Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

June 15th, 1985

There was a boy, Hyuntak had heard, who had embodied failure so thoroughly it had become expectation. His reputation hung over Eunjang like a stormcloud, or maybe Hyuntak only felt that way because his presence was so large and central to what Hyuntak wasn’t.

If there was one thing in his life that Hyuntak would call a constant, it’s the single, high pitch of the school’s bell, sounded as his one and only warning to venture to class and, if he feels so inclined, drag Suho from beside the lake to ensure he didn’t receive yet another disciplinary for skipping. It’s a loud, obnoxious sound, but it’s one he’d grown comfortwble with during his years here, and so no longer jumped at the sound, nor did he feel that hot rush of shame at not already being in his seat. Most of the time, Hyuntak liked to think he lived in accordance with it. The bell rang: he stood, sat, prayed, studied, slept. Most of the time, he was right.

Today, however, it was different.

Today, he’d been brought out of morning sermon to stand by the front gates and herald the arrival of Eunjang’s new student, or something. It mostly consisted of standing awkwardly at the gate with his tie cinched noose-tight around his throat and his father at his side. This was the one thing he had always hated about student arrivals; the forced familiarity. He could hardly stand waiting in prolonged discomfort to greet their new arrival, but his father insisted upon introducing every student personally, whether they were fine scholarship boys from Seoul or disciplinary transfers from whatever institution had finally succeeded in excising them from their ledger. According to his father, it was a matter of Christian stewardesses. According to Hyuntak, it was a maintained punishment from whatever sins he must have committed in a past life.

At times, his factitious friendships with the new boys did eventually solidify themselves as genuine, such as with Suho and Sieun, but the vast majority was spent towing around transfers who already believed they knew better than him. Hyuntak had never been reticent nor shy, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed missing out on his lessons to stop every five minutes and smile politely at boasts of grades and spirituality. It was a difficult thing to feign.

So, this time, when that infamous ringing voices the next class turnover, Hyuntak was simply annoyed.

“He’s la—” he began, before his father cut him off.

“You will be patient with him,” he said, though he did check his watch before folding his hands behind his back.

Rolling his eyes, Hyuntak stared ahead at the empty stretch of road curling away from the main gates. “Yes, Sir.”

“He’s had a… difficult upbringing,” his father went on, which Hyuntak thought was a peculiar way to say he’s bad news, but we are waging he’ll become godly through osmosis, so stick close. He was used to hearing pointless drivel on the topic. “So you should not judge him prematurely.”

Hyuntak considered this. “Yes, Sir,” he said again, though somewhat less convincingly this time.

His father’s gaze shifted toward him immediately. “Hyuntak,” he said, and Hyuntak paused in his shoe scuffing, looking up from the gravel to meet his eyes. They were tired, violet mottled in the slight bags beneath them, consequence of juggling a teenage son and a roster of four-hundred. “Christian kindness is not contingent upon convenience, is it?”

There were perhaps a thousand responses Hyuntak could think of for that question, but he chose to press his lips into a thin smile and reply; “No, Sir.”

His father sighed, so Hyuntak swallowed and inclined his head back to the road.

“Where’s he transferring from?” he asks finally, scuffing his toe again.

His father exhaled. “Ganghak,” he said. “I don’t—” He stopped. “There will be no issues there, yes?”

Hyuntak wrinkled his nose. “The military preparatory?” he asked. It was stupid, and juvenile, and voicing his opinion was a bad idea for more reasons than he had fingers to list them. Still, he held out hope that his father would work out what he was really asking.

His father was silent for just long enough for Hyuntak to regret speaking. He opened his mouth to backtrack, but his father chose that moment to answer.

“He… strained under their methods,” he said carefully, which meant yes.

Resisting the urge to groan aloud, Hyuntak scowled across at the horizon. “And they sent him here?” he demanded, and straightened immediately at his father’s glare. “No, I mean. I mean, we’re not exactly known for being, like. Like, if he’s crazy—”

At once, his father’s expression tightened, lips flat. “Do not speak about people that way,” he said.

“Wasn’t,” Hyuntak muttered. He fiddled with the hem of his pressed shirt, twisting his lips to match. “I just – I just meant,” he amended, “that if he was removed from a military academy then clearly he doesn’t respond well to discipline, and, I mean, Eunjang isn’t exactly permissive.”

His father looked like he wanted to say something, but he visibly bit his tongue. Then: “Well, that is why he has you to guide him.”

“I don’t wa—”

“You are a mature boy,” his father said. He did not move for a moment, but then he nudged Hyuntak in the shoulder. Hyuntak looked up at him on instinct, but his father just tilted his head, letting his hair fall into his eyes.

Mature, Hyuntak thought. A fitting outward manifestation of the maturity with which he was expected to always carry within himself, even when he did not particularly look the part.

Hyuntak grumbled, but he turned to the road once more, letting the summer heat boil his vision, turning his eyes soupy within his skull.

Just as he’d begun contemplating whether the boy had perhaps died en route and spared everyone involved the inconvenience, movement finally emerged beyond the bend in the road.

At first, Hyuntak saw only the car; dark-bodied and dust-streaked from travel, the afternoon so fierce on the windshield that Hyuntak had to squint. Gravel rolled beneath the wheels as it slowed toward the gates, disturbing the silence that had settled across the grounds. It stopped crookedly before them, and Hyuntak stared at it.

A moment later, the driver’s door opened and a man stepped out, circling to open the left backdoor and physically hauling a boy out from his arm. To that, Hyuntak blinked, glancing uncertainly at his father before returning to the boy.

He was taller than what Hyuntak had been expecting, but he supposed he’d had little metric to measure assumptions from. Dressed in a black t-shirt instead of Eunjang’s uniform, though he at least had their blue blazer slung across one shoulder, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and exposing narrow forearms translucent and almost golden in the strange June light. He was struggling against the older man’s hold, looking absolutely livid about it.

And then he looked up. His lamentations died on his scowled lips, the anger that had coloured his face dissipating as his gaze fell to Hyuntak. Their eyes met entirely against Hyuntak’s will.

(Later, Hyuntak will look back and decide this is the moment. The moment he understands all those saps who talk about the world slowing down when their eyes fall upon someone they’ll love for the first time.)

At sixteen, however, Hyuntak only felt an indignant flare of adrenaline. Because, though the boy slowed, as Hyuntak’s heart caught up to the reality of the situation everything else became rushed, time tripping over itself. Everything but Seongje.

Seongje, who examined Hyuntak in a manner far too clinical for his liking. From the neat collar of his shirt to the knotted fold of his tie, down to the pressed slacks clinging to Hyuntak’s hips. He lingered there a second longer, eyes roving the thin fabric of his shirt, near-transparent under the sun’s scrutiny. After his assessment, he found his way to Hyuntak’s neck, scanning the skin connecting ear to ear, before finally landing back on his eyes. He blinked, drawing in long breath.

In turn, Hyuntak examined him, never one to be outdone.

Up close, the first thing he noticed was Seongje did not look a brute, the gentle lines of his jaw and nose unbecoming of the reputation preceding him. He held himself with an air of genuine confidence that Hyuntak rarely saw within boys their age, with their hunched, narrow shoulders and unsure foothold on the world. But Seongje had these scraped knees beneath his shorts, and this hook on his forehead from a wound that never healed properly, hiding behind frizzy waves of gold-brown hair. There were still these childish angles to his body, boy definition and boy stature, that the thought of him being anything more, anything larger, was so, so weird to contemplate. Hyuntak had never been good with discrepancies; he didn’t like intersections, he liked parallel lines. He liked when things didn't clash.

He wasn’t beautiful, or anything. Hyuntak would refuse that word for months with a vehemence to perhaps convince himself, tipped sideways on stairwells and branches and shoulders, but there was a vitality to him. This was a boy who occupied his own body, unaccustomed to yielding space. Even dragged forward by the arm, he carried an impression of resistance, loose limbed and volatile in equal measure.

The older man released him with an aggravated shove. Seongje stumbled forward two steps before righting himself, turning a glare over his shoulder.

“Stand properly,” the man ordered.

Seongje scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Any more proper and I’ll have my head up my ass,” he said. Hyuntak was caught off guard two fold; first by the warm cadence of Seongje’s voice, and secondly the ease of which he used profanity.

To his credit, when Hyuntak turned to his own father, he had simply closed his eyes and sighed, a long, drawn out thing.

The man beside Seongje was considerably less restrained. “Watch your mouth, boy,” he snapped, striking Seongje around the back of his head. “You think they’ll tolerate that kind of filth here?”

Seongje shrugged one shoulder. “Pro’lly not.”

“Then stop acting like a—”

“It’s quite alright,” Hyuntak’s father said in his stead, giving them both a perfunctory smile, always prepared to perform pro forma. “We understand it takes some of our boys a while to adjust.”

“Oh, that’s fuckin’ cute,” Seongje said, surveying him in amusement.

All Hyuntak could do was stare, dumbfounded.

With visible effort, his father folded his hands before him, drawing a pleasant composure across his features. “Welcome to Eunjang,” he greeted evenly. “I’m Principal Go—”

“Cool,” Seongje interrupted.

“And this,” his father went on, either ignoring the insolence or suppressing it under years of working with unruly boys. His hand clasped Hyuntak’s shoulder, presenting him forward. “Is my son, Hyuntak. He’ll be helping you settle in.”

In a heartbeat, Seongje’s eyes returned to him. He glared him down across the quad, and Hyuntak glared right back; he refused to be intimidated by someone who was more reputation than anything else. Though he did cross his arms over his chest to defend against the icy annoyance sharding off the slate-grey of Seongje’s eyes, fractured by the light through his glasses.

“Oh my God,” he drawled eventually, tipping his head to look at Hyuntak through his lashes. His eyes drop to Hyuntak’s arms, eyebrows drawing as if preparing to be scolded for doing absolutely nothing nefarious. “You givin’ me a babysitter?” His eyes traveled Hyuntka again, and, with a click of his tongue, he shrugged. “Eh, could be worse. Guess you’re a bit of eye ca—”

“I’m not a babysitter,” Hyuntak argued loftily. Seongje looked startled that he’d decided to speak, but he quickly hid it beneath the humid haze of morning, instead turning his cold look to the man behind him.

“Dad, really?” he asked.

Seongje’s father flexed his jaw. With the burden of knowledge, Hyuntak could see the resemblance between them. The line of their mouths, perhaps, or the angle of their eyes. Though, where Seongje’s were glacial with insolence, his father’s looked burned out by it, exhausted to fumes.

“Mind your tone,” he warned.

Seongje rolled his eyes with such force Hyuntak briefly entertained the fantasy of them dislodging from his skull, where they would roll across the gravel and he could stomp on them for enrichment. “What tone?” he snarked, in a tone. “I’m being polite.”

Beside him, Hyuntak felt his father tense, no doubt his patience wearing thin by now. This either meant he was going to shoot Seongje in the back, or give up in the next few seconds.

To stave off both, Hyuntak made another step forward, gesturing at the car. “Do you want to get your things out?” he asked.

“Oh, he talks,” Seongje said, giving Hyuntak a grin, all teeth. The points of his canines grazed his bottom lip, the skin there red from exposure. “Thought maybe they wound you up with a little key when they want some chatter.”

Heat surged across Hyuntak’s neck. “I talk fine.”

“Mmhmm,” Seongje mumbled agreeably.

Glowering, Hyuntak moved toward the back of the car. The trunk was already open, held crooked on it’s hinge, and inside sat what looked to be the entirety of Seongje’s worldly possessions compressed into careless disarray. One duffel bag, a dark green backpack, and a stack of books tied together with a cord of string. Dubious, he leaned closer into the dark cavity, shifting his body to try and get a beam of light to illuminate the book spines.

Before he could get a reading, Seongje called out, “you staring at my underwear or something?”

Hyuntak jerked up right, banging his head off the car’s roof. “I was not—” he hissed through his teeth, rubbing at his skull.

“Relax,” Seongje said, leaning onto one foot to look around the car and Hyuntak buried half inside. “You tryna climb in there?”

Ignoring him with years of honed discipline and fortitude, Hyuntak reached into the trunk and seized the duffel by its straps. It was much heavier than he expected, wrenching his shoulder downward until he landed on the car’s chassis with a solid thunk, the only thing stopping his descent from a much more humiliating finale of the floor.

“What on earth is in here?” he demanded, narrowing his eyes at Seongje’s twinkling grin.

“Dead body,” Seongje said.

Hyuntak glared.

Seongje’s smile doubled in width. “Oh, c’mon church boy,” he lilted. “Use your critical thinkin’. Clothes.”

“Whatever,” Hyuntak grumbled, shifting the bag on his shoulder to try and hold out for Seongje to take, who just stared blankly. He gave it a shake, which mostly made its weight bash his hip a few times.

Seongje blinked, and then made an ah. “Can’t,” he said, lifting a hand to rub at his left shoulder. “Injury.”

Electing to take this at face value, Hyuntak’s eyes dropped to Seongje’s shoulder, tracing across the line of his collarbone to the hollow of his throat, and he was having a hard time looking away. There was a pendant pressed to his sternum, the two clean strikes of a crucifix glinting off his skin.

He wet his lips, before hauling the bag to tug less precariously at his weight.

“Move your ass,” Seongje demanded when he swayed on his feet. He reached out to grab below his elbow, steadying him with a look on the foothill of exasperation, held off only by the lingering lucidity of amusement. “You’re gonna wipe out just standing around.”

Hyuntak blinked, considering, before his expression turned to a true frown. “I am going to—”

“Boys.” That was his father. Hyuntak pivoted his threat to a more genial expression, lips curling at the corners just as his father rounded to meet them. “Ah, good. You can bring that bag up to Seongje’s room and then take him to the chapel for last prayer,” he said, nodding at the campus behind them. “I’ll have someone bring the rest of your things up during classes, son.” While he said this, he clasped Seongje on the shoulder, giving him a small shake. Seongje’s lips twisted into a mutinous frown.

“Yes, Sir,” Hyuntak answered automatically, though his eyes lingered at the hand resting on Seongje’s shoulder.

“Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Anything you say, Sir," Seongje mimicked a beat later, pulling his hands from his pockets as he shied away from the grip.

Hyuntak’s father relented, giving him a sturdy pat on the release. “Good,” he said, turning to Hyuntak. “Make sure he knows our expectations before first class.”

“Alright,” Hyuntak said, the word strangled beneath the weight still threatening to dislocate his collarbone. He adjusted the duffel again with mounting resentment. “Come along, then.”

Seongje made no effort to move.

Instead, he was glued to the spot, tracking his father's walk across the quad with an expression Hyuntak could not, to this day, parse. His lips were stamped together, and there was this rounded form to his eyes, less the irreverent slits they’d been all morning. Before Hyuntak could ask, he noticed him watching, and immediately began scowling.

“What?” he demanded, raising his chin against whatever expression Hyuntak had been wearing in turn.

“Nothing,” Hyuntak muttered quickly, turning back towards the campus path. “We should get going, it’s a bit of a walk.”

Wordlessly, Seongje slammed the truck shut, the sound of it making Hyuntak jump. When he turned to chew him out, he noticed Seongje’s eyes had drifted back to the administrative building, and decided to say nothing of it.

Seongje kicked at a rock wedged into a crack in the pathway. It skipped and smashed across the concrete ahead of them, akin to Hyuntak’s heart against his ribs. Thud. Thud. Thud.

For the entirety of the walk, Seongje had made his displeasure known through the medium of cold, disdainful silence. But, clearly his cold, disdainful silence needed work, because nothing about the situation had changed at all. Hyuntak was still hauling his dead-weight of a bag across the courtyard, and Seongje was still trapped in indentured academia.

“So, this is home,” Hyuntak said, grabbing hold of the stair’s railing to drag himself up.

The dormitory sat warm and quiet before them, flowers hanging from the entryway porch and littered beneath some of the trellised windows. Eunjang’s summer ivy had begun its annual attempt to swallow the building whole, green veins climbing the pale brick walls and curling around the upper floor’s ironwork balconies. The western front of St Jude’s dormitory caught the full brunt of the sun, reflecting the early morning light back into their faces. It was one of the prettier buildings on campus, and the one Hyuntak had called his own for four years.

It was easy to pretend they were just having a normal conversation standing like this, a tiny back and forth between two fresh housemates, instead of what it actually felt like: Hyuntak, scrabbling for purchase, trying to time a jump to make the net.

“You’re on the third floor with me,” he explained, managing the next few steps to stand on the doorfront. “Yoona will get you a key after your dad’s finished with the paperwork, which opens the main and front doors, but the bedrooms don’t lock. You’ll be 3C; it’s opposite mine.”

Seongje didn’t look at him, busy knotting his blazer sleeves around his waist, but he tilted his head at the words, so Hyuntak knew he was listening.

A second later, Seongje glanced up, brows knit. “Wait. Doors don’t lock?”

Hyuntak frowned. “No?” he replied, stalled. He thought about it, then bit back a question, running his tongue across the back of his teeth until the taste of the words dissolved along with the urge to ask them. “I mean, we all respect privacy, it’s just a health and safety concern.”

He adjusted his duffel higher onto his shoulder, trying and failing not to notice how Seongje’s eyes lingered on the third story windows. Appraisal, maybe, or calculation. Mentally measuring distances between ledges, exits. Places a body could fit through if sufficiently motivated.

“The prefects do nightly rounds after lights out,” he plowed on, slackening his features when Seongje’s eyes slid back to him. “And everyone is expected downstairs by seven-thirty for breakfast and morning prayer, though they’re more lenient during summer break because of the heat, and everything.”

“D’ya hear yourself when you talk?” Seongje asked suddenly.

Hyuntak blanked. “Excuse me?”

“You talk like a fucking handbook,” Seongje clarified, turning his head to look at him full on. Sunlight caught in the rims of his glasses, hiding his eyes behind the white glare. His hair had gone an odd shade of green and amber at the curled tips. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” Hyuntak responded. “I turned sixteen in May, so sixteen and a month—”

“Okay. Sixteen,” Seongje said, cutting through Hyuntak’s rising ramble, which was remarkably astute but not at all appreciated. A smile glimmered across his face at Hyuntak’s resulting scowl. “D’ya ever talk like it?”

Hyuntak gave him a considering look. “Like what?”

“Like you’re sixteen,” Seongje said.

After a while, he looked at him sidelong, and Hyuntak realized he was looking for an answer. “This is just how I talk,” he said, and shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

To that, Seongje’s eyes lit up, fiend-bright. He vaulted the four steps to stand beside Hyuntak, crouching just so until they were eye-to-eye. “Say fuck,” he said.

Hyuntak stumbled back. Blinked, furrowed his brow. It wasn’t his most tactful of reactions, but it wasn’t like anyone had ever accused him of that before. Besides, this was Seongje, who seemed morally obligated to ruin Hyuntak’s composure.

“No,” he blurted.

Best thing to say, apparently. Seongje’s expression split open: lips spreading, brows ascending from amused to exhilarated. He looked so vindicated. Hyuntak wanted to hit him, maybe.

His chest hurt.

“C’mon,” Seongje persisted, stepping forward until Hyuntak stumbled back another few inches. “Just once. One little swear. I promise I’ll tell no one.”

“I am not swearing!” Hyuntak argued, and Seongje’s features collapsed as he began laughing, right up in Hyuntak’s face. It made Hyuntak huff indignantly, crossing his arms as he tried to scoot further up the porch.

“Hyuntak,” Seongje breathed out, eyes shining. God, Hyuntak did not like how he said his name. How he rolled it on his tongue, pressed it against his teeth until the vowels stretched, a cloying cling that had Hyuntak watching for the next word. Perhaps Hyuntak’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. Perhaps this was a fall from grace.

“What?” he demanded firmly. Unconvincingly, if Seongje’s resumed laughter was anything to go by. “It’s vulgar.”

“Ohhh, baby, talk sweet to me,” Seongje murmured, watching Hyuntak’s reaction with unconcealed glee.

Hyuntak twisted against the wall to glare at him, shoving lamely at his chest. “Stop being disgusting, it’s not funn—”

“You’re cute when you blush,” Seongje interrupted, smooth as anything. Unlike Hyuntak’s brain, which had caught on the praise and began stuttering like a record scratch.

There was a teasing smile on Seongje’s face. It suited the planes of it, the way it tugged up at the left side, showcasing the line of his jaw. It was the sort of thing Sieun would call wry, which was ridiculous, because there was nothing dry nor understated about Seongje. He was a flashbang spark of a boy, too bright to look at. He distinctly ignored his inner-Sieun quoting his own thoughts about hyperawareness back at him, focusing all his energy into properly showcasing the full scope of his Geum Seongje hatred.

"You shouldn't say things like that," he warned, voice low, sending a furtive glance around the courtyard.

Seongje followed the glance, tracking it across the empty space before looking back with renewed interest. “Why not?”

“People could get the wrong idea,” Hyuntak explained, fumbling blindly for the doorknob while keeping Seongje’s gaze.

For a fleeting, unprecedented moment, Seongje went quiet. His gaze followed the shifts of Hyuntak’s face, the slight pull of his lips up to the crinkled consternation at the corners of his eyes, and then he sighed. Pushed back, carding a hand through his hair as he stepped away.

“Fucking hell,” he muttured to himself, hunching his shoulders. “I wasn’t fucking hitting on you, I ain’t desperate, sweetheart.”

Shame rushed so quickly to Hyuntak’s head he felt dizzy. Rather than responding, he shouldered open the door, since it tended to stick in the summer seasons. The hinges creaked open to St Jude’s foyer slash common area, cool air from the rotary fan on top of a stacked pile of textbooks carrying through the room and into the oppressive heat outside.

Seongje swept past him, going to stand in front of the fan, arms spread, and leaving Hyuntak standing beside the doorway, trying to figure out why it still felt like he was stumbling for something.

“Tak-ah!” Humin cheered, rushing forward to lift Hyuntak into a spinning hug, who managed to extract his arm just in time. It still was crushed to the front of Humin’s chest, but the chances of it being broken became negligible. “Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since chapel.”

Hyuntak scoffed, swatting him lightly on the arm to put him down. “Hey,” he greeted. “Had to show the new guy around, and he kept… I dunno. Wandering, and stuff.” He squirmed in Humin’s grip. “Dude, anyone would think you haven’t seen me in years. Stop being so clingy.”

Although his tone was teasing, by the time Humin put him down, he was pouting. “Nuh-uh,” he declared. “Class was so boring without you, seriously. I had to listen to Sieun explain the ramifications of some guy not consulting experts before launching a nationwide irrigation overhaul for two hours.” He paused, going sheepish. “Or something.”

“It was brilliant,” Suho put in, beaming.

Everyone was populating their usual table: Suho sprawled across two chairs and Sieun’s lap, who was smiling privately as he read through his history textbook with a pen in his mouth, feet propped upon the seat Humin had just exited; Juntae was helping dish out the rice while Suho kept demanding more; Wooyoung and Beomseok were flanking Gamin as he tried to chat-up a matron into giving them extra pork belly; and Baekjin was sat at the head, pretending to know none of them in the slightest.

“It was not,” Humin argued, affronted. He dusted off the front of Hyuntak’s school shirt, before tugging the hem from his slacks with another exaggerated pout. “You’re going to overheat. Please, tell me you’re back after lunch. I can’t brave math with Baekjin and Sieun alone, please, please, please.”

“You can’t brave math point blank,” Baekjin muttered, drawing Hyuntak’s attention to him. He seemed unwilling to make eye contact with anyone, settling instead for sending them the occasional dark side long glance.

“Baekjin!” Humin gasped, whirling on him with his hands on his hips. “Math is actually my best subject, I’ll have you know, I actually have a decent—”

“Because you copy off us,” Sieun broke in, indignant

“What I’m getting from this,” Suho said, no small amount of amusement in his tone, “is that you’re only wanted for your similarly low IQ.”

Hyuntak scowled at his friend, bashing at his pointing finger until Suho retracted it with an unapologetic grin. “Well, too bad I have to sit in on Seongje’s classes for the rest of the day. Something about helping him acclimate."

In front of him, Humin wailed, flopping onto Sieun’s lap beside Suho, who haughtily attempted to slap him off. It was a very odd picture; small, quiet Sieun blanketed by the two largest, most rowdy boys in school. To the side, Wooyoung and Beomseok wore confused expressions, who had abandoned Gamin in his time of peril. He was currently being swatted on the head with a rolled up piece of paper.

“Who’s Seongje?” Wooyoung asked, stealing a slice of kimchi from Suho’s plate.

“Tall, dark and handsome,” Sieun said, trying to hold down an enraged Suho, who was going at Wooyoung’s throat. Wow. Hyuntak hated all his friends.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t completely protest the description. Glancing around at his ensemble—apparently, since they were all making him rethink his life choices—and current victims of his fury, he quickly realized he did not want to be talking about Geum Seongje with them at all. Despite their varying personality flaws, his friends were Hyuntak’s favorite people in the world, and those he was most comfortable with. He never quite felt like he had come into himself unless he was around them, even when they were all at odds, he never doubted that they’d all have his back. Sure, he complained a lot, but anyone in his position did; it was routine, systematic. At the end of the day they were his people, and he was theirs.

So, there were days Hyuntak enjoyed talking to them about anything and everything, this combination of his favourite pastime and favorite people.

Today, though, when he’d been granted the never ending joy of shepherding the equivalent of a rabid dog around the school, he thought it was the worst thing God had ever inflicted upon him.

Okay, maybe not the worst. Definitely top ten, though.

“Wow, you’ve never said that about me,” Suho lamented, forgoing his assault on Wooyoung to blink beseechingly up at Sieun. “I’m hurt.”

Sieun threw him a flat look. “Medium, dark and decent.”

Hyuntak couldn’t say he was thrilled by this turn of events.

“Decent?” Suho repeated, appalled. “Taksies, are you hearing this blasphemy?”

“Eighty-percent of the blasphemy I hear is from your mouth,” Hyuntak muttered, sliding into the empty chair beside Humin’s vacated and Baekjin.

Suho pointed accusingly at him. “See? This is why we lack emotional intimacy.”

“That, and your grating personality,” Baekjin put in.

Across the table, Humin barked out a laugh loud enough to startle two first-years at the neighboring table. One of them dropped his spoon directly into his soup. Hyuntak watched the ensuing tragedy unfold with brief solemnity before reaching for the kettle of barley tea in the centre of the table.

“You know,” Beomseok mused, leaning his cheek into Wooyoung’s shoulder, “if Sieun says he’s handsome, he’s probably…”

“That’s true,” Wooyoung agreed, slinging his arm around Beomseok’s neck, locking him beneath his armpit as his other hand knuckled roughly at the crown of his head. He ignored his ensuing squawks of protest to address the group at large. “He’s probably like a Greek god. Sieun’s standards are terrifying.”

Sieun looked remarkably unimpressed at being conversational real estate. “He’s just not all that bad looking.” He paused, jamming his elbow into Suho’s shin when he got too close. “For a guy, and all.”

Succeeding in liberating himself from the prison of armpit, Beomseok smoothed down his hair and fixed his glasses upon his nose. “Why are we extolling some guy again?”

“Right,” Hyuntak agreed, clicking his fingers at the only statement of sense said in the past five minutes.

Hastily, Sieun reopened his book and took refuge behind it. “Don’t make it weird,” he complained. “Oh, look, this is on the post-armistice economic destabilization of the peninsula…”

“Do you think something big happened?” Wooyoung asked, looking across the room to where Gamin had mysteriously disappeared. It was a toss up between being put through the meat grinder for Friday night burgers, or being chored with some benign task. He grabbed for Beomseok again, tucking him back to his side; a combination that had literally made Hyuntak shudder when he first saw them, what was Gamin thinking?

“The consequences of post-armistice destabilization on the peninsula, following the catastrophic infrastructural negligence? Yes,” Sieun said.

“I mean, we don’t usually get a transfer this late into the semester.” Wooyoung was now looking harriedly around the room, lip caught between his teeth. Beneath him, Beomseok mirrored the action, though it was obvious he had no idea what they were searching for.

“Right, not dissimilar to the economic repercussions of abrupt administrative restructuring following wartime division,” Sieun continued, his tone taking on that lecturing quality Hyuntak had long since learned to fear. “The sudden displacement of labour and resources creates institutional instability—”

“I mean, like, no one said anything, and then boom! New guy,” Wooyoung said, still scanning the tops of everyone’s heads. “Heard he got kicked out for breaking a guy’s nose.”

“Violent institutional upheaval tends to produce reactionary behaviour in young men deprived of stable authority structures,” Sieun continued seamlessly, not even looking up from his textbook. “Especially in post-war societies where masculinity becomes tied to aggression and—”

“What?” Wooyoung asked, finally turning to look at Sieun, eyebrows furrowed, expression concerned. “Are you okay?”

Sieun opened his mouth, and then closed it. “Okay. I have to admit the last one was a bit of a stretch.”

Someone tapped Hyuntak on the shoulder, and he twisted to look behind him, finding himself nose to nose with Gamin. He had a wide-eyed gaze behind his lenses, all open excitement and not a lick of guile, which Hyuntak did not trust for a second. The same could not be said for the boy a step behind him.

“Look who I found wandering about!” Gamin said cheerfully, grabbing Seongje by the forearm and dragging him into the group, an earnest grin on his face. “He’s going to join our study group.”

“Aw, hey!” Humin let out, way too loudly.

“Humin,” Baekjin hissed, reaching across the table to grab at Humin’s collar. “Inside voice.”

“Ow!” Humin exclaimed indignantly, but his volume had reduced somewhat. Somewhat. He turned back to Seongje. “Hey!”

“Hello,” Seongje said blandly.

“You are tall, dark and handsome,” Humin marvelled, scrambling off his chair (Sieun) to size Seongje up. He circled him once, twice, then grabbed at his wrist, giving it a small flap. “Dude, do you play any sport?”

Seongje looked down at where Humin had ahold of him, slowly dragging back to Humin’s face. His expression didn’t exactly change, but Hyuntak caught a hint of irritation. Then he opened his mouth, and Hyuntak’s suspicions were confirmed.

“I can run pretty fast from the cops,” he offered.

Before Humin could no doubt try to hug him into compliance, Wooyoung launched across the table to grab at Gamin’s throat, toppling them both to the floor, along with a stray chair. “What the he—what the what, man?” he enthused, the both of them tackling each other into table legs and passing students. “Don’t Houdini on us.”

“We have a track team,” Sieun inserted helpfully. He pointed to Suho, who had finally learned how to sit properly and was stuffing his face with the mountain of rice he’d forced Juntae to serve him. “Suho’s on it, along with swimming, and basketball, and baseball, and—”

“That’s alright,” Seongje cut in.

Suho swallowed aggressively. “You don’t play sports?”

“Not legally,” Seongje said, shrugging. Hyuntak found himself the focus of Seongje’s gaze again, and shifted to lean against Beomseok. With a raised brow, Seongje rocked back on his heels, hands shoved into his pockets. “Ain’t really something I fuck with.”

Several heads whipped towards him. Seongje didn’t even possess the good grace to look abashed.

“What?” he asked, pressing his tongue to his top teeth. “Don’t tell me you’re all pussies like him.” As he said this, he jerked his head towards Hyuntak, who had taken to gawking as his best course of action.

Still standing beside him, Humin ducked his head, looking across at their little group before looking back to Seongje. “I mean, no, but… but not here, man. Like, not where someone could hear you, they’ll make you wash your mouth out with soap, and stuff, so just leave it for when you’re in private, y’know, or else—”

Hyuntak had the sense that Humin could have kept going, so interrupted him. “Or don’t say it at all.”

Seongje grinned, opening his mouth to taunt, but was cut off by the sound of Wooyoung bursting into choking noises behind him. Suho, who had been locked in a belligerent staring match with Juntae after the latter had suggested his eyes were too big for his stomach, glanced at the commotion and frowned. A moment later, he turned to gather Sieun’s reaction, whose expression was distinctly unimpressed. When Suho jostled him, Sieun just rolled his eyes and closed his book atop the table.

“As nice as this all is,” Beomseok said, because he was proving to be the only one Hyuntak could rely on. “Perhaps we should get up off the floor.”

Like a wack-a-mole, Wooyoung burst to his feet, kicking at Gamin’s stomach as he sent Beomseok a lopsided salute. “Yes, sir!”

A little while later, Hyuntak had been tasked with showing Seongje the food stations, which had mostly consisted of carrying his tray and sweet talking the lunchwomen for extra portions because Seongje was just so, so very injured. By the time they made it to the cutlery, and Seongje was diligently weighing the option of wooden versus metal chopsticks, Hyuntak had about had it.

“Just get both,” he said shortly, picking one of each and slamming them onto the metal tray, which he shoved into Seongje’s sternum. “And carry it yourself.”

Seongje brightened at this. “Say fuck and I’ll think about it.”

“No,” Hyuntak enunciated, in case Seongje was hard of hearing, or something.

“Fucking hell,” Seongje said. Hyuntak aimed a kick at him, drawing his foot back to drive it into his shin. But Seongje moved with the action, sliding back enough that it mostly glanced off his skin, then reached out for his arm. His palm was so warm, encircling the entirety of his wrist. “You ever done anythin’ fucking wrong in your life, like fuck, or do drugs, or—”

Hyuntak didn’t even dignify that with a scowl, only granting him a single huff of annoyance before asking, “would you like a spoon?”

“Have you even thought about it?” Seongje continued, not letting go of Hyuntak’s wrist. Hyuntak couldn’t decide if it was a prevention technique against further attacks, or if he was just being annoying. Probably both. “Doing something a little… y’know. Ungodly. Like kissing premaritally, or standing up to piss, or…”

To that, Hyuntak did send him a brief glower, but did not respond. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how that sentence ended, or whatever else Seongje would come up with given incentive. He didn’t want to inspire such baseless drivel. It was his self-preservation instinct kicking in, though he’d never thought he had one, not with how he’d always lived, but it turned out there were parts of him still unweaned from the safety of his longstanding decorum.

At his continued silence, Seongje’s lips pulled downwards. He took a moment, considering him, and sighed. “So, you’ve really done nothing?” he asked, evidently changing tacks.

“No,” Hyuntak said, with not a hint of hesitation. And why would there be, he thought. “Never.”

Alright. Hyuntak would like it stated for the record that he had not been following Seongje. At least, not intentionally.

It’d been late into the night, mid-way through his pre-sleep ritual and his last prayer of the day, when he heard a door open down the hallway, and he’d simply been curious. It was a terrible habit he’d been trying to squash, but he hadn’t quite figured out how yet. A little like a gnat, if a gnat’s main purpose was to drive you out of your room past curfew rather than mildly inconvenience you.

So, Hyuntak had cracked his own door open with only the intention of confirming his suspicions that Seongje was, in fact, incapable of abiding by even the most baseline expectations of civilized dormitory living. It was not his fault that his investigation had led him down the hallway, nor to the shoe rack to slip on his loafers, nor to the door leading to the backyard.

Which was how he ended up here, leaning against the door jamb, the evening air warming his cheeks as he peered into the garden, but he hardly noticed. He was too intent on watching Seongje do nothing more strenuous than lean against the brick wall with smoke curling from his lips.

A lamp hanging over the entrance cast a few feet of the yard in weak light, attracting a few moths in frantic orbit. Beyond its reach, the grounds dissolved into shadow and silverish-blue moonlight, striated through the trees.

And there was Seongje, stood between both worlds.

One shoulder pressed against the wall, one foot braced behind himself, cigarette trapped loose between his teeth as smoke climbed the soft incline of his cheekbone. Without the perpetual movement of daylight, he looked different somehow. Less explosive; less of a flashbang. Banked down to glowing embers instead of raging flame.

“Y’know,” he said a second later, throwing a lazy glance over his shoulder, a trail of smoke cutting through the late night blue above their heads. Hyuntak watched it go, watched it drift thinner and thinner until it dissipated right before his eyes. His fingers itched to reach out and collect the smoke in his hands, as if he could fashion a sense of whatever this thing he was grasping for was before he could tumble carelessly through it once again. “Most stalkers are subtle about it.”

Hyuntak straightened immediately. “I am not stalking you,” he informed him, which would perhaps have sounded more convincing had he not been standing half-concealed behind the back entrance at nearly midnight. Still, dignity was a discipline, too. “You’re outside after curfew.”

Seongje hummed, unconcerned. “Mm. And you’re outside after curfew watchin’ me be outside after curfew.” He plucked the cigarette from between his lips, smoke spilling from his mouth as he spoke. “Feels kinda hypocritical, church boy.”

“I came to tell you to go back inside,” Hyuntak returned, bristling.

Seongje gave him that look Hyuntak had noticed he got sometimes, like he’s exasperated and hopelessly amused at once. “Didn’t say anything for, like, five minutes though.”

Hyuntak’s mouth opened, then clamped shut. That was entirely beside the point.

“You should get to bed,” Seongje said dryly, before winking in a way that completely belied his tone. “Hoodlums about.”

Hyuntak knotted his brows. “You’re the hoodlum.”

“Damn,” Seongje murmured. “Got my ass.”

The cigarette burned orange as he took another drag, glinting off the glass of his lenses as the ember flared. Hyuntak tried not to watch his mouth.

“I already told you we aren’t allowed to smoke,” he said, when the effort became unbearable. Seongje’s smile gleamed, almost as much as his eyes. For a second, Hyuntak wanted to smash his fist into— “It’s against campus policy.”

God, into Seongje’s face? Into his own?

He didn’t know, but it hardly mattered, anyway. The impulse passed, just like always, and it was just him and Seongje. It was late, and the night was long, and they’re the only two people in the world right now, these two boys being where they shouldn’t; two boys waiting to go home.

Seongje just blew a ring of smoke into Hyuntak’s face. “Told you didn’t care then, don’t really care now, neither.”

Recoiling, Hyuntak swatted uselessly at the air between them. “You’re revolting,” he hissed, coughing into his shoulder.

Seongje grinned around the filter. “You’re so fucking cute,” he took another drag, though this time aimed his exhale towards the sky. Hyuntak’s brow was starting to furrow again, when Seongje added, “Y’gonna come over here or keep bein’ a pervert in the doorway?”

The look Hyuntak sent him was full of loathing. Seongje grinned wider.

“I don’t want second hand smoke,” Hyuntak said, though he shuffled the tiniest bit closer. Seongje’s gaze dropped to his feet, then back to his eyes.

“Alright.”

“And nicotine is really hard to wash out,” Hyuntak continued, wiping the sole of his shoe off on the grass.

“Alright.”

“And it makes my eyes hurt really bad,” he added, coming to a stop a couple feet away from Seongje, who had watched him intently the entire amble over.

“Alright,” Seongje said, his tone very clearly humouring him. Resigned to his fate as Hyuntak’s latest topic of study. Hyuntak had never been able to help his curiosity, nor his persistence. Most would call it a virtue, but, right now, he supposed it was more a burden to them both.

The temperature around Hyuntak grazed, digging into the ache below his sternum. From the smoke, no doubt. He really wasn’t lying about his aversion to it.

Hyuntak sniffled, wiping under his nose. “I think I’m high,” he said.

Seongje was silent for a very long, long moment. Then, seriously: “Oh, yeah. You’re having a real bad trip.”

“Ha ha,” Hyuntak muttered, rolling his eyes and repositioning himself against the wall.

“Don’t talk to any shadow people,” Seongje said, cupping a hand around his mouth as he pulled on his cigarette for so long, Hyuntak couldn’t help but wonder how his lungs fit it all. He turned his face away on the exhale.

Hyuntak squinted at him through the dark. “You’re a little shadowy,” he returned, earnest. The cigarette glow illuminated Seongje’s jaw every time he inhaled, infernal but brief. There and gone. He was flickering, which didn’t often constitute a basis of reality.

Seongje shot him a sidelong glance, but said nothing, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth furthest from Hyuntak. It was quiet, late. Later than Hyuntak should be awake if he wanted to get any studying done tomorrow.

Maybe he didn’t really care about studying tomorrow. He didn’t know. He felt – itchy, abrading beneath his skin, full of smoke and heat and—

“Mm. Your mind’s best attempt at me is swell. I’m impressed,” Seongje said. He flicked his cigarette away. “Well, then. There we go. Best put you to bed before you start seeing the hat man. Nasty fucker, he is.”

Hyuntak scowled, before rolling his shoulders back, taking a breather. It didn’t really work, apart from cooling his body temperature, but it definitely was not working when Seongje grabbed him by the bicep and propelled him to the propped open door.

“Off you pop,” Seongje ordered, because he was the worst person Hyuntak had ever met and he hated him, or something.

He considered snapping at him, but. Maybe he was tired.

(Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to.)

Instead, he let Seongje steer him up the back steps and into the corridor, the door thudding shut behind them, trapping them into the changed shape of the world.

Outside, the night had been sprawling blue-black and endless. Inside St Judes, it narrowed, the boundary right before them.

Seongje released his arm. “A’ight,” he said, nodding to the staircase. “Go on, then.”

Hyuntak frowned. “You’re not coming?” he asked, doing his best—for once—to shed the condescension from his voice.

“What, into your room?” Seongje asked. “Bit forward.”

“That is not what I—” Hyuntak caught himself before his voice carried. He lowered it into an aggravated whisper. “I meant back to your room.”

“Oh.” Seongje leaned against the wall beside the staircase, looking entirely unbothered. “Eventually.”

Hyuntak stared at him; Seongje stared back.

“I won’t go outside again, ‘kay, church boy?” he said, which was probably him throwing him a bone, which Hyuntak was probably going to grind his teeth done to dust on. Seongje was good at straddling the line between the two. “It’s just stuffy up there. Now, shoo. You’re kinda getting on my nerves.”

“What?” Hyuntak asked. His face felt blank, a slight tug at his eyes his only mark of consternation.

“I don’t want to babysit,” Seongje grumbled, pulling a face as his eyes found Hyuntak again. He tipped his head against the wall, gesturing at him with two fingers. “And you’re just really fucking boring.”

Hyuntak didn’t know if he would, usually, but he had smoke burning through his veins, and Seongje’s gaze burning through him. It almost felt like courage. It mostly felt like rage.

“Fuck you,” he spat, spinning on his heel and barrelling up the stairs before he could see whatever expression Seongje was wearing.

But it had been late, and the night had been long. He’d had a lot of time to imagine.