cuddled under a blanket, staring out the window the the snow drops falling from the sky when Henry shifts all of a sudden and puts his arm behind Sungmin's back.

"I think you're the most beautiful thing there is, hyung."

It takes all of Sungmin to stop himself from leaning forward and kiss Henry on his mouth.

*

Sungmin wakes up the next morning to an empty bed and cold sheets.

There's a pink note on the coffee table, ugly writing and mispelled words, and Sungmin guesses it's Henry's, judging by the weird angles and the small doodle in the left corner.

I made some coffee, but I didn't dare to wake you up because you were sleeping so nice. Oh, you'll find some chocolate doughnuts on the table in the kitchen. I only had money for three. Wake up! Come on, wake up!

Maybe he should have kissed Henry last night.

*

If anything, Sungmin has never wanted to see Henry drunk and beaten up, shirt barely hanging on his shoulders.

"He wanted to touch you, hyung. I saw him, I--" Henry yells, trying to stop those tears from falling because, damn it, that's not the right moment for weeping, but they fall nonetheless and all can Henry do is watch the way the wrinkles on his forehead reflect into Sungmin's dark brown eyes.

There are spots of blood all over his shirt, and traces of mud and smell of alcohol, something Sungmin doesn't exactly tolerate, but helps Henry walk to his room and takes off the dirty clothes because the wounds may get infected. They look at each other for a while, and Henry tries covering his eyes because the look of shame on Sungmin's face makes him feel bad, but Sungmin slaps it away.

"If you do this one more time, I swear I'm heading back to Seoul without thinking twice."

So Henry nods, tries taking Sungmin's hand and bring it to his mouth, except Sungmin doesn't let him. Things don't work this way. Henry wasn't supposed to act like that just because some guy looked at him in a way he found weird.

Henry has no right to get into Sungmin's life just like that. Henry has no right to make Sungmin hate him, just like he has no right to make Sungmin love him.

That night, Sungmin stares at the way Henry's chest moves slowly, up and down, and watches with dizzy eyes the bit of the lip and the anticipation caught in Henry's small eyes.

"You don't want to do this."

"But you want me to," Henry says back, pushing himself against Sungmin so hard that the wounds start bleeding again.

*

They make love on the tiles of the bathroom because for some reason that's Sungmin's favorite place, and everything is just perfect. The perfect amount of light. The perfect amount of heat. The perfect pressure pushing on his ribs until Sungmin clasps his thighs hard around Henry's back and whispers a name that he was sure he has forgotten a long time ago. 

Kyuhyun

For a second, every single thing stops from moving. There's nothing more. No more heat, no more light, no more breathing either. And Sungmin  swears he can feel Henry trying to hold back a cry, except then it's when Henry pushes inside him one more time, fast and harsh, and the white noise filling up his head stops him from thinking coherently. All he can do in those moments is to scratch Henry's back and mark him as his in the hope of not being left behind, because being left behind hurts and he's afraid of loneliness.

But Henry isn't able to hurt Sungmin. Henry is a bit too kind. Too sweet around his edges. Acts like he's never heard that name and things go back to normal, even if normalcy is just an illusion and Sungmin can still hear Henry's scream lost in the sound of water pouring.

Nothing is really the same after that. 

That afternoon, Sungmin hides himself under the sheets while Henry goes out on the balcony and leans his head against the iron bars; the day winter melts into spring, Henry takes his violin and runs away from Sungmin's life like he's never even been there. Six months later, Sungmin pays the last rent, packs up his things, hiding one of the shirts he's stolen from Henry under some of his old blouses, and takes the first plane to Seoul.