Sungjong growls. He jabs at a button on his watch and the face glows green as the numbers light up. His frown deepens. “It’s three in the morning, Hoya. This better be good.”

“You’re not going to believe this.” Hoya’s head dangles from the top bunk. His breaths are heavy and irregular. There’s a wild look in his eyes that makes Sungjong do a double take. He’s suddenly wide awake.

“What’s wrong?”

A finger is pointed to the side of the room where their desks and electronics sit. There is a window right behind it and a pale glow from a streetlight creates blotches of orange on the carpet.

“What do you see?” Hoya asks and Sungjong squints.

“Did you leave the computer on or something?”

“What? No! You don’t see him?”

“Him? Dude, there’s only the two of us.”

“Dongwoo is here,” Hoya says and his tone is dead serious.

A chill runs down Sungjong’s back. “Okay, you’ve succeeded in creeping me out.” He peers into the darkness. Still, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, he closes his eyes and sniffs at the air. It smells faintly of lemon, roses, sage, pepper and cedar among many other things. When asked what he was doing, Sungjong replies, “I smell him. I smell that stupid expensive Versace cologne all six of us spent our life savings on to buy in the city,” he says. “I remember the idiot spraying half the bottle all over himself without any thought on how much he was wasting.”

“He’s laughing now,” Hoya whispers and Sungjong climbs onto the top bunk and wraps half of his brother’s blanket around himself. They huddle close.

“You’re right. Dongwoo’s here.” Both boys stare at the desk though unbeknownst to him, Sungjong’s gaze was about two feet off.

“What’s he—what’s he saying? What does he want?” Sungjong finally asks and he hears and feels Hoya take a shuddering breath. “Why can’t I see him? I mean, I know you were closest to him but we were friends too.”

“I don’t know, Sungjong. He says he’s sorry for scaring us, that he didn’t mean for us—me—to see him.”

Under the covers, Sungjong finds Hoya’s hand and squeezes it.

The latter squeezes back and continues, “He’s just sitting there now, grinning that dumb grin like when he was—” Hoya chokes. “—alive. Except now… he just looks so… so sad.”

When Sungjong tries to picture a dejected Dongwoo, he fails miserably. It wasn’t that he’d never seen Dongwoo sad before but after three years the only image of his old friend he sees is of him grinning like an idiot. The attempt to imagine anything else releases some sort of dam inside him and now he’s starting to blubber.

The sound is enough to break Hoya too and soon enough, they’re sobbing together. The brothers hold each other and cry. Their tears are ugly and layers of snot coat the backs of their hands but nothing matters except their pain, fear and guilt.

Hoya tells Sungjong that Dongwoo had teared up with them before he vanished altogether after a while of watching them cry.

In the end, they fall asleep in each others’ arms.

. . .

“Are you sure you’ll both be okay?” Both parents asks from the front seats of the van. Concern is etched onto the lines of their foreheads. It is finally the day.

Sungjong and Hoya had woken up with puffy, bloodshot eyes and the posture of zombies. Since that event, they’d slept together on the top bunk. It was cramped and not very pleasant experiences but they found solace in the close proximity. Needless to say, neither of them cared about the state they would wake up in each morning.

“We’ll be okay.”

It had been weeks since Dongwoo’s visit and sometimes they wonder if it was all just some hallucination. But two people can’t hallucinate the same events and something within Sungjong told him it definitely wasn’t.

In the van, the silence between the brothers is thick enough to be felt by their parents. The two are peppered with questions they simply grunt away. There isn’t anything left to say to one another in that moment. After a while, their parents get the message and fill in the empty space with radio chatter and their own conversations. Hours inch by and Sungjong finds himself mindlessly gazing out the windows. He fiddles with his thumbs as urban landscape gives way to miles of freeways then grassy hills and finally, at noon, they enter a small, familiar forest. The road transforms from concrete to dirt and rocks. With quiet excitement, he watches as their van clears the thicket of trees and rumbles down a slope. His parents conversation in the front seats cease. The tiles of the traditional Korean-styled roofs are in clear view now as is the massive green expanse of rolling hills behind the village and rows of flowers in bloom within.

Sungjong had truly forgotten how beautiful his village is.

He takes a sharp breath as the van rolls down a narrow path and takes a few turns. It slows down into the small front yard of their old house.

Ever so slowly, the brothers climb the three concrete steps with their parents in tow. They wrap their fingers around the two circular door handles and with a nervous exchange of nods, simultaneously pull it open.

No one speaks for a second, not even their mom, who loves to fill in silences with mindless babble. Everyone is overwhelmed with nostalgia.

“We’re back,” breathes their dad. “We’re really back.”

“Everything looks the same,” Hoya says and Sungjong nods. He didn’t know what to expect. He looks around at the floor, his old room, the sliding doors and the windows.

“Myungsoo and his mom took good care of this house,” his mom says, impressed.

It took awhile for Sungjong’s awestruck moment to pass but when it did, he returns to the van to help his dad carry the boxes filled with their stuff inside. Hoya does the same but their dad urges them away.

“I know you’re dying to see your old friends,” he says. “Go. There will still be work left for you to do when you return.”

Sungjong hisses a “Yes!” and pumps a fist in the air. He looks over at Hoya who doesn’t meet his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

The older boy sneaks a glance at Sungjong and shakes his head. “I–I don’t know if I’m ready to see them just yet. It’s been years. I think I’ll stay here for now and… mentally prepare myself.”

“What’s there to prepare for?” Sungjong instantly asks. “C’mon, this isn’t some dance competition. You don’t need to get so worked up about it,” he says but there’s no convincing his brother. The latter shakes his head again, picks up a box and walks back into the house.

Their dad shrugs and picks up his own box, leaving Sungjong alone and exasperated.

With a last sigh, he ambles away from the house and looks around at his unchanged neighborhood. A few loitering adults gives him warm hellos and some of the older aunts even gave him bone-crunching hugs but most of the kids his age were still in school. Sungjong checks his watch.

They would be released in fifteen minutes.

“Walking there only takes twenty,” he thinks aloud. “Perfect.”

Sungjong didn’t get what Hoya was so scared about.  

It’s only been three years. How much could’ve changed?

A/N:

I don't know why but I really like Sungjong's character.