Kyuhyun wakes up at three in the morning to his vibrating cellphone, and he considers ignoring it, too lazy and still in a state of REM, floating pleasantly in the haze of his vague dreams; he almost falls immediately back to sleep when the phone stops blinking and insistently vibrating, only to be disappointed when, after a few seconds, it starts ringing again.

“What?” He barks into it, voice roughened by sleep and fatigue and his eyes drooping with each second.

“I’m outside your house,” comes Ryeowook’s annoyingly cheery voice from the other line, “walk with me or I’ll tell Siwon-hyung to kick your .”

“You’re crazy,” Kyuhyun grouses, stiffening imperceptibly, and he has to wonder why Ryeowook, of all people, is calling him after their falling out, and, more importantly, why is he still awake and too happy for his own good?

“I’m still waiting,” Ryeowook says, ignoring his last comment, and hangs up.

Kyuhyun stares at his phone warily, then pushes the curtains away to peek outside. Ryeowook notices him from below, and frantically starts jumping up and down, waving. He lets the curtains fall back to cover the window and settles back into the comfort of his bed, fully intent on ignoring him.

After a few moments of tossing and turning (and Ryeowook throwing pebbles at his window), he gets out of bed, puts on more clothes over his shorts, and stomps down the stairs, cursing Ryeowook to hell and back.

He finds Ryeowook sitting on the steps of his front porch, hands rubbing against each other to retain some warmth and cheeks flushed from the cold. Kyuhyun tries to look irritated, he really does, but when Ryeowook stands up and gives him an awkward, one-armed hug, he can’t stay angry for long.

“Sorry for waking you,” Ryeowook bows his head slightly, and Kyuhyun waves him off.

“It’s a little too late for that,” he mutters, and scuffs the heel of his shoe on the ground, pointedly not looking at Ryeowook’s hand, the one he wants to take into his palm and hold on to for the rest of the morning.

They walk together in silence, not because they can’t find the right words, or even because they’re too cold and drowsy to attempt making conversation. No, it’s more like they can’t find anything they want to say, because talking is overrated, just saying words and combining phrases, hoping against hope that the other understands exactly what you mean.

Kyuhyun measures his words with formulaic methods, calculates when to say I like you, when it’s proper to move on to I love you without knowing the depth of it, or how the other understands it. I need you is a function of I want you, or it’s the other way around, and no and I’m sorry and it was not my intention do not necessarily add up to the same thing in the end. There’s no linear, correct solution, either way.

He barely registers his surroundings, his body following Ryeowook’s steps as if automatically, and he almost stumbles when Ryeowook’s hand darts out to still him.

They’re standing in front of the chain-linked fence of the school, and Kyuhyun throws a bewildered glance at Ryeowook, who presses a hand to his lips and starts to climb over the fence with practiced ease. Kyuhyun stares at him, hesitant, at first, but follows anyway with some difficulty.

Ryeowook leads him to the indoor pool, fishing out the keys he probably stole from Siwon (or Siwon gave him voluntarily) and technically, Kyuhyun rationalizes, this isn’t breaking in or anything if they own the keys, right?

(Wrong.)

Ryeowook s around for the light switch, and Kyuhyun winces as the lights turn on, blinding him with white for a few seconds.

“Hey,” Kyuhyun ventures to say, “what are you doing?”

Ryeowook steps out of his shoes, pulling his pants down and his shirt up over his head, and Kyuhyun, on reflex, stares, only to remember that Ryeowook deserves more privacy, however feigned it is, than this. He looks at his feet, grudgingly. He counts until a minute passes, and looks up just in time to see Ryeowook pull on his goggles, grinning toothily at him.

“Watch,” he replies, facing the pool, and jumps.