Chapter Text
It has been two weeks since the world slammed Hyeontak into the concrete and laughed, two weeks since the doctor said that awful word like a punishment.
Rehabilitation. like someone needed to teach him how to be a body again.
He is someone who has always known exactly how his limbs move, how to balance force and grace. His body was never the enemy until now.
He hates the exercises the most. They’re slow and humiliating. Bending his knee five degrees is a battle, standing on his right leg for more than thirty seconds is a war he keeps losing.
He tries to hide the tears when the pain spikes. He isn’t sure he succeeds.
The worst part is the silence in his head where confidence used to live. At first, he was sure. Now, as he’s going through physical therapy, he isn’t so sure anymore. He isn’t sure if he’s strong enough to get back on his feet.
On bad days, he shouts at his mother and feels guilty instantly. It’s not her fault, it isn’t easy for her to see him this way either. But nobody seems to understand. They say they do but a complete reorganisation of one’s life isn’t a simple matter. Relearning to use your limb isn’t like the one time someone sprained an ankle.
Anger and resentment bubbles inside him. Towards relationships that don’t exist anymore and feelings that led to this situation but they’re gone as quick as they come. Hyeontak has never been one to hold on to grudges, he has also never been one to regret choices. The actions he takes, he does with conviction. He believes in it till it destroys itself. And even then, he doesn’t regret. His choices make him who he is and even though, sometimes, he thinks he might, he doesn’t hate himself. He is proud of who he is.
He pushes through another repetition gripping the railing until his knuckles blanch and his leg trembles like it’s forgetting what strength means. He does not fall. He is so proud he could cry again but he won’t. Not today.
Hyeontak and Humin celebrate his dischargement with ice cream. Hyeontak ends up sitting outside the convenience store watching high schoolers sprint past. They don’t think twice before moving. Hyeontak used to be one of them. He tries not to resent them.
Humin chatters about school gossip, teachers, who got into trouble. Normal, safe stuff.
Kwon Soonyoung from Taekwondo sees them.. He’s kind but his well-meaning words, “Coach says you can come watch practice once you’re feeling better” makes the ice cream taste like chalk in his mouth.
How can he just sit and be a spectator of the life he used to live? He nods and pretends he didn’t just choke on his own heartbeat.
“Yeah,” he lies, “sounds good.”
He ends up on the school rooftop. It took pain to get here, slow and careful on every step. The city hums below with all the potential he hasn’t touched yet.
His phone screen is blank. The person who used to fill it with irritation and adrenaline and heat, and make his heart think faster than his brain is gone.
Good.
He needs to believe that. He needs to keep saying it until it stops hurting.
the basketball court below is lit by harsh flood lamps. Two boys play, laughing loudly when one trips on his own shoelace. His leg throbs as a reminder of limits.
When Baku hears the rhythmic bouncing of the basketball, he nudges Hyeontak, “We can play basketball. Your doctor said it’s fine.”
Tomorrow, they decide, they’ll go to the court. He’ll take one shot and miss because although Baku forced him to play basketball all the time, he was too busy with Taekwondo before. But he will be there. He allows himself a single breath of pride. It’s small but real.
He’s not giving up on his body and the future that still exists even if he can’t see all of it yet.
Healing is a stranger thing than pain.
Pain demands attention. It’s screaming and selfish but healing leaves silence in its wake.
Hours no longer filled with doctors’ orders are days that stretch open like blank pages he isn’t sure he knows how to write on.
Hyeontak’s knee is fine now. It’s stronger, more reliable. He can run, jump, breathe without flinching. The strength in his bones returned faster than his heart could keep up with.
Late nights find him staring at the ceiling. Scars that can’t be overlooked on his legs are reminders of the time when it felt like he lost everything. He can’t erase that memory, no matter how clean his new life looks.
It’s pathetic and unfair. Why should someone who broke him get to remain in the spaces he fought so hard to reclaim?
Still, every little joy echoes with strange aches of “he should have seen that”, “he would have made fun of me for smiling like this”, “he would have been here.”
The ghost of a hand gripping his collar still makes the world tilt, the ghost of a kiss that tasted like smoke and want still burns at the back of his tongue.
He has close friends now:
Sieun, mostly silent with eyes conveying more than his words would ever say moves like someone used to being unseen but always watching. His quiet isn’t weakness, it marks an ever-turning mind. At first, Hyeontak thought him detached. But he sees now, his eyes hold storms;
Juntae, soft spoken and timid at the edges is built of something strong. He’s made of kindness, offers support with no filter;
And Humin, the only constant in Hyeontak’s life other than his mother. He’s always there, unmovable, the best choice Hyeontak ever made.
Now, Hyeontak has a life that doesn’t end in alleyways or fists.
So why does thinking of him still feel like coming home to a locked door?
Practice ends in sweat and laughter. His knee held up perfectly today. He feels alive. Baku left early for a date, Sieun rushed to cram scholl. Juntae sits on the bench sipping water like he ran a marathon instead of learning two new dribbling patterns on the extra court. His bangs stick to his forehead.
Hyeontak drops beside him, shoulder knocking gently into his, “You did good.”
Juntae blinks, “I did?”
“Yeah,” Hyeontak says, wiping his face with his towel, “you didn’t fall on your face even once.”
“That’s the bar?”
“It’s a high bar for you.”
Juntae scoffs, elbowing him. They share a quiet, comfortable smile.
They say closeness looks like love.
Maybe that’s why the basketball guys snicker when they see Juntae dribbling badly while Hyeontak steadies his shoulders from behind, maybe that’s why someone always whistles when Hyeontak leans in to hear Juntae better, maybe that’s why there are whispers about “chemistry”, maybe that’s why no one ever found out about Seongje
Juntae doesn’t demand anything from him. He just stays. Maybe that steadiness looks like a crush to outsiders.
But Hyeontak knows better.
Juntae isn’t the boy he kissed like a mistake, isn’t the boy he can’t stop missing. He isn’t the boy who left a door open in his chest and never walked back through.
Juntae is safe and dependable, a friend who shows up and keeps showing up.
Hyeontak lets himself breathe around him but his heart never stumbles. There’s no rush of adrenaline when their fingers accidentally brush, no sudden urge to look away before his feelings give him up.
He smiles because the moment is genuinely pleasant, not because he’s drowning and needs a distraction.
Juntae’s presence is simple like a steady lamplight. Hyeontak is grateful for it because not everything warm has to set him on fire.
This quiet warmth can’t fill the hollow place where a different boy once stood; the same boy he kissed like the world might end, whose absence is louder than any gym full of cheering, whose name he refuses to say out loud.
He isn’t Seongje.
Hyeontak’s heart won’t let him forget it. No matter how much easier it would be.
Healing is a stranger thing than pain because when you’re healed, you finally have the strength to feel everything again.
Hyeontak and Juntae walk home as the sun sets, lauging about a joke that wasn’t that funny. Juntae talks with his hands.
Suddenly, there are too many hurried footsteps. Before either can turn, Hyeontak barely dodges a kick to his back.
Keum Seongje.
Time should stop, his heart should shatter and paralyze. But there’s no space for any of it.
He looks nothing like the boy who stood begging outside a hospital room with a trembling voice and vulnerable cracks. All that’s visible is a cold amusement woven into a face Hyeontak used to know too well.
He hardly registers what Seongje says, replies with purely muscle memory. He counts the guys, tells Juntae to run, knocks a few out. And Seongje just stands there until it’s just the two of them left in the underpass.
Then, tilts his head toward the stairs leading upward, “Come on. Rooftops are quieter.” he says like this is a reunion he planned carefully.
And Hyeontak follows because there is no other choice or maybe there is. Bt this is what Hyeontak wants. They walk in silence that is neither a comfortable nor uncomfortable. It feels as though both of them have thought of this moment multiple times and still, never found the right thing to say. They’re still wondering where the boundary lies. In this very type of silence, they reach the rooftop where the air is colder and sharper. This is a place meant for falling.
Seongje walks ahead, hands in pockets like violence isn’t seconds away.
“You really traded me for him?” It’s not the right thing to say but the conversation had to begin
Hyeontak stares, “He’s my friend.” Not the correct reply either. Hyeontak doesn’t need to justify anything to Seongje, not anymore.
A muscle ticks in Seongje’s jaw, “Cute.”
Hyeontak exhales, shaking, “Is this your idea of growing up?”
Seongje doesn’t answer.
Hyeontak steps closer, fists at his sides, “You don’t get to come back into my life just to ruin it again.”
Seongje finally turns and his eyes burn with something that looks like betrayal, “You were supposed to wait for me.”
Hyeontak’s voice drops to a whisper, “That’s not something you get to ask of me. Stay away from Juntae”
Seongje’s expression collapses into rage and hurt twisted together, “No.”
Hyeontak swings first.
Not because he wants to but because he refuses to be helpless again. Seongje takes the hits as though doing that will make Hyeontak forgive him, will make Hyeontak run back to him. Seongje doesn’t hit back, not until Hyeontak screams at him, “Don’t treat me like this! Don’t treat me like you’ve broken me. You mean nothing to me. Fight me, Seongje.”
And in that split second, Seongje sees permission, he sees justification. Their fists clash now, tension exploding into violence. This is not a fight about winning or pride. This is a fight about everything that was left unsaid.
The fight is tough, especially with Hyeontak’s recently recovered knee but he can tell that Seongje is going easy on him. There’s no audience. This fight serves the sole purpose of Hyeontak letting out everything he couldn’t say to Seongje. Seongje lets Hyeontak hit, he hits back but there’s no fire. It feels like pity.
Until the guys from the Union bring Juntae back. In a blink, he isn’t Hyeontak’s Seongje anymore, if that person ever even existed. He is Union’s Keum Seongje, the mad dog, Baekjin’s most trusted. Hyeontak receives punch after punch from this Seongje, gets thrown against the wired fence. Hyeontak doesn’t know what he expected. Seongje scoffs when Hyeontak kicks him, laughs when Hyeontak gets up to hit him again. This performance that Seongje puts up, Hyeontak isn’t so sure is a performance anymore.
At this point, Hyeontak is clearly losing but even admist all the pain from the punches, he holds on to Seongje because it’s the only way he still can. He wonders if Seongje can tell, if Hyeontak’s desperation to keep him close despite all the hurt he has caused him is visible in the way his hands don’t let go of Seongje’s shoulder when the easiest way to retaliate would be to let go and create distance. But his Seongje is gone now. Thos one wouldn’t be able to tell and even if he did, he wouldn’t do anything. Just like last time. It’ll always be this way.
“You’re never gonna fucking change, Seongje” he whispers, breathless, right before Seongje throws him towards where Juntae crouches, injured.
“You okay?” Juntae asks and Hyeontak watches Seongje’s sneer turn into something painful right before he picks his phone to take a picture.