As Taekwoon pushes Hongbin away from their encounter with Wonshik and Hakyeon, Hongbin leans his head back, staring at the underside of Taekwoon's chin. "Taekwoon," he says gently. Taekwoon hums a response. "You're a real heartbreaker, you know that, right?"

Taekwoon furrows his eyebrows. "What do you mean by that?"

Hongbin fidgets with the polaroid of Wonshik and Hakyeon in his hands. "You're gorgeous, mysterious and stubborn." Hongbin turns his eyes to the photo and drags a thumbnail contemplatively along the curve of Wonshik's face. "You broke his heart, you know."

Taekwoon and Hongbin reach a park bench, and Taekwoon puts the brakes on Hongbin's chair before plopping down on the bench. He continues to keep his hands on Hongbin's wheelchair, now gripping the armrest. Taekwoon heaves a heavy sigh. "I know." He hangs his head, a million thoughts weighing it down. Hongbin puts a hand over Taekwoon's, silently comforting him. A light breeze picks up while they sit, ruffling their hair and sending a chill through their bones.

Taekwoon regrets it all. He shouldn't have led poor Wonshik on like that. But he was lonely, and desperate, and Wonshik was so easy and comfortable. He didn't expect to fall in love again so quickly. It had taken him by surprise, his sudden infatuation with Wonshik, and turned over all that he felt, forcing him to question it all; whether he loved Wonshik or Hongbin more, and if it was even the same kind of love. But he chose Hongbin in the end. Wonshik… he could heal. They had made less memories together.

Taekwoon breathes deeply, straightening up. "Let's take you home," he murmurs, standing up and reaching to release the brakes on Hongbin's wheelchair. Hongbin brushes him away.

"You don't have to do everything for me," Hongbin says, lifting the brakes and taking hold of his wheels, pushing himself forward without a glance at Taekwoon. "I've been doing this for a while."

Taekwoon walks along beside, chin tucked into his chest, watching his feet. He tries to recall a melody that had come to him the day before, but it seems to escape him, only appearing in bits and pieces. After a while, Hongbin and Taekwoon arrive at the parking lot and Taekwoon rummages in his pocket for his keys.

The new car key is bulky on his Taekwoon's key ring—it's one of those combination remote and key for hybrid cars, and Taekwoon sighs as he punches the unlock button. Ahead of them, Taekwoon's sleek new dark blue suburban flashes its lights as the locks click open. It was a gift from Taekwoon's parents; they insisted on giving it to him when they found out he'd taken his little red Fiat to the scrap yard and was therefore carless. When his parents asked him what kind of car he wanted and Taekwoon replied that he wanted suburban big enough to transport a wheelchair, their eyebrows had shot up. It seemed very unlike Taekwoon to them.

Hongbin pushes himself around to the passenger side door and Taekwoon follows, opening the door for him and holding onto his wheelchair as Hongbin reaches down to flip his foot rests out of the way after setting his cameras on the floor of the car. He reaches up to grip the doorframe, and slowly, Hongbin hoists himself out of his wheelchair, moves one hand to grip the handle on the inside of the door, and with some exertion, pulls himself into the passenger seat.

Taekwoon waits until Hongbin is settled to shut the door and push the empty wheelchair around to the back. He opens the hatch of his SUV, and deftly folds the wheelchair before putting it inside. Taekwoon slams the hatch shut as he strides to the driver's side and gets in. He puts the key ring in his hand in the cup holder and punches the power button beside the steering wheel—no need to put the key in the ignition in this fancy new car.

They both remain quiet as Taekwoon pulls out of the parking lot and sets in the direction of Hongbin's grandparents' home. The drive goes quickly despite the thick silence, and soon Taekwoon is helping Hongbin back into his wheelchair and pushing him up the new ramp in the front of Hongbin's house.

"Why don't you come in for a bit?" Hongbin asks as he reaches for the doorknob.

Taekwoon glances nervously at Hongbin. He hasn't stepped inside Hongbin's house for so long and he's not entirely sure he'd feel welcome. Not with Hongbin's grandfather around. "Are you sure?"

"Of course," Hongbin says, pushing the door open.

"But your grandfather… he doesn't like me," Taekwoon whispers as Hongbin wheels into the familiar front hall.

Hongbin stops and looks over his shoulder. "Taekwoon, my granddad's dead."

Taekwoon's gut flips. "Oh," he breathes. "I'm so sorry."

Hongbin turns around and shrugs, but Taekwoon can tell he's still upset. "He passed away like a month after the accident—I think it was hard on him to suddenly have not just a gay grandson, but one that also can't walk." Hongbin shoulders off his jacket and hangs it on a low hook next to the short cabinet in the front hallway. There's a shadow of self-blame in Hongbin's voice, and it tugs painfully at Taekwoon's heart along with his own guilt. "Grandma, Taekwoon is here," Hongbin calls out as Taekwoon shuts the door and toes off his shoes and shucks off his parka.

"Oh!" Hongbin's grandmother's voice comes from deep within the house—if Taekwoon remembers correctly, her voice is coming from the kitchen. There's the sound of a cup being set down on the counter, and Taekwoon assumes his guess was right. He follows Hongbin into the living room, and Grandmother pokes her head out of the adjoining kitchen, breaking into her easy and warm smile. "Taekwoon," she sighs.

"Hi," Taekwoon mumbles, looking down at his feet and the worn carpet beneath them. "I'm sorry to hear about Grandfather. I had no idea." Behind him, Grandfather's usual armchair sits empty, and Taekwoon senses Grandmother's eyes traveling to rest on it.

Grandmother's smile turns sad. "How could you have known? It's alright though—he went peacefully." She steps out into the living room proper. "But how have you been, Taekwoon? Hongbin talked about you constantly after the accident."

Taekwoon glances at Hongbin, who looks away with rosy cheeks. "Gran," Hongbin mutters, flustered.

"I've been alright," Taekwoon says, looking back at his feet. "It's been a crazy few months." He heaves a sigh.

Taekwoon looks up from the floor when he feels Grandmother's arms fold around him. "It's probably better that my husband has passed away, you know," she murmurs. "He hated that Hongbin loves you, and that was something he and I could never see eye to eye on." She gives a light squeeze, and Taekwoon relaxes slightly. "Welcome back to the family." Grandmother pulls away and pats Taekwoon's shoulders, still smiling warmly.

"Thank you," Taekwoon breathes, an ultimate sense of relief washing over him. All these months he was afraid to return suddenly didn't seem so significant at that moment, like it was all worth the wait.

"Now, would you boys like something to drink? Tea? Hot chocolate?" Grandmother asks as she shuffles back into the kitchen.

"No thanks," Hongbin chirps, and Taekwoon shakes his head. "We're gonna go hang out in my room," Hongbin announces, and wheels himself out of the living room and down the main hall to the last door on the left. Taekwoon trails behind, looking once again at all the familiar walls and the familiar photographs on them, memories swirling in his mind. Hongbin pushes open his bedroom door and rolls inside, beckoning for Taekwoon to follow.

Taekwoon steps into the bedroom and pulls the door almost shut behind himself, and when he looks up, his eyes widen. Covering the walls are hundreds of photographs of him and he with Hongbin. The breath rushes out of Taekwoon's lungs. "There's so many…"

Hongbin turns a little red. "I never stopped hoping you'd come back," he admits as Taekwoon plops down on the unmade twin-size bed, marveling at all the stills. Hongbin pushes himself to his desk to retrieve a push pin and a permanent marker, then pushes himself to an empty spot on the wall opposite the door. He tacks up the polaroid photograph of Wonshik and Hakyeon and scribbles their names and the date on the wide white strip at the bottom of the frame. "There," he mutters.

Taekwoon pulls his legs up onto the bed and folds into a cross-legged position, still looking at all the pictures. He spies the first picture he and Hongbin ever took together and sighs happily. "It seems so long ago," he says. The fuzzy polaroid looks back at him—Hongbin's face was half in the frame and out of focus, and Taekwoon was glaring into the camera lens with mouth full of food. His expression is nearly the same in every photograph, Taekwoon notices. Dark, scowling eyes and a downturned mouth. In the rare photographs where Hongbin caught him smiling, Taekwoon was either lunging for the camera or half in the act of hiding his face.

"You know," Hongbin pipes up, his own eyes glossing over the hundreds of photos on his walls. "I was always afraid I'd forget you. And after the accident, my memory got a little worse so I took out every photo of you and us so I wouldn't completely forget, in the case that you wouldn't come back."

"Hongbin…" Taekwoon murmurs.

Hongbin gives Taekwoon an easy smile, and slowly, Taekwoon mirrors it. "Thank you for coming back," Hongbin says, turning his smile down to his hands in his lap. "And I'm sorry for making us like this."

"Don't apologize, your voice isn't pretty when you apologize," Taekwoon blurts.

Hongbin sighs a laugh, then whips his head up. "Oh!" he gasps. "I wanted to tell you, something really exciting happened last fall." Hongbin's eyes light up, and Taekwoon could sigh delightedly at their familiar, inspiring brightness. Hongbin does a tight turn in his wheel chair and coasts over to his desk, where he rummages around in a big stack of papers and pulls out a hefty magazine. He puts it on his lap and scoots back to Taekwoon. "I got one of my photo series into a magazine," he says, his words tumbling over each other. He hands the magazine to Taekwoon.

It's a bi-annual magazine published by the visual arts department at their university—the pages are heavy and glossy. Taekwoon glances over the cover, and spies at the bottom corner, next to a page number: "From My Perspective: a Photo Series by Lee Hongbin". Quickly, Taekwoon flips to the page and lays the magazine open on his lap. There on the first page is an artistic photograph of Hongbin, hands in his lap, looking out a window, wheel chair and all. There's a small biography of Hongbin and a summary of his work in photography, and another small blurb written by Hongbin about the meaning of his series. The series focuses on Hongbin's paralysis—as Taekwoon flips through, he sees that all the photographs are taken from Hongbin's eyelevel. Photographs of people's waists, photographs of door handles. A photograph of Hongbin's old racing bike. A photograph of Hongbin's bedroom, polaroids and all. A photograph of a car with the driver's side door wide open.

"I'm really proud of it," Hongbin interjects as Taekwoon lingers on the picture of the car. "The editors said they could really feel the emotion in my compositions."

"Yeah…" Taekwoon agrees. He lets his fingers trail down the page's glossy surface.