It was about 1:00am on a Tuesday night when Howon heard tapping on his window. He tried ignore it, figuring it might be an animal or a tree branch or something. But after a minute or two of the tapping getting louder and faster, he decided to grudgingly rub the sleep out of his eyes and hop out of bed to check out what could possibly be making the sound.

When he got to his window, he was slightly surprised and slightly annoyed to see Dongwoo standing there with a cigarette in his mouth and his hands flat against Howon's window.

Howon quickly opened his window and crankily spat out, "What the do you want this early in the morning?"

"Good morning to you too, babe," Dongwoo replied with a slight smile.

He took the cigarate out of his mouth and quickly pecked Howon on the lips.

Howon hated cigaratte smoke kisses and being called babe, but he didn't about it because he noticed Dongwoo's split lip and the fresh bruise on his cheek.

"Let's take a drive," Dongwoo said, taking a long drag of his quickly disintergrating cigaratte.

Howon simply nodded and completely opened his window so that he could climb out. That was truely the only benefit of having a first floor bedroom, being able to easily sneak out of the house.

He didn't bother grabbing his phone, or even his shoes, because when he was with Dongwoo, all that really mattered was Dongwoo.

They made their way to Dongwoo's old silver car and hopped in.

Neither of them bothered to put on seatbelts. Howon even pulled up his left leg up so that his foot was on the seat and he wrapped his arms around it pulling it in so that he could rest his chin on his knee.

He felt more comfortable here in Dongwoo's car than he did in his own home.

And Dongwoo began driving, with no particular destination in mind.

Maybe 10 minutes had passed in silence, but Howon could care less about time.

He finally broke the silence with a simple question, "What happened to your face, anyway?"

"My dad called me a again. I told him it takes one to know one and he punched me in the face twice."

Dongwoo said this solemnly.

Howon didn't really know what to say to comfort the other male, but he settled on replying with a quiet, "You're pretty cool, sticking up for yourself to your father like that."

"Cool?" Dongwoo snorted, "I cried like a after getting hit."

Howon laughed a bit at that. "Your still better than me, babe."

Dongwoo glanced at Howon then, with a fond smile on his face. Even though Howon hated  being called babe, Dongwoo loved it.

"Sometimes I think we should just runaway, you know? You and me. We should just hop in this car and drive without looking back. Quit school and everything. Move to the city or something and get cute little jobs and make something of ourselves without giving a damn about what our parents think. I figure they're more excepting of gays in big cities, anyway. I read an article online that said homouality is almost a trend in places like that." 

Dongwoo rambled like this sometimes, but Howon liked it because listening was his forte, even if the subject matter wasn't all that interesting to him.

Howon turned his head to look out the window everything outside was a blur of greys and greens and Howon almost felt drunk off of the sensation of the car moving so fast. He listened to Dongwoo's breathing and wished the other man would speak more. Dongwoo's voice made Howon feel home. 

"I'm serious, you know," Dongwoo nearly whispered.

That snapped Howon back to reality. 

"You know I can't do that now, Dongwoo. Maybe after college we could-"

"College?" Dongwoo said, an almost grim look on his face.

They had talked about college before. In the backseat of this very car after a really good lay and Howon had confidently said that he wanted to ditch this small town after high school. He said he wanted to be with Dongwoo for the rest of his measly life and that he would follow Dongwoo anywhere and everywhere. Howon could be quite the romantic when he had just had amazing .

But Howon's parents wanted him to go to college. And unlike Dongwoo, Howon craved his parent's love and acceptance. That was also the reason he couldn't even do as much as tell his parents he was gay. He didn't even want to think about what their reaction would be especially after seeing Dongwoo's mother leave and his father beat him almost everyday because of his uality. Howon felt bad about that sometimes because the only thing keeping Dongwoo in this town and with his father was Howon.

"Dongwoo, whether I'm living with you in the city or taking college courses, I'm still going to be head over heals in love with you. I'm still going to be your significant other. I'm still going to be able to see you often. I know you want us to get to our future right know, but we just have to wait, okay? We just have to take it slowly and do one thing at a time."

"Your pretty level-headed, huh?" Dongwoo whispered.

Howon wondered if he had upset Dongwoo.

Suddenly Dongwoo's car slowed and eventually completely stopped at a stop sign.

"There's no one around, you idiot. Why are you stopping?" Howon said, feeling a bit of nausea at the sudden change in movement.

"No one being around is the point."

Dongwoo turned and caressed Howon's face before gently kissing him. It was a sweet and simple kiss. Nothing rough, nothing sensual. It was just so full of love and tenderness that it made Howon's eye's well up with tears. 

Dongwoo pulled back and mouthed "I love you" and Howon mouthed it back.

They held hands for a bit and let their mouths continue to touch. They weren't even sure if they could call it kissing, because though their lips were touching, there was no pressure. 

It was moments like this that made Howon think "so this is what love is".

Moments when Dongwoo was driving so fast that he couldn't even make out the objects that were passing by them.

Moments when Dongwoo talked on and on about things that Howon knew no one else would ever hear except him and Howon would never feel the slightest bit bored or uninterested because Dongwoo was Dongwoo. 

Moments when Dongwoo didn't even have to say "I love you" for Howon to understand.

a/n- comments are appreciated!