Chapter Text
The coffee from the afternoon was cold already.
The office was empty, except the sound of consistent typing reverberating from a cubicle next to the floor-to-ceiling window, where one could see the city outside bustling with night life and colours.
Folders and stacks of paper piled up around the workspace.
Sieun was finishing up the last line of code, when a message came through his phone. A sharp ping against the dull static of the running processor.
Then a second ping. And a third.
Sieun heaved a sigh, took another read of his work before tearing his gaze from the screen.
[GROUP MESSAGE FROM “4 pabo brothers”]
11:58 p.m.
31/12/2028
HUMIN: yooooo
HUMIN: i’m at the countdown nowwww!!!
HUMIN: where are y’all i miss you guys @Hyuntak @Juntae @Sieun
Sieun blanked out for a moment.
Ah, that was right. New year.
That was why the office was quiet and no one was working overtime. The countdown.
HYUNTAK: replies to @Humin bro shut up we’re literally next to you
JUNTAE: @Sieun Baku just wants to message you but thinks you hate him
HUMIN: @Sieun ARE YOU STILL WORKING???
HUMIN: replies to @Juntae STOP EXPOSING ME
SIEUN: replies to @Humin yes.
HYUNTAK: dude, are you getting bullied in your company??????
HYUNTAK: I’ll kick their asses for making you work even in new years eve
SIEUN: I’m not, I just need to finish up the work.
The group went quiet for a few seconds, and Sieun was about to leave the chat, there was another message.
[MESSAGE FROM JUNTAE]
11:59 p.m. 31/12/2028
Sieun ah, you should enjoy some days off, you’re way too busy.
Are you resting enough?
Are you feeling okay?
Sieun exhaled softly.
Just then, there was the sound of the countdown, muffled by the window glass––
Four … three … two …
One.
Sieun turned around, a single firework bloomed magenta, then golden, in the dark canvas of the night. The lights fell like sprinkles of snow. Merely a splitting moment of heat and reaction, and a beauty that faded into ashes within the next few seconds.
His friends said happy new year; Juntae’s messages were read and replied with the usual “yeah, I’m fine.” His phone lit up and died down, the noise outside persisted but he suddenly found himself in a vacuum.
Reality subsided like a dream.
Sieun felt like that was his life for the past seven years.
He couldn’t feel time. Or there was never “time”. It was not objective, a second could feel like years, and years could feel like a second.
He became a victim of time.
...
“Sieun-ah, happy new year.”
A voice cut through the silence. A voice he wanted to hear for so long, so much, until his mind created illusions. As if this way, he wouldn’t forget what he really sounded like.
Sieun placed his fingers back on the keyboard. This would happen once in a while, when he was alone, and when the past seeped into the present through the crevices of darkness in the night.
When he was a little more vulnerable, a little less busy.
“Yeon Sieun.”
“……”
“Are you scared to look at me?”
Sieun stopped.
He couldn’t remember if he ever called him by his full name before. The way this one called him, as if dissatisfied, as if he was upset.
Was there a time when he was angry, pissed off, and yelled at him?
... He really couldn’t remember.
Sieun heaved a sigh.
“No.”
“ … Happy new year, Suho-ya.”
...
“Son, happy new year! All good over there?”
It was a video call.
The phone was placed on the table against a glass of water. The lights in Sieun’s office were white, too bright to be comfortable sitting under it for more than eight hours, and more so unsuitable for a call from home on the New Year's Day––but his father’s inquisitive tone made it less out of place.
“You haven’t been home after you started this new job.”
Sieun’s face was passive, “I was busy.”
He had returned to Seoul to work in this company two years ago, after graduating from both high school and university, and since then he hadn't went home once.
Father sighed, “Still, you should come home. Even your mother has contacted me on this.”
Sieun blinked, slowly.
Mother.
"I'll see what I can do."
“Sieun-ah, we’re still family, you know … Despite whatever happened back then.”
Sieun looked up again. He felt numb. “I know.”
“Your friend––”
“Appa,” Sieun said. “I’ll see if I do have time in a couple of weeks.”
Finally, as if getting a satisfied answer, Father’s face loosened, “You little shit, tell me first, if you’re planning anything.”
...
“Your friend––”
“Are you Sieun?”
“Suho told me about you a lot.”
What the word “friend” encompassed, was not enough for Sieun to describe what Suho was in his life.
Anh Suho.
Sieun dreamed of him, and of the day when they first met. More accurately, the day they noticed each other’s existence.
The first time Sieun watched his classmate fight the boys from the baseball club and beat the shit out of them.
The first time Sieun fought back against the bully in his class.
The time he nearly killed the bully. He remembered the anger in his chest, and the heat on his back when he fell to the ground after Suho shoved him away from the beaten up pile of flesh, begging for forgiveness.
He remembered the throbs on his ribcage.
“Don’t cross the line,” was what Suho said.
It was months after meeting him Sieun realised that he wasn’t standing on the bully’s side.
Don’t go too far. It’s not worth it.
Your life had so much more potential than to suffer because of people like him.
Perhaps the best way to quench his anger was to beat someone up so bad he couldn’t even walk, and to beat up anyone who stopped him from beating this other person up.
Or to look into Suho’s eyes.
The dark brown lighting up just a little in the afternoon sunlight falling past the drapes, reflecting on the wooden, glossed over table Suho used to sleep on.
A gaze that felt like Suho would catch him if he ever fell.
Grinning, he said, “If you want to apologise, treat me a meal.”
Sieun was always angry. Always tired to talk to people. He removed himself from noise and the crowd, stayed to himself, because it was the only way he could contain his anger towards the world––his parents, mostly.
He needed only to do what he was expected to. A good child, a good student, a good something his parents could fight on and fight for. He sometimes felt like he existed not for himself, but for everyone else who laid eyes on him.
They’d always wanted something.
Nine at night, the doorbell rang. And opening his door, he found a wild classmate outside, in his delivery man suit.
“Classmate? Why are you here?”
Sieun had blanked out at the uninvited guest. “I didn’t order delivery.”
“Oh, you didn’t?”
“……”
“Then may I have some water? Ah, I’m going to die of thirst, how could you let me die like this?”
Suho never asked for anything.
Well, maybe just some water in the middle of the night.
Or some privacy.
Anh Suho was the kind of person who liked shattering the idea of personal space, and he would put the shattered pieces back, bit by bit, while muttering sorry under his breath, asking, “Are you okay?”
Sometimes Sieun wanted to say, “No. Can you fuck off?”
But most times, his eyes would find his. There was always a certain gentleness behind the lackadaisical pretense.
Sieun was just watch his movements, half willingly, half confused.
After his tuition classes, Suho would sometimes drop by.
Streetlights casted halos. The night deepened. Having someone wait for you after class was a privilege that never belonged to Sieun.
His routine had been fixed. Walking home alone was a habit. Fighting someone on his way back home was just as normal as having lunch. In his head, he never needed a guardian angel.
“Well, it seems like you need one,” was what Suho said that day Sieun got beaten up by some students in another school, just for bumping into a few of them and for refusing to apologise.
Before Sieun had been able say anything, Suho held up a hand, “Call me hyung and say thanks. Anything else is unacceptable.”
Sieun blinked. “I don’t need a guardian angel.”
Suho laughed out loud, “Ah, you little shit.”
But he still pulled his arm forward, draped his arm around Sieun’s shoulders and dragged him along the streets. The bullies were on the ground, curled up and groaning, behind them, and Sieun walked together with Suho until he couldn’t hear them anymore.
In his dream, it was that summer all over again.
He could remember the bits and pieces of exam-focused materials being recited in his head as he came down from the stairs.
Outside his tuition centre, someone called his name.
“Sieun-ah––” Suho stood there. As Sieun came closer, he said, holding out his helmet for him, “Let’s go.”
Sieun glanced at his bike, silently thinking about what it meant to “go”.
“C’mon, it’s Friday,” Suho said disapprovingly. “You’re supposed to have fun on Fridays!”
“But I have to study––” Sieun’s excuse got stuck halfway, as Suho helped him put on the helmet.
Sieun considered Suho’s proposal to “have fun”. There, again, was the grin that was always carefree, nothing seemed to ever bother him.
He wanted to think about his studies, the home he was obliged to go back to, what his father would say if he went home late again, and what type of “fun” was there to have in his state of mind …
But under the moonlight, all he could think of was how close Suho’s face was.
...
Compared to his family, Sieun was less dismissive towards his friends. Or perhaps, they were more insistent––in a good way.
After a good amount of pestering during work hours, Sieun finally agreed to go for dinner with the "pabos" a week after New Year’s.
Both Juntae and Hyuntak were coming from the other district, working in a start-up together, while Humin worked as a part-time coach at a martial arts school. They were the friends Sieun made when he was studying overseas, and who had also returned to Seoul to work.
At those times of unrest, Sieun put himself in seclusion, and it was these people who brought him out.
At least a little.
Sieun arrived the earliest at the Samgyeopsal place. Secured a seat. Let his mind wander off from a grease stain on the table. Distanced himself from the noise around him. People laughing, eating, cursing. Smoke that felt like it would clog up his throat if it intensified just a little bit more.
Sieun tried not to gag.
...
The smoke.
The first time he went to a place like this, his eyes were tearing up.
Suho’s laughter was in the background.
“Have you never tried eating it like this?!” In disbelief, and then there was his judgemental stare, a single exclamation that seemed to say a full sentence, like “What? Where have you been living in, the caves?”
And the first time he felt a tingle up his spines.
It was after a fight. It was the first time Beomseok joined them and saved the day.
The trio sat around a round table, perfectly balanced, their laughing eyes meeting each other’s, and Sieun had thought, it was enough to feel this way for one moment, and to etch this moment into his memories.
And at that moment, his gaze had lingered on Suho a moment longer, thinking, if this was the last moment he’d ever be alive, it would’ve been enough.
“You have to try this, Sieun-ah.”
Suho’s fingers wrapped the vegetable up, covering up the barbecued meat with its sauce oozing from both sides treacherously. He held it out near Sieun’s lips.
His fingers grazed the edge.
“Try having it in one bite, I promise it’s good!”
Sieun couldn’t deny the tingling on his lower lip, and when Suho shoved the food, not-so-gently, into his mouth, he’d blanked out momentarily.
And the moment passed. Suho was laughing as he backed off. Sieun tried to forget the restlessness of the thing his stomach did––a somersault. Or what was it they called it? Butterflies.
He concealed it with a scrunch up of his nose into a grimace. “Did you wash your hands?”
“… who the hell cares!”
…
“Sieun-ssi?”
“……”
“Yeon Sieun?”
Sieun snapped awake.
He had fallen asleep on the tabletop.
His mind was groggy, and only seconds later, he recognised the voice that called him.
Their eyes met.
For a moment, Sieun thought he was still dreaming. Because this was a face that only appeared in his nightmares ever since he moved to another country.
“Beomseok?”