It’s pitch black

 

 

 

          You run.

          You run as fast as your small legs will carry you, sneakers padding over the grass and hands tugging the string as you watch the kite fly higher and higher into sky—carried by the same wind that’s whipping through your hair, whipping your hair into your eyes until you almost can’t see and you kind of suppose that maybe Umma is right and you need a haircut. While you’re running, you hear Appa shouting and laughing behind you as you almost trip.

          But you just keep running, watching the kite soar in the sunlight until the wind dies down and then you watch it fall to the ground. You stare at it for a moment, disappointed and frowning that it had to end just when you’d managed to get it up and flying so high and well.

          “It stopped,” you say, frowning, as Appa jogs up to you and helps you roll it up. You don’t want to go back inside so soon because this is the only windy day that’s happened since you and Appa and Umma came out here to the vacation home. You like the countryside and you don’t get to come here often, so you want more time outside instead of at dinner with the people Appa works with.

          He grins down at you, ruffles your hair, pats your back. “There’s no more wind, Junhyung-ah,” he says. “I guess we just didn’t pick a good weekend to come out here.”

          “Can’t I stay out more?” you ask. “You and Umma can go to dinner without me.”

          He blinks for a moment and smiles sadly. “I’m sorry, kiddo. There’s no one to watch you.” Your frown deepens so Appa kneels then, suddenly, his face level with yours and he holds you by the shoulders. “But if we get through dinner fast and you go to bed early, we might be able to catch some wind in the morning before we have to leave? How ‘bout that?”

          That makes you smile and your arms wrap around Appa’s neck just as his arms wrap around your body. You let go of each other at the same time, and he shouts for a race and before you know it, you’re running and running again, but when you get too tired—when it seems like the resort is too far, Appa catches you in his arms, puts you on his shoulders and runs you the rest of the way there.

 

 

 

The world is moving too fast

 

 

 

          Your drive has barely opened your door before you’re sprinting out of the car and running across the yard because you have to show her—you have to show her right away and nothing else can come before it. So you run—you run and run—and you’re glad that your dad isn’t home from work yet because if he was, he’d probably be in the study and you’d probably knock him off his feet trying to move him out of the way so you can find her.

          She’s in the living room, luckily, looking through a magazine for furniture when you get to her and the moment you do, you throw yourself into her lap and her arms go around you, surprised. “Did something happen?” Umma asks, and you grin—you grin a grin that stretches all across your face and your tongue flicks in the gap that your two front teeth have left as you get ready to show her and tell her.

          You whip out a piece of paper—a test that your class got back today—and shove it into her hands excitedly. She looks at you curiously, almost amused, and then down to the piece of paper in her hands—slightly crumpled because you’ve been holding it the entire ride home instead of putting it in your backpack.

          “Sweetheart, this is amazing,” she says and she takes you up into a breathtaking hug that you smile into. You rest your cheek against her shoulder, even though her hair itches your nose, and it’s worth all those nights of staying inside instead of playing out in the yard to get this grade to see Umma wear that kind of smile on her face.

          You can’t wait until Appa sees it tonight too.

 

 

 

I have a limp in both legs

 

 

 

          You grab onto the back of his shirt, and he whirls around, surprised and with his eyebrows going up. He’s stopped running now, so you can stop running after him even though you’re the one who asked for a race in the first place when you think maybe it would’ve been a better idea to go swimming since it’s gotten so hot outside. You don’t let go of his shirt until he walks back, covering the distance between you two and you think it’s not fair because he’s older and taller so his legs are longer than yours.

          “You’re the one who wanted to fly it,” he says, and pokes your stomach with the pointy end of the kite.

          “You’re the one who took us to this hill,” you shoot back because the hill is humongous and you aren’t even halfway up yet. “It’s just as windy if we stayed down, hyung.”

          He laughs. “Come on,” he says, and takes your hand, fingers looping lightly around your wrist and you freeze for just a split second—barely long enough to be noticeable—but just for a moment because you feel something warm flutter up your arm from where he’s touched you.

 

 

 

The path I must walk is endless

 

 

 

          It’s confusing.

          You’re confused and you’re scared.

          It was supposed to be something fun—something that all of your friends at school, your classmates, were laughing and roughhousing about. It was supposed to make it so that you knew a little bit more of what they made such a big deal about. It’s because you know that’s how it’s supposed to be—that you’re supposed to think girls are hot. You’re supposed to get excited when the older boys at school sneak into your classrooms and show you those secret magazines and DVDs that they bought.

          But this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

          You’re supposed to bring home that magazine and lock yourself in your room. You’re supposed to page through it and feel your face getting warmer and warmer (feel your body getting warmer and warmer) when your eyes graze down soft curves and pale skin and slender hands reaching down into thin, silk . You’re supposed to know exactly how all that feels like the same way the sunbaes at your school always describe it. That’s how it’s supposed to feel.

          You’re not supposed to throw the magazine away, frustrated that you aren’t getting hot—that you don’t feel anything, that you have no idea what your sunbaes are getting at because nothing is happening when you look at these girls. You’re not supposed to come across a sports magazine left on the rack in the downstairs bathroom while you’re excused from your father’s company dinner party. You’re not supposed to find your eyes wandering up and down the cover page—a champion swimmer for this issue—you’re not supposed to follow the trail of the rivulets of water up and down his arm muscles, his abs, his stomach, down and down and—

          And you’re definitely—definitely—

          You’re definitely—certainly—surely—absolutely—you’re not supposed to find yourself staring down at your hand, coated in liquid white, fingers sticky and warm.

 

 

 

What will there be at the end of this road?

 

 

          It’s because you’ve known him ever since you were both little boys who couldn’t even make it up an entire hill to fly a kite. It’s because he’s always been the one to take your hand and see you up there even though you whine about being too tired because he’ll always know that you just need someone to push you up—and once you’re flying the kite, you’ll forget all of your complaints, and he knows that so he always pulls you up.

          It’s because you’ve known him since forever, and that’s why you trust him. That’s why you trust him, as you kiss his full lips and your hand into the front of his uniform pants—that’s why you trust him not to tell anyone about this thing that you two have. This thing that’s you and him both know has to be kept behind locked bedrooms and in the stalls of the school bathroom and the school locker rooms—in empty classrooms and behind bushes behind the school.

          But you trust him because you know he loves you (he loves you—he loves you—he has to love you) and you love him, and that’s all that matters. As long as you know, and as long as he knows, no one else has to. No one else has to know, so you catch Seungho’s moan into your own mouth as he comes right into your hand.

 

 

 

Do you know about it when you go?

 

 

 

          Or maybe not.

          Maybe you can’t trust him after all.

          And that’s all that flies through your mind while you and Seungho are on opposite sides of an empty classroom—long past the time you two are supposed to have left school. That’s all that you can think about as you feel your face contort with hurt, with disbelief, with pain, with fear because you can’t believe he would do that. You trusted him—you trusted him, and even though a part of you (a huge part of you) knows that Seungho has every right, you still didn’t want him to do it.

          “I just told them about me, Junhyung-ah,” Seungho says in a quiet voice, but his eyes are just as angry as yours. You know it’s because he thinks that this was the right thing to do—but you think it’s selfish. You think it was selfish, selfish, selfish and right now (no matter how much you love him) you hate him.

          “And what if they figure out? They’re not stupid—we hang out too much for them not to figure it out even if you just tell them about you,” you say in a louder voice because there’s no one at school at this hour and you’re furious (you’re terrified). “Why would you even do it anyway?” you ask, you demand, because you can’t understand Seungho. “They’re your parents—why would you tell them?”

          Seungho looks at you. “They’re my parents,” he echoes emptily. “Shouldn’t I tell them?”

          You don’t understand—you can’t understand (you won’t understand).

          “Don’t they hate you?” you whisper.

          He shakes his head. “It’ll take time,” he whispers back, suddenly sounding unsure for the first time since both of you have been in this classroom tonight. “But I think it’ll be okay—I think they’ll be okay with it.”

          You’re so scared.

          You’re ing scared.

          “Even if they hated me,” Seungho says, looking up at you again, “it’s better that they hate their real son than if they loved their imaginary one.”

 

 

 

Will I know the answer

 

 

 

          You wanted to tell them.

          You did.

          You did, you did, you did, you did.

          You wanted to tell them so badly—you wanted to tell them just like Seungho told his, and you were going to, you really were—you really, really, really were. You wanted to tell them, and you were going to tell them, but—

          You overheard them.

          You overhear, one night, Appa and Umma talking about sending you off—early to the military or away to boarding school or abroad to America or off to live with company-mates in Japan or just—away. They talk about sending you away, and you don’t know why—you can’t think of anything you’ve done wrong (that they know about at least) in the past few months, in past few anything-at-all, so you stand there and listen because you want to know why.

          And then you hear.

          You hear Seungho and terrible and such a nice boy and nice parents too and how could he have turned out like that and Junhyungie must be crushed and it’s probably better for both boys and might influence him and it’ll be good for Junhyungie to get away from this and—and—and—and—and—and—

         

 

 

If I’m just led with closed eyes?

 

 

 

          Seungho breaks up with you.

 

 

 

I’ve never had an answer for this question

 

 

 

          It hurts at first.

          It hurts and hurts and hurts and hurts, but after a while—after Seungho graduates and you never have to see him again—you force yourself to get over it. You dull the hurt because you find others like him. It’s too risky to look at school, so you start going out to the dangerous districts, to sketchy clubs—you start to look elsewhere and sometimes you find what you need. Sometimes you find someone who wants something simple and fast and hard and good, and that’s fine for the night.

          But sometimes you want someone who wants something warm and kind and slow and gentle—someone who wants you—someone who says Junhyung-ah, Junhyung-shii, Junhyung-hyung, Junhyungie and smiles at you and asks for your number after you him because he thinks you’re nice, he thinks you’re cool and he wants to know you and—

          And that’s when it gets complicated.

          Because you never asked for any of this when you saw Seungho off at his graduation. When you splattered white all over your hand because of a sports magazine in the rack of a downstairs bathroom, you never asked—never expected—never thought about—never even imagined anything complicated like this because you thought that people like you (it’s what your parents always say when they talk about people like you) aren't supposed to have any of this.

          You never asked for this.

          You never asked for grins, for Hyung—hyung, let’s see a movie. You never asked for arms around your waist, a chin resting against your shoulder, for Junhyung-ah, stay the night, okay? Just once, please? You never asked for playful hands on your cheeks and smiling eyes and Junhyungie-hyung—don’t be mean, c’mon, just once at the park—it’s not even that cold. You never asked for laughter and muffled chuckles and worried expressions and Don’t sleep too late—you look tired, are you eating okay, Junhyung-ah?

          And you definitely—certainly—surely—absolutely—you never asked for

          Junhyung-ah, Junhyungie-hyung, Junhyung-hyung, Junhyungie-ah—I love you—love you—laughter, love you a load, hear that—a hand on his face, love you, love you, love you, got that, ?—a grin, hyung, I love you.

          You never asked for it, so you don’t understand why they’re giving it to you.

          You don’t understand—you can’t understand (you won’t understand), especially since they all end up leaving anyway.

 

 

 

My hands are tied by life

 

 

 

          You don’t love him anymore—you know that.

          You know that for sure (and this time, it’s true) as your arms fit around his body, and his arms fit around yours, right in the middle of the crowded university campus—crowded and spilling all around the lawn because of the culture festival that’s happening today and all of the students in the area are here, and you guess it makes sense that he’s here too.

          He looks good, and you tell him that (he laughs and punches your arm). You tell him that the shadows beneath his eyes actually seem to not reach down his chin (he hits you again) and you smile at each other for a moment or two, catching up and sharing stories because you can. It doesn’t hurt so you know that you don’t love him anymore. You still care about him (of course you do)—but you don’t love him, and that’s good.

          You don’t love him, but it still catches you by surprise when a young man (attractive, too attractive, stupidly attractive) launches himself at Seungho’s back—arms around Seungho’s waist and widely grinning face appearing right against Seungho’s shoulder and you stare because you’re surprised. You’re surprised at this young man and you’re surprised at the obvious relationship between him and Seungho, but most of all (sadly) you’re surprised at how he’s holding Seungho right in bright daylight—in stark public.

          Seungho introduces him as Lee Changsun (as his boyfriend) and you shake hands with him, find out he’s a year older than you and a year younger than Seungho, and you smile (you laugh because Changsun is funny) at him and bow your way out because it’s clear that he and Seungho are on a date at this festival and you don’t want to bother them.

          As you walk away, you know that that’s jealousy that stings in your chest. You also know that, because you don’t love Seungho and you don’t even know Changsun, it’s not jealousy of either man. You’re not jealous of Changsun putting his hands on Seungho’s hips or kissing Seungho’s full lips or Changsun making Seungho laugh.

          You’re jealous that they can do all of that without fear—you’re jealous that they can do what they do in public, surrounded by all these people whether they judge or not—you’re jealous that they have each other, you’re jealous that Seungho has moved on, has easily found someone who makes him smile while you’re still hurting the exact same way you hurt when he broke up with you.

          You’re jealous of their happiness.

          It’s disgusting and sick and selfish, but then again—

          That’s exactly what you are, isn’t it?

 

 

 

They’re so heavy that I can’t hold my dreams

 

 

 

          When it’s too much, it’s too much.

          When your parents are at it again—overexcited about you starting work, giving you the details to a job you didn’t even know they were registering you for, telling you that you start in a few days, telling you that you have another date with so-and-so’s daughter next week, giving you your profiles, suggesting (ordering) that you move apartments to be closer to your job, asking you why you haven’t bought a new car because the one you have now doesn’t work right—

          When you’re alone again—when he (there’ve been so many he’s that you wonder why you aren’t numb yet) tells you that he’s had enough, that he know he promised you he would stay no matter what but he can’t because it hurts (of course it hurts—you warned him in the beginning, but he said he could handle it, isn’t that what they all always do?) to see you with other girls, it hurts to see you kill yourself pleasing your parents, and it just hurts, so he can’t do this anymore—he has to leave—

          When you’re left by yourself in your apartment (that you have to move out from soon because your parents said so and have already bought you a new one without asking), in the darkness, in the middle of the night—

          You grab your keys, stuff them in your pocket, grab your jacket—

          And you run.

 

 

 

I’m scared—I’ve been left trapped

 

 

 

          You don’t know where you’re running, don’t know how far you’re running, don’t care how cold it is, don’t care who sees you—you don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care (because you always have to care, you’re always forced to care, you’re always made to care) so you don’t care for now because it’s stifling and it hurts and it’s suffocating and no one understands, no one understands (does no one want to understand?) and you’re alone because you’re always forced to care but no one ever cares back and it hurts.

          They always leave you because it hurts them, but (even though it’s selfish) you’ve always wanted to ask (but you never got to) them right back. You’ve always wanted to ask every single one of them (even Seungho)—you’ve always wondered if any of them ever thought that maybe (just ing maybe) you’re hurting too. That maybe you’re hurting just as much—you wonder if any of them cared.

         

 

 

Just for today

 

 

 

          You run, arm tight against your mouth and teeth biting into the thick sleeve of your coat—you scream as loudly as you can and muffle it because no one can hear (even though you wish someone, anyone, would listen)—and you run, as fast and hard as your legs will carry you (you don’t care that it’s so dark, you can barely see anything even with the streetlights) because there’s nothing else you can do. You’ll run and run and run, but no matter how far you run, you’ll have to run that much farther back to your apartment (that you have to move out from because you’re parents said so) and wake up early tomorrow morning to start the new job (that your parents have given you).

 

 

 

I act like crazy

 

 

 

          No matter how far you run, you know it’s pointless. You can’t run away from anything and you (you, you, you, especially) have nowhere (nobody, because they all run away from you in the end) to run to.

 

 

 

And run off somewhere

 

 

 

          You straighten your suit, pressing the button on your car key, and staring through the parking garage towards the elevator that will take you up into the building. Your feet don’t want to move. It’s stupid, you know, because it’s not like you’ll be able to get any job higher than this one without spending years working your way up. You should be grateful, happy, excited, eager, because any other young man in your place would be ecstatic with this kind of opportunity.

          But you’re not.

          You’re not ecstatic with this, but you’re supposed to be, so you put on the best professional smile that’s been drilled into you (it’s easy as breathing now) and force yourself to move forward to the elevator. If you’re lucky (are you ever lucky?) the next few years will be as minimally suffocating as possible—bearable, at the most (but for you, bearable is the best you can ask for).

 

 

 

My life is a rainy night that rains 365 days

 

 

          He’s at the very end of the hall—the empty hall (because it’s late and everyone’s gone home but you wanted to finish up a file and you suppose that he did too). You even sent Hyuna home, told her not to wait for you, because it really is late and you just wanted to finish this up before heading home for the night so you wouldn’t have to try again in the morning. So it’s late—incredibly late—and that’s why the entire office is almost completely empty, but there are still custodians, so your head turns this way and that instinctively (built into you) before you start forward in a walk.

          You start out in a walk, but when it looks like he’s about to turn the corner, you cart forward into a run—a sprint—so you can reach him faster (you always want to reach him faster because it’ll never be fast enough) and when you do, your arms slide around his waist and you tug him against the nearest wall, face buried into the crook of his shoulder and he stumbles—trying not to drop his files after you’ve knocked the wind out of him.

          He blinks at you. “You’re really scary,” he says simply. “It’s like—dark and stuff and really late, and you just attacked me from nowhere. That’s really scary.”

          You smile—you can’t help it. You can’t help it at all because when you’re around him, it’s just something that happens by itself—something that happens whether you want it to or not, whether you’re conscious of it or not because when you’re around Hyunseung, your lips just curve upwards by themselves and it feels amazing—it’s amazing how natural it feels. You love this feeling.

          You love him.

          “I’m scary?” you ask, as he pulls out of your arms and faces you (you lean back against the wall).

          He smiles back and taps your chest playfully with the files. “Nah,” he says, and covers the distance between you two with just a step forward—free arm, fitting around your neck as your hands fit against his hips. Your head leans forward slightly, angles a bit, and his lips meet yours in the middle—you smile into the kiss and you feel him grinning back and for just this moment everything is perfect.

          He’s perfect.

 

 

 

My heart gets smaller every 24 hours

 

 

 

          You don’t believe him when he tells you that he’s going to be different than the others. You don’t believe him for a single moment. You want to (of course you want to—oh, you want to, you want to, you want to, you want to so badly, so ing much) but you know that he only means it for now. He only means it while it doesn’t hurt as bad as it will, while he still thinks he can endure the pain the way all of the others before him thought they could.

          You don’t believe him when he promises to you that he’ll stay no matter what because you’ve been through this too many times already. You see him smile hesitantly you, and it’s soft and pretty (he’s always pretty—beautiful) and you close your eyes and let yourself (delude yourself) believe him for just this moment because it’s just a moment, it won’t hurt for a few seconds. You let yourself believe him (delude yourself) because you want to believe him (so badly) even though you know that he’s going to break it (break you—break your heart) just like all the others have.

          But you don’t blame him—you don’t blame him just like you never blamed any of the others (never blamed Seungho).

 

 

 

I even hid the small comma and its tail

 

 

 

          He understands you.

          You don’t know how, but he does. He’s told you that his family accepts him and the worst he’s ever been through is how no one ever seems to want a relationship with him (and you can’t fathom that because those people must all be in mental institutions now), but for some reason—somehow—he understands you. He understands you like all of the others (not even Seungho) never bothered to, never even tried to (because it hurt too much for them to try).

          He understands you, and when you tell him (his head against your chest, propped up in your arms as both of you lean against the doorway because you’ve just collapsed against him the moment you arrived at his apartment) that—when you ask him if it hurts or not to understand, when you tell him that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to listen to you pouring out your pathetic problems to him like this every night (it was only supposed to be about the when this started—when did it get like this?), you just feel the slender body tremble underneath you with a tiny laugh.

          “Don’t flatter yourself,” he says, and you tighten your arms around him, “Yong Junhyung. I don’t see what the big deal is.” He grins up at you. “I think you’re really easy to understand.”

 

 

 

And the future facing me becomes a period

 

 

 

          You never believed him.

          But you let yourself believe him—so when he leaves, it hurts more than all the others (plus Seungho) combined, and you have no one to blame but yourself. You’re sick and disgusting and terrible and horrible and awful and you know it (you know it so well—how could someone as beautiful as him ever love you—oh—he probably didn’t) so you run.

          When he leaves, when you hear about it (Dongwoon telling you in a deadened voice), you run. You run out of your office, down the stairwells ( elevators), out of the lobby, out into the open air, and you run and run and run and run and run and—

          And run and run and—

          You run and run. And run. You—and—run—you run. 

 

 

 

What am I running towards?

 

 

 

          They all blame you.

          Of course they do—why shouldn’t they? It’s your fault. It’s all your fault.

          You don’t know who’s worse.

          Doojoon looks at you like you’ve wounded him, and in a way, it’s because you have. In a huge way, you’ve maimed him by ripping apart something he’s known to be like his second family (these are the first permanent friends he’s ever known), and you tore it apart. You tore everything he’s grown to love so much since he came to Korea apart, but it’s so much more than that. He and Hyunseung and you were all the first to get together, the oldest, always looking after Dongwoon, always playing around with Yoseob, being teased and teasing Hyuna. So you hurt him—you hurt Doojoon and even though he’s trying not to show it, you know he’s angry at you (angry because Hyunseung is his best friend too, and you’ve hurt Hyunseung).

          Yoseob is furious at you—can’t stop yelling at you (you don’t blame him). He’s angry at you for chasing Hyunseung away, yes. He’s angry at you for being a ty hyung to Dongwoon, yes. He’s angry at you for taking it out on Hyuna, yes. But most of all, most of all, you’ve done something on the verge of unforgivable to Yoseob. You’ve done something, that were you not his friend, would be utterly unforgivable. You’ve hurt Doojoon. You’ve made Doojoon sick with stress, sick with worry, sick with hurt, and that’s unforgivable. Yoseob loves you (you know he does) and he loves Hyunseung, but Yoseob loves Doojoon first and last.

 

 

 

Is the sun setting or am I losing?

 

 

 

          Dongwoon isn’t angry with you—not really. He’s disappointed and sad (terribly sad, you know he is, and you hate yourself for it) because he’s always looked up to you. He’s always looked up to you and Hyunseung and Doojoon, and you know you’ve let him down. You know you’ve let him down and that he’s spending his nights wherever-the--that-club-is and you know it’s your fault and you must be the worst hyung ever and you don’t blame him if he never has any ounce of respect for you again.

          Hyuna barely speaks to you. She’s angry and sad and you know what hurts her more than anything is the fact that you’re hurting. You know that she can’t understand why you’re hurting yourself like this because she’s watched you grow with Hyunseung over the past few years, and you know that she thinks Hyunseung is the best thing that’s ever happened for you (because he is). She loves you and she’s the one who always sees you every day more than the others so she knows—she knows—how much you love him.

          But they still all blame you, and you can’t stand it.

         

 

 

I don’t know, but I go

 

 

 

          You run.

 

 

 

Keep on running, running, running high

 

 

 

          It’s easier to run when you’re drunk—more difficult in some ways, but easier in others. It’s easier because you can’t care about anything—you’ll trip, but it won’t hurt. You’ll fall, but you won’t really care when you scrape your knee, your elbows, sometimes your face. You don’t care about the people who stare as you run, because they all pass in a blur and it’s okay—it’s easier like this. It’s nice.

          You don’t even care when you bump shoulders with a couple of men, shrouded in darkness with displeased expressions on their faces when you make contact with them. You don’t care, you don’t mind, as they throw you this way and that—you throw a few punches, aim a few kicks, and you just feel your body flying (painful—it hurts, but that’s okay) as they turn you bloody and bruised (it’s okay). You let them, and you hurt them back in return (you have a bit of an upper hand because you don’t mind the pain, but they do), and it’s all okay—fine and dandy—because you deserve this.

          This pain is nothing, anyway. Nothing at all—light and feathery as a breeze—compared to the pain you feel when you’re sober and thinking of him.

 

 

 

I’m the young star that’s been abandoned by the galaxy

 

 

          When you come to, your eyes open to a familiar-but-not-too-familiar face and a familiar-but-not-too-familiar place. The lights are a little too bright, so your eyes close back a bit and your head aches and your body aches (your heart aches, but that’s nothing new). Every part of you aches, but it’s made just a little better by the smile that’s being directed down at you as the hands (gentle) continue to sponge here and there over your face (probably wiping away the blood).

          “Dongwoonie’s getting medicine,” Kikwang says, and stands up off of the edge of the sofa that you’re lying on. He soaks the sponge back into the bowl that’s on the glass coffee table next to the couch. You watch him (as best you can with your bruised eyelids) as he walks back to you, this time kneeling on the floor and continuing to carefully pad the wet sponge over your cuts. “Feeling okay?”

          “ty,” you whisper. “Sorry.”

          Kikwang looks lightly amused. “Yeah,” and his tone is playfully apologetic, “you look kind of ty, too.” You snort (ow, your face hurts) and he pulls back, to sit on the floor, putting the sponge back in the bowl. “I can’t give you anything else right now,” he goes on, “until Dongwoonie comes back with the stuff for your cuts.”

          You look at him and his face is every bit as pretty—as picture perfect—as the time you first saw him at the club. It’s a little bit more tired (you try not to think of how you might be the cause of that) and there’s no eyeliner, nothing to make his cheekbones higher or his face more flushed—it’s just his bare (still perfect) skin, and his eyes are watching you intently, but he’s beautiful of course (he has to be, with what his occupation was up until recently). “Thanks,” you say quietly.

          He smiles lightly. “For what?”

          You don’t say anything for a moment (you don’t know what to say). But then you glance at him again. “Has Dongwoon been sleeping okay?”

          Kikwang looks down, looks away, biting his lip and furrowing his eyebrows. His eyes come tentatively back to your face. “I mean—it’s better now, kind of,” he says slowly. “It’s not your fault,” he adds then, a little too quickly.

          You smile bitterly. “You’re lying,” you say even though you know you’re being cruel and rude and Kikwang is a good person (an amazing person—Dongwoon would never fall in love with anyone less). “It’s okay,” you say, “if you’re mad at me. Dongwoonie’s hurting because of me, right? It’s okay if you’re mad.” It’s completely okay. In fact, you want him to be mad at you because Kikwang’s given Dongwoon the kind of attention and focus and love that you and the others (who’re supposed to be Dongwoon’s hyungs, for ’s sake) haven’t been able to for the past few months. 

          “I’m not,” Kikwang responds then, determinedly, and your eyes stretch a bit with surprise because his voice is steady and firm and his eyes are boring straight into you.

 

 

 

Run until you can touch the sky with your hands

 

 

 

          You’re confused, and you know it must show loud and clear on your face because Kikwang smiles again—a wider smile that makes his eyes disappear and his teeth flash. He laughs then, sheepishly and a little nervous. “I’m probably the farthest thing from an expert on this kind of stuff,” he says to you, “but I think you love him a lot, right?”

          You stare at him for a moment before you smile humorlessly again. “Really? Everyone’s telling me that I don’t love him enough—and if I did, I would’ve told my parents already.”

          Kikwang stands up over you then, and holds out his hands. You blink at him, confused, placing your hands in his unsurely and he pulls you up, with surprising strength, into a sitting position. It hurts a bit to sit up because your body is still sore and you can almost hear your muscles and bones creak, but Kikwang brings you up slowly (kindly) and he gives you another small smile. “I really do at all this love stuff,” he says, “but even I know that you aren’t this miserable when someone leaves unless you really love them.”

          You have to look away from his face—you can’t look into his eyes anymore and suddenly you’re utterly dumbfounded at why you feel like this. You don’t understand why, even though Kikwang is the one who’s been corrupted and abused and used all his life (even though Kikwang is the one who’s been surrounded by dirty business and even dirtier thoughts)—even though Kikwang is the one who was a e, why do you feel like he’s purer than you ever will be?

         

 

 

Run until your heart is filled with your dreams

 

 

 

          After Dongwoon and Kikwang have patched you up, you bow out of staying for the night because you’ve caused them enough worry as it is and you don’t want to be there in the morning to worry them more when your head feels like it wants to split open in half. You’re still shaky on your feet, so Dongwoon offers to drive you home, but you decline again because you convince him to let you walk yourself home. It’s not easy because he’s worried about you (terribly worried) and even though Kikwang doesn’t say anything, he stands there next to Dongwoon, chewing on his bottom lip and looking at you like you really should stay the night.

          But it’s okay, you say, really, and since you’re still older than both of them, in the end they can’t force you, and you smile your thanks (you can never thank them enough—you can never apologize to them enough), tell them you’re sorry one more time, and leave the apartment. You leave, walking down the stairs and out of the building, and the moment you’re out far enough that they won’t be able to see you from their windows—

          You run.

 

 

 

Everybody run, run

 

 

         

          This time, when you run, your head is clearer even though you know the alcohol is still buzzing through your veins. But it’s a better than before, at least, and you run with Kikwang’s words coursing around your mind—you run with something different pumping your heart beat by beat and you aren’t sure what it is (you don’t know if it’s good or bad) but regardless, that doesn’t matter.

          Right now, you’re just running.

          You don’t know what you’re running from, don’t know what you’re running away from, don’t know what you’re running towards, don’t know what you’re running to, but none of it really matters. None of it has ever mattered once you start running, because all you know is that you have to keep running because when you run—

          Nothing can touch you—nothing can catch you. Nothing can hold you down, can stifle you, can suffocate you, the way you’ve always been held and stifled and suffocated for as long as you can remember.

 

 

 

Run away

 

 

 

          You aren’t sure if you’re legs are leading you back to your apartment or to Hyunseung’s empty apartment or to the closed office (because it’s late, late, late) or to Doojoon and Yoseob’s apartment or nowhere at all. You don’t quite know where your body is going to lead you, but if anything, you trust that it’ll lead you somewhere so you can do whatever needs to be done.

          It’s late enough that you can make it blocks upon blocks without meeting a single person, and even the cars are starting to get sparse at this hour, so once you’re clear of roads and you’re simply running alongside a wide stretch of sidewalk, you close your eyes and run—only opening them every so often when you hear something near you. Other than that, there’s no point in seeing where you going, because you have no idea where you’re going.

 

 

 

No matter how much I run

 

 

 

          You stop at Hyunseung’s apartment building.

          Your legs are telling you it’s not the destination, but it’s along the way, so your legs allow you to stop there to catch your breath. You look up to the dark window—his window—and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. You wonder how he’s doing—wherever he is. You wonder what he’s doing. You wonder if he’s happy (because that’s all you ever really wanted). You want him to be happy.

          You want him to be happy even if it means letting him go (but you hope that you won’t have to—you hope that going after him will make him happy—you hope that you can still make him happy).

          You miss him.

          You wonder if it’s too much to hope that he might miss you too.

 

 

 

I can’t escape

 

 

 

          But Hyunseung’s apartment isn’t your destination—just a stop along the way.

          So you start running again.

 

 

 

If I look back while running

 

 

 

          “You didn’t care if they stopped loving you?” you ask him, while he’s curled against your body, breath misting against your collarbone, as both of you lie boneless and and cooling beneath the sheets of your bed. His arms snake around your waist and you rest your chin atop the crown of his head, feather-soft hair tickling your jaw. “You weren’t scared they’d hate you?”

          He’s silent for a moment (just the sound of breathing filling the darkness) before one of his hands comes up and holds the side of your face. “Everyone’s scared,” he says quietly. “Doojoonie was scared and Yoseobie was scared—we’re all scared when we do it. And if he'd had to do it, Dongwoonie would’ve been scared too. Of course we’re all scared—but—it’s just,” and by the tone of his voice, how it pauses, you know that he’s struggling to take this rare chance to explain to you (maybe even to convince you).

          “It’s sad,” Hyunseung finally says, seeming to have found the words, “if they hate you. There’s nothing you can do about it, and for a week, I kind of felt what it’d be like. But—I guess—I don’t know,” he says slowly. “I guess—it’s just—I mean, I think we all sort of realized that even if they hate us—yeah, they’re our parents and nothing can replace that—but—we’re not kids anymore. It’s who we are, and even if they don’t love us anymore,” he looks up at you then, eyes luminous and wide open and glistening and liquid dark (and beautiful and perfect), “someone out there will.”

          You press your body closer against his, holding him tighter against your own body because it scares you whenever he talks like this—whenever your conversations reach into territory that frightens you, for some reason, you automatically strengthen your grip into iron (as if that would stop him from leaving like you know he someday will).

          “You know that, right?” he asks, then, uncertainty dripping in his voice all of a sudden. “Junhyung-ah? You know that Doojoonie and Yoseob and Dongwoonie and Hyuna—you know that they’re not going to ever leave you if you—”

          “What about you?” you whisper. “I didn’t hear your name in there.”

          He blinks, eyes stretching for a moment before a smile slips onto his face and he stretches up, lips against yours for just a second. “,” he says playfully, “I think I just had with an idiot.”

          You bury your face into the crook of his shoulder while he laughs and hugs you right back.

 

 

 

You’re still there

 

 

 

          You’re panting—huffing and puffing—and you double over for a moment, hands on your knees, before you straighten up to look at where your legs have led you—where your body has decided that your destination should be.

          You smile—resigned and humorless and dark.

          Well. You suppose there’s nothing else to be done at this point anyway—that you’ve been trapped into every corner from every direction possible, and your body knows that (instinctively, because humans are still animals with instinct). Your body knows that, so it’s giving you the only option—the only way—to escape (finally—finally) and this is it.

         

 

 

No matter how much I run

 

 

 

          You walk forward, up the driveway of your parents’ house.

 

 

 

I’m still in the same place

 

 

 

          While you’re cleaning out your desk, putting things into boxes, patting Hyuna’s back whenever you pass her because she won’t stop crying (she insists that it’s because her mascara got into her eye), Dongwoon stops you for a moment and pulls you aside. The younger man’s been cleaning out his own things (getting ready to move into your office), but he’s found you and stopped you and he looks at you with some nervousness, some hesitation, some anticipation.

          “What?” you ask, confused. “What’s wrong?”

          Dongwoon bites his lip. “I’m not saying that you have to,” he says unsurely, “if you don’t want to—but—I—just, here.” He holds out a piece of paper—a long rectangle, a stiff piece of white paper with print all over it, and it’s clear at first glance that it’s a plane ticket.

          You frown, still confused. It’s a ticket to Tokyo. “Why—”

          “He’s in Japan, hyung.”

 

 

 

Run

 

 

 

          Your steps are easy—calm—as you stride through the airport, towards your assigned gate. You have no idea if this will work—you have no idea if he even still loves you or not, if he even wants you anymore. You have no idea—not a single clue—the others all insist that it’ll be fine, that you’ll get him back, that he wants you back (loves you still, never stopped for a moment), but you’re not so convinced.

          It’s okay though—you’re okay.

          Because for once (right now), for the first time, at least you’re not running away, you’re not running around.

          At least now, you’re running toward something.

          You’re running forward.

 

 

 

Run

 

 

 

          He’s waving to you—waving, and jabbing his finger down towards an empty bench (a rare find and a valuable treasure in a crowded park festival), and you can barely make him out through the crowd, but you can see the top of his head and his frantically moving arm, so that’s enough for you. You excuse me and pardon me your way for the first few minutes, weaving through here and there, but it gets easier when the crowd starts getting sparser as the area pans out.

          It’s only difficult to maneuver in the narrower strip of park with all the tents and stalls, but once it gets to the open field (the air smelling like autumn, and the entire place looking like autumn with colored leaves and semi-barren trees), you can walk regularly and easily and you don’t have to apologize every other second because of colliding shoulders.

          He’s not waving to you anymore—just standing there and waiting, eyes still connected with yours, so you half-smile to yourself and start jogging to cover the distance faster. You start jogging, just as means to speed up, but you’re looking at him (looking at him) so before you really realize, without you really realizing at all, your legs cart you forward into a run. You’re running towards him, sprinting towards him, and when you get there—

          You grab him around the waist and kiss him.

          You draw away, a full-blown smile on your face now, but as usual (as always—and you would never want it any other way), he merely blinks back, neither here nor there on his expression. “I know you’re, like, all ecstatic about your newfound freedom and whatnot,” he says, “but there’re little kids around us.”

          You shrug. “Don’t princes and princesses kiss all the times at the end of movies? And books?”

          He blinks again—frowns. “Yah,” he says, irritated suddenly, “yah—I’m not a princess.”

          “I never said you were,” you snort and burst out laughing as his frown just deepens even further. You kiss him again, maybe in the hopes of making it turn into a smile (or maybe you just like kissing him).

          “Yeah,” he says, “okay—fine. Next time I see you coming towards me, I’m just going to run away, then.”

          You hold him closer, tighter (because you’ll never let him go ever again), and grin. “You can try,” you say, “but you should know that I’m pretty fast.” He raises his eyebrows at that and you just grin wider. “I’ve had tons of practice.”

 

 

 

For you, who’s endlessly running