Hongbin, for the most of the nights he spends in South Africa, thinks about Sanghyuk.

Every night, when the busy of the day is over and his camera gear is all packed up neatly in his bag, he lies down on his bed, shoes still on his feet, and cannot get Han Sanghyuk out of his head.

It feels a lot like falling in love.

Sometimes he looks at Sanghyuk and he thinks about how it would be like to be able to kiss him on the cheek, his forehead, the side of his head, whenever words are not enough, whenever he wants to. When Sanghyuk smiles, he becomes so… electrifying – eyes glistening and crinkles around them unashamed of existing – that Hongbin wants to make him smile forever. And when he laughs, gosh, Hongbin has never liked a sound that much in his life. The lack of it almost hurts him in his chest. Every single second is waiting for Sanghyuk to laugh again. Every single thought is leading his mind back to Sanghyuk. Hongbin can no longer imagine life without him.

Hongbin hasn’t been in love in a very long time. The last time he did was many years back – he knows what it feels like (an intense sense of calm curling in his stomach the first time he lays his eyes on Chanyeol, so rare for someone as anxious as him, almost like they’ve known each other for lifetimes and lifetimes, and if you were to strip them both down to their very core you would find the very same thing there) and he knows how hard he commits when he does.

But Sanghyuk’s not – Sanghyuk’s never going to be in love with him. Sanghyuk, the kind boy with nothing bad to say about anyone; Sanghyuk, with the nightmares that Hongbin can hear through the walls on some nights but still greets him in the morning with a smile; Sanghyuk, whose hair falls perfectly and whose eyes look like clear water. Sanghyuk is never going to fall in love with him. Hongbin, with all his self-inflicted scars and his complaints about a near-perfect life.

But other than that, he’s not supposed to be in love with Sanghyuk. He’s not supposed to look at his roommate and think about fingers interlaced, or making love. He’s supposed to be a hyung. Just merely a hyung to a dongsaeng. Connected only by a rainy night and coincidental fate – maybe even less than that.

Yet he is reminded of the stirring of his heart every single time he inhales when Sanghyuk is around. His lungs fill with the thrumming of warmth, and on some days he swears his heart beats a little stronger. There is no way this is a mistake. In so many ways it feels natural, right, but in so many others, it feels like Hongbin is making a grave error.  

He’s so proud of seeing the boy grow, to see the boy blossom in care, has tried to make Sanghyuk someone who can’t be tied down by anyone – but this also means that at some point, Hongbin will have to let him go. Hongbin has to let him go.

Because if he falls in love with Sanghyuk, it means betrayal. He can’t force Sanghyuk to stay for him. He doesn’t want Sanghyuk to do anything for him. It means exploitation, it means being the same person Sanghyuk’s Sirs were to Sanghyuk. He can’t do that. He refuses.

The problem is, he’s falling, he has already fallen in love.

So there’s nothing he can do. He buys everything in the shops that reminds him of Sanghyuk.

***

His mother calls at 7am sharp. He knows who it is before he even rolls over to pick it up. His mom reads the paper precisely at 7 (wakes up at 6, up! you lazy bum, has dark coffee no sugar with her breakfast at the dining table that stretches so long, Hongbin can’t ever remember being able to talk to her without an expanse between them).

He straightens up and tries to make himself sound as proper as possible – or at least, not like he had just fallen asleep. But as always, she can tell.

“Were you just asleep? Shouldn’t you be awake by now?”

Her tone is flat, never screeching even when she’s angry, but there is always a sickly-sweet tone of sarcasm that lies underneath there. She was brought up on gold and silver, a mansion of in-house gardeners, helpers at disposal, much like the way Hongbin was brought up

Hongbin sometimes, when he cant help the part of him that still craves for his mother’s love, feels sorry for her. He knows how hard it is to live so high up without looking down on people below as ants. Then usually, calls like these happen and every single piece of memory comes rushing back in ever-sharpening garish color.

“Sorry. I just got back from overseas – my sleep schedule is still adjusting.” Hongbin says, fully awake. Like someone woke him up with a bowl of cold water.

“I didn’t hear anything of that sort?” Hongbin bites back the urge to say because I didn’t want to tell you. “Where did you go? For what?”

“Nothing, just a usual photo shoot for the company.”

There is an awkward silence on the phone. The love between them is a dead language. They’re obviously speaking Korean – but in the time that words of concern move from one phone to another, something always rots, leaving behind only terseness and decay. Hongbin never understands what his mother wants, and neither does she ever know what he wants. They’re obviously speaking Korean, but sometimes it doesn’t even sound like it. 

“There’s a company dinner soon, I expect you to be there. At the tower.”

And there it is. His mother never calls for any reason other than to ask him to turn up for events.

“Okay. Will do.” And once again, Hongbin agrees to cut the call short. “Is that it?” 

“Hyung Soo will email you the details, I’ll see you then.” She says slowly, yet with every word she’s clearly taunting open a Pandora box. “This time, please come prepared. Don’t embarrass me again.”

Hongbin dampens a sigh. “Yes. Of course. Goodbye.”

The call ends before the ‘bye’ part of ‘goodbye’ even transmits. For someone who does things so meticulously, it’s almost comical that the only thing Hongbin’s mother seems to be flippant about is her own son.

The last event was a nightmare. The press was there, the paparazzi swarming his car to get a good look at the company’s heir turning up for an event for the first time in 5 years. He hadn’t meant to, but without knowing it, he sinks into a mood where everything is spitting with hot fire.

He gets furious.

When he’s questioned, pushed into the corner by journalists about what he’s going to do once the current CEO retires, he makes it clear that he doesn’t have any idea about what the company has been doing these past few years.

His mother manages to stop all bad press. But among the board, there is talk about handing the company over to someone else – someone who doesn’t have the surname Lee. His sisters already hold executive positions, so Hongbin doesn’t understand why they can’t inherit the company. He, for the most part of it, would cut himself off from the whole fiasco in a heartbeat if he could. But he can't. His mother makes sure of that, her hold on him so tight that he has to sacrifice more than he's willing to in order to get away. 

Hongbin topples back into his bed. His breath hitches and he’s suddenly made aware of how tight his chest feels. He tries relaxing his jaw but it doesn’t work – his tongue is numb and his breaths start to sound like he’s wheezing.

He tries to wait it out, tries to use any breathing technique he can remember, but it doesn’t work. The fear builds up, builds up, builds up, to the point where he actually thinks he might die. 

Shuddering and with a sigh, he reaches over for his pills rattling in his bedside drawer, the sound a constant reminder of his existence in a universe where he can never be free; tied down by his mother, by the company, by his lineage. His stupid legacy. But he doesn’t want to think about that. Right now he just wants to stop this early-morning panic from spiraling out of control. He wrestles two pills down his parched sandpaper throat and pulls up his blankets with a groan, all the while begging his lungs to start working again until he falls into a fitful sleep.