Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The casserole is burning.

The casserole is burning and the last moving truck is putt-putting away down the road. The new neighbors are probably just beginning to open the tops of boxes, surveying the bathroom and deciding what colors to repaint the walls, and then the bell will ring and Yeonjun will be there with his casserole because that’s the normal thing for a person to do when someone moves in next door.

Except it’s burning.

Yeonjun rips open the oven, scorching his finger. The casserole’s not too bad. Just a few curls of smoke and a blackened top. He closes his eyes. Five minutes later and flames might have engulfed the house. Might have burned him worse than the casserole. If only. Dead people don’t have to play normal with the new neighbors. Or get up in the morning.

He lets it cool and then, through the kitchen window aimed directly at the kitchen window of the house across the road, he sees someone too lithe to be old and too tall to be younger than him.

A boy.

A boy his age.

There are no bigger detectors of bullshit than teenage boys, and whenever he opens his mouth it’s nine hundred percent bullshit. Which is fine. Bullshit is better than the real him.

“Yeonjun?” His mother calls from downstairs. Calls, not yells. To her, Yeonjun is still one raised voice away from broken glass. “Did you bring the casserole over yet?”

“Going now!” Yeonjun shouts back and then he’s out the door because the things he can’t face are both inside and outside the house. It doesn’t matter which comes first.

It’s a big house, lots of windows, lots of yard space. Towers over the tiny square thing belonging to his mother and him. That house had been empty for ten years. Old owner priced way above market value. Rich neighbors, then, but they’d only had one moving truck.

Yeonjun rings the doorbell, picks off burnt flakes of cheese, and rehearses. Want me to show you around the neighborhood? You should come over for dinner some night. Hopefully they’ll say no to everything. Not enough people say no.

The door opens and his new neighbor is a vampire.

He’s taller than him. Unruly ink-black hair, and a face made of knife angles. If Yeonjun were obnoxious, he might use the term shockingly attractive. Or terrifyingly handsome. Holy mother of balls would also be an option. The boy’s eyes are crystalized, glittering, and they get even more diamondlike when he sees the casserole.

“Yes,” he hisses.

Yeonjun swallows. “I’m glad you like casserole so much…”

“What? No. No.” The boy waves at him distractedly and yells into the house, “Casserole, Minhyuk! Not potato salad!”

There’s an echoed “damn” from the living room.

“Knew it the moment I saw the garden gnome,” says the vampire to the universe at large before directing his voice back to the living room. “That means I get the upstairs bedroom.”

“Um…sorry.” Yeonjun always apologizes to people when he has no idea what to say. Safest thing to do.

“Apology accepted.”

The boy has a low, raspy voice. The girls at school will lose their minds.

“Wait, no,” Yeonjun says. “I mean, I wasn’t actually apologizing for anything.”

“I assumed you were apologizing in advance for boring me with the standard introductions, which I would actually prefer to get over with, so: I’m Choi Soobin, you’re someone whose last name is also Choi, going by the surname on your mailbox. No, I don’t find it a particularly lovely neighborhood. No, you’re not invited inside for tea. Goodbye.”

And the door slams. Who is this guy? Sherlock Holmes?

Yeonjun checks himself to see whether or not he’s been hit by a truck, because that’s what it feels like. No truck. Nobody tasing him, either, which was his next guess. He shuffles the casserole to his left arm and buzzes the doorbell two more times. 

The vampire answers it again. No, not vampire. Sherlock. He’s pale like one, though. It makes his eyes even more alarming.

“We’re not big fans of Girl Scout cookies,” he says and tries to shut the door again, but Yeonjun sticks his foot in the way.

“What the hell is your problem?”

Sometimes his anger outpaces his anxiety and later he’ll probably regret it, but not yet.

The other boy raises an eyebrow. “Did you really want the tea that badly?”

“No, it’s just—we made this for you. Take it.” If Yeonjun returns without the casserole, there will be questions. Mom needs to think he got along with the neighbor. Mom needs to think he gets along with everyone. “And you could say thanks.”

“Thanks,” Soobin says like he’s never heard of the word before and takes the casserole, sniffing it like he’s never heard of a casserole either.

“It’s not laced with arsenic or anything.”

“If it were, that would make you much more interesting than I believe you are.” His eyes flick up, and Yeonjun might as well have just slid through an MRI machine.

He should be nice. Soobin is reading very low on the social skills meter. Someone like him probably doesn’t get a lot of nice. “Okay. So…you’re my age, looks like. My first name is Yeonjun, by the way. Not on the mailbox. You’re transferring to Danwon High, right?”

Soobin does this pained twitch. “I’ll save both of us some time. I don’t do this.” He gestures.

“What, talking?”

“Not about things that don’t matter, no. We’re not going to be friends, I’m not going to come round your house after school to do homework, if you ask to borrow sugar I won’t give you any. Now goodbye.”

The door bounces off Yeonjun’s foot again. At this rate he’ll need crutches. “Yeah, no, I don’t want your sugar. I just thought it would be nice, since we’re neighbors, to get to know each other a little. But obviously—”

“I already know as much about you as I’ll ever need to,” Soobin cuts in.

Yeonjun laughs. “You know my name.”

“And I know that you suffer from insomnia, likely a side effect of the fact that you’re clinically depressed, also likely a side effect of the fact that your elder brother died in a car crash nearly a year ago and you were in the right back seat. No—” He tilts his head to the side. “Left back seat.”

Yeonjun hunts through his mind for the part that keeps his lungs working. His stomach wrenches and he wills himself not to throw up, like when he did when the car finally settled on its back and he unhooked himself from the seat belt and got a good look at—no, stop, don’t go there.

Soobin’s face changes. Just a little.

“Nice trick. Been talking to my mom? Looked us up online?” The words fall from him like rocks. “You got one thing wrong. It’s not insomnia.”

“Damn.” Soobin’s face ices over again. “In that case, what keeps you awake at night? I assume you’re not crying over your brother. You two didn’t get on. You were always the favorite. He must have resented that. People do. And you, let’s see…you were ashamed of—”

One moment, Soobin is loosely holding the casserole. Yeonjun moves and then it’s slathered down Soobin’s front, clumps of it splattering on the porch, the flakes of burnt cheese dotted across his collarbone. The dish clatters to the ground.

“Oh my God.” The thoughts of the accident are sliding farther and farther back, meanwhile the scene in front of Yeonjun getting crisper. “Oh God, I’m sorry—”

There’s surprise in Soobin’s expression. An expression that’s been so flat that any hint of emotion stands out like white on black. There’s a tiny bit of hurt there too, almost unnoticeable. Yeonjun wants to yell well what did you expect, but instead he turns and runs.

When he gets back to the house, his heart is beating so fast it hurts. He screams into his elbow without making a sound.

“What were they like?” His mother calls from upstairs.

“Very…” Yeonjun manages. “Nice.”

|||

Dear new neighbor,

I wanted to say I’m very sorry for throwing the casserole at you. Except it probably was for the best, since it’s the first thing I’ve tried to cook in months and it might have been poisonous anyway, even without the arsenic

 Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,

I am expressly sorry for dumping the casserole on your shirt. It was rude. Although it’s probably nicer to get a casserole thrown at you instead of your dead brother and I don’t know where you get off looking all sad like that afterwards.

Dear vampire,

I should not have chucked a casserole at you. You probably prefer blood. I’ll remember that next time. Unless you’re an alien (also a possibility) in which case I’ll try to synthesize some space goo or whatever it is you eat because you’re obviously not human.

Dear Soobin,

I am so sorry for what I did. It was immature and I don’t know what came over me. I hope you can forgive me. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Yeonjun crumples all but the last one, sticking it in his pocket. It’s one minute past midnight. His mother is asleep by now. He's good to go.

He takes a different note out from under his binder. This one he didn’t write.

ares,

someone’s breaking into my house every night. no idea who it is. they don’t take anything. they only stay for a couple minutes. I thought I was imagining it, but last night I saw their shadow. my dad sleeps through it and I don’t want to tell him because I had a run in with the police at a party last august and if he calls them and they recognize me, well, yeah. the person usually comes around 12:30. could you find out who it is? maybe take a picture? I’m worried it’s one of my friends playing a prank and I don’t want to call the cops on them. my address is 154-1 ansan-dong. thanks! you really are amazing.

154-1 Ansan-Dong. A twenty-minute walk. Yeonjun puts on black pants, black shirt, a black beanie and by the time he’s outside in the night air, the chill just beginning to cut the leftover warmth from the sun, he’s awake.

He’s only awake at night.

He’s only awake when he's distracted.

Yeonjun walks quickly, circumventing the pools of light cast by streetlamps, but before long he’s thinking about the new neighbor and that ruins everything.

How the hell did he know so much?

Did Soobin research his family before he moved in? He knew about the depression. He knew about everything.

So what does that make him? A stalker? A psychic?

Monday will be interesting. The guys will hate Soobin, no doubt about it, if he talks to them the same way he talked to Yeonjun. Will his looks—the supermodel cheekbones, the scary-beautiful eyes, the raspy voice, dear God—outweigh his weirdness? They won’t, not for long. Yeonjun knows his school. Soobin will start alone, end alone, and be alone in the middle.

But he can’t pity him. Not after what he said.

If it had been Beomgyu, he wouldn’t have thrown a casserole. He would have thrown a punch. But Beomgyu’s dead and Yeonjun’s alive and awake, waking up more as he gets closer to his destination, and he won’t think about Soobin. He won’t think about anything except his night.

Then Yeonjun’s phone rings.

How could he have forgot to put it on silent? It rings, it shrieks. A dog starts barking and a porch light switches on and if his mother realizes he’s been sneaking out—

Yeonjun dives behind a rosebush, scratching his cheek, and hisses “Hello?” into the screen blinking BLOCKED NUMBER at him.

“Hello, Choi Yeonjun.” A slow, mysterious voice drawls.

Yeonjun peeks over the rosebush. The street’s still late-night empty, but the dog won’t shut up. Why do people get dogs? “I’m a bit busy and it’s also midnight, so if whoever this is could call back later—”

“I’m afraid this is urgent, Yeonjun.”

“Urgent?”

“An urgent apology.”

“What kind of apology is urgent past midnight?”

“The kind that not many people get,” comes the voice. “My name is Choi Minhyuk. I believe you met my younger brother today.”

Yeonjun draws his knees up to his chest and touches his scratched cheek. Blood. Something else to explain to his mother in the morning. “Sort of. I mean, yeah.”

“And I understand you delivered to him a casserole in a very intimate manner.”

Yeonjun winces. This Choi Minhyuk isn’t really apologizing. The guy wants him to apologize. “I know. It was an accident…well, no, it wasn’t. I wrote an apology letter. I was going to bring it over tomorrow.”

Minhyuk laughs. A laugh like a villain in a spy movie. “No, no, no. The casserole was one of the better reactions people have had to my brother. And it did look delicious. Such a waste. My palate is much more distinguished than that of Soobin’s shirt.”

Crazy. They’re both crazy. Yeonjun decides.

“What I’m trying to communicate to you, dear neighbor, is that you have no reason to apologize at all. Very much the opposite. I would like to apologize on my brother’s behalf. In fact I had him write an apology letter, which he will be bringing by tomorrow morning.”

“He doesn’t seem like the apology letter type.” The bush is poking Yeonjun in the arm. At least the dog has stopped yapping.

“He’s not. Pray forgive him. He’s been cooped up in the car for two days and he’s gone quite mad. Which isn’t to say he’s not always quite mad, because he is. I do hope you’ll get used to it.”

“I wasn’t planning on spending enough time around him to get used to it.”

“But neighbors must be friends.” Yeonjun can practically hear shark’s teeth on the other end.

“Right…sorry, but why are you calling me at midnight?”

“Just out of curiosity. My brother got the insomnia wrong.” There’s a brief silence. “I can hear that you’re outside. Your cat got out, maybe?”

Yeonjun hangs up automatically. His heart’s beating in a way that he’s quickly associating with his new neighbors. The Sherlock Holmes tachycardia. Scourge of hospitals everywhere.

Why is Soobin’s brother dealing with this and not his parents?

Yeonjun gets up, plucking thorns from his palms, and quietly vows to himself that he will have as little as possible to do with Choi Soobin.

It’s twenty-three minutes past midnight when he reaches his destination . The building is one of those picket fence houses, the number huge next to the door to distinguish itself from its twins to either side of it. Yeonjun picks his way across a dew-dusted lawn in need of a mow. There’s a wooden trellis on the back wall of the house, looped with dying tomato vines, and he’s light enough to climb it—he’s lost weight since the accident. The roof is slanted, and he has to wedge himself behind the chimney to keep from slipping. Not a real chimney. Just for appearances. Appearances are so important.

They hide what you really are.

He doesn’t know how the Ares alter-ego thing started. It just did. The locker in the science wing, the beat-up one that nobody uses, is where people leave the notes. The notes asking for help with their problems, their mysteries. And he’s the one who helps them. It helps him, as well.

The sky is full of stars.

But then Soobin darts back into his mind, Beomgyu accompanying him—and Beomgyu always brings the dull pain, so dull it dampens everything, blurs all the colors, puts him to sleep. The only way he can wake himself back up is risk. Yeonjun edges out from behind the chimney, fighting gravity, wedging his heels against the roof tiles so he’s about to fall, but not quite.

Much better.

There’s a muted scratching sound from the other side of the roof and then he’s really awake. Of course. The burglar’s trying to get in through the skylight. He have to see who it is before they see him, but it’s dark, and the burglar who doesn’t take anything has also chosen to wear black.

Yeonjun ducks back behind the chimney. The burglar’s still on the other side of the roof. But getting closer. The scratching, louder. He holds his breath, savoring the fear and the thrill, the rough tiles beneath his palms. They could struggle. Fall off the roof. The intruder could have a gun. They could shoot him in the head.

The noises stop right on the other side of the chimney. Then there’s only the sound of someone else breathing in the night.

And a voice.

“Stargazing, then. Not insomnia. Rather cliché. Though doing it on someone else’s roof, that’s a bit less so.”

A deep, dark voice.

“Soobin?” Yeonjun gasps.

“You remembered my name. I’m flattered. Most people need a minimum of three reminders before they bother storing relevant information.”

Yeonjun glances over his shoulder. The silhouette is too tall to not be him and the other is now on the roof with him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Following you,” comes the voice from behind the chimney. “I got the insomnia wrong. I’m never wrong. Had to find out what it really was. Minhyuk thought secret lover, but you’re obviously not seeing anyone. Two days since your last shower, at least. I thought stargazing. Typical teen cliché. Everyone thinks staring at the echoes of light from balls of gas makes them an intellectual.”

“You followed me?” Yeonjun hisses into the darkness. “Because I told you I don’t have insomnia?”

“And to acknowledge that my intelligence occasionally gets the better of me and I may have been too…blunt.”

“What intelligence? You looked all that stuff up.” They’re speaking in whispers, back to back. Yeonjun’s not sure which is weirder—this conversation, or the fact that they’re having it in the middle of the night, on someone else’s roof.

“As if I’d waste my time cataloging trivia like that.” Soobin slips out from behind the chimney, facing him. Moonlight casts little shadows beneath every angle of his face. Under the stars, he looks like an alien. A really attractive alien. “I deduced it.”

Yeonjun fights the urge to grab him. Soobin’s balancing on his heels on the slanted rooftop like gravity is the least of his concerns. Maybe it is. Maybe Soobin really is an alien and he has an anti-gravity belt. And he failed Human Conversations 101 in Alien School. “Deduced?”

“Circles under your eyes. Not sleeping. Your hair, your unwashed face, and the prescription in your back pocket all told me about your depression.”

Somewhere behind them, there’s a noise. “Soobin.”

“You’re wearing a ring around your neck. Class ring, too large for your finger, but a guy’s. Class of 2017—too young for a father, bit old for a boyfriend, most likely brother. He wouldn’t have given it to you, strange gift, he’d have bought you a normal necklace. You inherited it. Chain’s not scratched or discolored. Less than a year old.”

“Soobin…”

“There’s a scar on your left temple where you hit the window, white enough that’s it recent but not so recent it isn’t healed. You let your hair cover it, you don’t want to see it in the mirror. It’s connected to a traumatic event. You also alternate between unconsciously rubbing that area of your forehead and your neck when you’re upset—muscles tense from anxiety, neck aches, leftover from whiplash. Car accident.”

“Soobin.”

“Oh, let me finish, I’m nearly there anyway. Bumper sticker on your mother’s car. Saw it when we pulled in. My youngest is an honors student. Youngest. She made a point of being prouder of you than of him. His bedroom in your house is on the bottom floor, can tell because the shades are drawn, bit strange, it’s the middle of the day. The room is exactly as it was when he died and your mother doesn’t want outsiders to see. Cartoon stickers on the window, faded. The bedroom of a child who’d grown up. Not you, you wouldn’t put stickers on your window, you’re habitually neat with your possessions—clothes unflattering but clean, they’ve been folded. Cigarette butts under the window too. Old ones. He was a smoker. Your mother hated it. Every mother does.”

Jesus Christ.

“Soobin, that was incredible, but—”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“But.” Yeonjun separates his brain into two halves: the one reverberating with shock at Soobin’s bizarre brand of magic, and the one paying attention to the figure creeping over the back fence. “They’re here.”

Soobin whips around, eyes following the burglar, who hops the fence and moves toward the back of the house.

“Interesting,” he says.

Yeonjun fumbles with his phone—needing a picture—as the burglar begins to scale the same wooden trellis that he’d used to get on the roof. It creaks under all the weight.

“Not stargazing, then.”

“Quiet.”

The burglar gets close enough so that Yeonjun can see it’s a man, though his face is still in shadow—a man balancing with his arms out. He’s heading for the skylight, so focused he hasn’t noticed him and Soobin. The skylight is just above the chimney, moonlight glinting off the glass. Yeonjun holds his finger above his phone’s camera button.

And then it rings.

This time, it doesn’t shriek. It screams. How could he have not muted it, how how how—but it’s too late. BLOCKED NUMBER flashes across the screen just before the burglar freezes, spots him and Soobin, and scuttles back toward the trellis.

“You were waiting for him,” Soobin notes.

Yeonjun wishes he could say I do it because I want to help whoever wrote me that letter. He wishes he could say I do it for the right reasons. But he doesn't. He does it because he wants to be awake.

Yeonjun dives out from behind the chimney, ignoring gravity, and leaps toward the burglar, making a swipe for his sleeve. Yeonjun misses by miles. His balance is gone. He crashes to the tiles, bruising his elbow, skidding, rolling right off the edge of the roof, getting a last-minute grip on the gutter.

Still holding on today, then.

A hand closes on his wrist. “This roof isn’t high enough for you to break your neck. Twenty feet at most. If that was some sort of suicide attempt, the best you can hope for is a sprained wrist or broken elbow.”

Then Soobin pulls. Yeonjun didn’t realize how strong he was. The litheness hides muscle. Soobin hooks his foot on the gutter to keep from sliding and drags him back up onto the roof without making a sound.

Yeonjun twists to look for the burglar, but he’s gone. Light bleeds out behind them. Someone’s turned on the kitchen light.

This time, Yeonjun is the one who grabs Soobin’s hand, yanking him toward the trellis. Together they scramble down, racing across the lawn and hurtling over the fence just as the front door opens.

Once on the street, Yeonjun runs. He’s half-laughing, half-panting, sprinting with sweat blinding him. These are the only moments that matter. When his blood is fire and memories of Beomgyu are so far away.

Eventually, when he’s sure they’ve turned enough corners that the cops won’t find them even if they come, he glances beside him. Soobin is standing there, as cool and unruffled as if he’d just woken up from a nap.

Yeonjun’s chest is burning. He bends over, panting. “Sorry. That was supposed to have gone better.”

“Things can’t always go the way we expect.” Soobin smiles for the first time. It changes his whole face. “You were supposed to be boring.”

Chapter Text

(scribbled on the back of a Transport 4 You Moving Services receipt)

Subject said “They’re here” implies expectation of intruder’s arrival. Subject expressed alarm at lights turning on, meaning no personal relationship with inhabitants. Said “they’re”, indicating lack of knowledge of intruder’s gender, meaning unfamiliar with intruder. Why lie in wait for an intruder at someone else’s home? How did he anticipate his appearance? Minhyuk and I both wrong. Unusual circumstance. Will investigate further tomorrow.

Spoke to me with relative tolerance, despite everything. Why? Hates me. (People do.) Obvious from casserole attack. Yet was almost friendly. Unusual circumstance. Will investigate further tomorrow.

Displayed clear lack of regard for himself when trying to catch intruder. Near fall from roof—easily preventable. Possible death wish? Connected to depression? Will investigate further tomorrow.

Town = small, hellish. School tomorrow. Hate school. Levels of stupidity there are unchartable. Inevitably boring. Inevitably disastrous. Fifth high school I’ve been to. Previous four were all the same. Must hope this Yeonjun anomaly proves to be at least a temporary distraction.

|||

Yeonjun opens his eyes and immediately regrets it.

His elbow’s sore from hitting the roof. His back’s sore from the chimney bricks. His heart’s sore, sore in the way it is every morning when the alarm goes off and the sunlight around my curtains becomes too bright to ignore. Another day.

Beomgyu, still dead.

What’s the point?

He lets the alarm ring horribly for another two more minutes before hitting it and sliding back under the covers. Something’s different today. Right. The new neighbor.

Soobin.

Every morning, Yeonjun tries to come up with a good enough reason to get out of bed. Today they’re having chicken pot pie for school lunch. Today it’s not raining. But today he’ll be witnessing the catastrophic event of Choi Soobin walking through the front doors of Danwon High. Fire and gasoline. It’s worth getting up just to see the explosion.

While brushing his teeth, he stares at himself in the mirror, lifting his hair slightly. The scar.

Hidden. Twisted and puckered, like the metal of the car frame after it came to a rest at the bottom of the hill. He used to enjoy looking at himself in the mirror, sometimes. Catch him in the right light and he was worth looking at. Not anymore.

Your hair, your unwashed face…

But maybe today he’ll make an effort.

When he gets downstairs, breakfast is on the table and his mother is already on her way out the door. She doesn’t like being around him now. All the grief in him. “The new neighbor brought a letter by for you,” she calls, and then before he can say what letter or come back or did you talk to him, isn’t he strange, she’s gone.

And the letter’s next to the orange juice.

Dear Yeonjun,

Minhyuk made me do this. Technically he’s my guardian and technically he can make me do things. Even when I informed him I’d apologized to you quite thoroughly and with much feeling last night, even though I loathe repetition, he still insisted.

So: I apologize. Even though I can hardly help being right. Apparently one is supposed to dance around topics such as dead family members, and I can’t be bothered to remember every single topic that one is supposed to dance around. The list is miles long and I have many more important things to store in my mind.

In case Minhyuk is reading this, I will say it again: I am sorry. I am so sorry I would rather be thrown on a funeral pyre than say anything insensitive to you ever again. If I happen to mention something indiscreet in the future, only mention it (maybe we should come up with a code word) and I shall immediately draw and quarter myself and feed my own body to a thousand fire ants, which I shall keep for convenience in Minhyuk’s room.

Satisfied, Minhyuk?

Very truly yours,

Soobin

So that was why Soobin had apologized last night.

When Yeonjun is done laughing into his scrambled eggs, he puts the letter in his backpack and darts off for school, feeling strangely lighter. For an arrogant dickhead with a bizarre ability to tell someone’s life story just by looking at them, Soobin’s kind of funny.

Yeonjun is so distracted that he only notices a car when he has to stop to tie his shoe. It’s a slick dark expensive-looking thing, with tinted windows. Actually, it kind of reminds him of Soobin, except it’s a car. Then again, he guesses it’s because they’re both machines. One of them followed him last night, and one of them is following him now. It’s idling in the street, stopping as he stops. One of the tinted windows slides down.

“Hello, Yeonjun,” says the driver, a man in his late twenties. He’s slightly buff, and ridiculously well-groomed, his hair smoothed back and face clean-shaven. His voice is mysterious and drawling and slightly familiar. “Won’t you get in? I’ll give you a ride to school.”

And he basically looks like an older version of Soobin.

“You’re—the blocked number guy. Minhyuk,” Yeonjun says. “You called me last night. Twice.”

“And you didn’t answer the second time. Notable, considering you answered the first call. One can only assume you became preoccupied. Considering my original theory that you were out to meet with a lover, followed by my realization that Soobin had gone out, and then my subsequent deduction that he’d gone to find why you weren’t an insomniac—well. You two really have hit it off, haven’t you?”

Yeonjun squints. Finding meaning in the rich pile of Minhyuk’s words is like digging through molasses. “Are you…trying to imply…?”

“It was a joke. Soobin doesn’t hit it off with anyone. He’s far more likely to get hit.”

He’s as tall as Soobin, his face just as sharply structured like Soobin’s. Both of them have the same glint of intelligence in their eyes. And the same haughty tone. “My sense of humor isn’t my most developed trait. Nor is it my brother’s. Hereditary, maybe.”

Apparently thinking introductions were a waste of time was also a hereditary trait. “Okay, well, I’m Yeonjun. Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess?”

“I doubt we are. At least, I doubt we will be, after people around here encounter my brother. I may share his intelligence in most matters, but I don’t share his stupidity in regards to keeping my mouth closed when it’s appropriate.” Minhyuk cranes his long neck, still blocking the road. He’s wearing a fancy suit. What job in this town requires a fancy suit? “I hope you received the letter I dropped off this morning.”

“I did, yeah.” Yeonjun shifts his backpack higher on his shoulders. “Is he really going to put fire ants in your room?”

Minhyuk ignores that. “Soobin only raged about me forcing him to write it for twenty minutes. He must like you.”

Yeonjun swallows a laugh. “I didn’t get the impression that he likes anybody.”

“Well, nobody likes him, so at least he’s on equal terms with the universe. Do get in the car.”

“Am I being kidnapped?”

“I have something to discuss with you. A proposition.”

Yeonjun checks his watch. Unless Minhyuk really does give him a ride, he is going to be late for school. His attendance streak this year is perfect. The only perfect thing about him. Yeonjun opens the door and gets into the passenger seat. Minhyuk hits the gas, and the car pulls into the road. It drives smooth as butter.

“I’m going away for a little while, Yeonjun.”

“What do you mean, going away?” Yeonjun shifts on the creamy, insanely comfortable leather seat. “You just moved here.”

“My occupation requires me to be in bigger and better places than this town.” Minhyuk smiles. Someone should make a horror movie about that smile. The same people who did The Ring. “This move was for Soobin. He offended one too many people in our old town. It happens every few years. Critical mass. We move on.”

This is ridiculous, Yeonjun thought. “What do you mean, one too many people? He’s, what, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Nineteen. Started school a year late as a child. Like you. I’ve done some research.” He runs a red light. Not recklessly. More like he doesn’t consider laws worth following. “My brother has the mind of Einstein or Galileo and the impulse control of a teenager. He is, in short, the most dangerous person you’ve ever met. Besides me.”

Yeonjun shakes his head to clear it. This is all too weird. “You said you had a proposition. What proposition?”

“Soobin and high school are like…oil and water, to borrow a cliché. Like a wolf in a cage made out of feathers. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I’ve been kind of lost since you opened your mouth, actually.”

Without taking his eyes off the road, Minhyuk plucks Yeonjun’s phone from his lap and types in a number. “I’m giving you my private line. I want you to contact me if Soobin does anything…extreme. And I want you to keep an eye on him. You’ve met him. You know what he’s like. You also know what your school is like. You’re in a unique position to be an ally.”

“An ally?” Yeonjun can’t decide if he’s been dropped into a war movie or a spy movie. Or a comedy. “I’m not even sure if I like him yet.”

“Do it for the sake of being a good neighbor, then. You’re well on your way. You’ve already made him a casserole.”

“Which I dumped on his shirt.”

“I prefer to focus on the positives.”

They’re almost at the school. Two more minutes and Yeonjun can flee for his life. “Look, if he’s such a danger to himself, why don’t you stick around? Where are your parents?”

“I’m too useful of a person to spend my days babysitting my brother.”

“Both modest, then. More family resemblances.”

He flattens a loose hair back against his skull. “You seem well-aware of how charming we are, and yet you express surprise at the fact that our parents have left us. There are few surprises in this world, and that fact is not one of them. I emancipated myself at seventeen and became my brother’s legal guardian.”

“…Does that even happen?”

“Not to normal people, maybe.”

So Soobin’s parents were gone. Not dead. They’d left. The two brothers had driven even their own parents away.

“May I encourage you to find some value in the fact that my brother is a genius,” Minhyuk says. “It’s the only thing about him worth valuing, I’m afraid.”

Ouch. “He must get great grades.”

“The school system is not manufactured for geniuses, it’s manufactured for people who obey orders and enjoy repetition. Soobin does not see the point in homework.”

“Bad grades, then. Got it.” Yeonjun’s fingers are on the handle and he’s ready to bolt. “If he’s a genius, what does that make you?”

The car reaches the school. It’s a cool-looking car and any other day, it would have drawn a few stares. Today, however, people are clumped together, whispering. Soobin must already be inside.

“It makes me a bigger genius.” Minhyuk reaches over and pops open the door on Yeonjun’s side before he even has the chance to open it himself. “Thank you for your help, dear neighbor.”

“I haven’t said I’m going to do anything yet.”

But Minhyuk just smiles again, pulls the door closed, and drives away.

Well then. Reason number million to stay away from Soobin—his maniac older brother. Yeonjun sets his teeth as he looks up. The imperial brick building without even a single flower by the front steps, rears before him.

He waits for the familiar rush of nerves that always hit him every time he walks up those front steps, but they don’t come.

Today, nobody will be staring at Choi Yeonjun, who was in the car when his brother died.

Today everyone will be staring at Choi Soobin.

Who is in his homeroom, a fact he discovers less than ten minutes later as he heads in with his shoulders hunched and eyes down, gearing up for the bomb to go off. But it already has. The evidence is in the new seating arrangement. The guys are clustered to one end, glaring knives at the solitary figure in the seat by the window. The girls are whispering so loudly that it sounds like he’s stepped into a waterfall.

Soobin is leaning back in his chair, his long legs stretched underneath his desk. Yeonjun has never seen someone pull off such an imperial expression with their eyes closed.

“Yeonjun,” says Chaeryeong, as soon as Yeonjun sits down in the front of the room. As far away from Soobin as he can manage. “There’s a new guy. Over there. Look.”

“I see him,” Yeonjun says, careful not to actually look.

Chaeryeong isn’t really his friend, but they’d paired together on a project two weeks ago, and she’s one of those girls who feels obligated to talk to people with recently-dead siblings. She’s your typical student with glasses and a hair bow in her hair.

“His voice is so….” she trails off and squeals.

She knows about the voice. Meaning Soobin has opened his mouth. Yeonjun’s surprised nobody’s hit him yet.

The bell rings, angry pealing, and Mr. Kim appears with a stack of papers under his arm. Yeonjun groans. They’re getting their tests back. The test that he’d only studied six hours for. An A minus. He’s getting an A minus. His first all year. His mother will notice.

“We have a new student today.” Mr. Kim deposits the papers on his desk and turns beamingly to Soobin. Everyone else turns toward him too, slightly less beamingly. Soobin doesn’t move.

“A new student,” Mr. Kim repeats.

Still nothing.

“Er, will Choi Soobin please introduce himself?”

Soobin opens his eyes in a flash of annoyance. “Why? You’ve already said my name. At this point it’s a bit redundant, don’t you think?”

Yeonjun should have warned poor Mr. Kim about the introduction thing.

“Humor me,” Mr. Kim said, sliding into that kind of hardness teachers get when they sense it’s one of those students.

Next to him, Chaeryeong is drooling. Actually drooling. Soobin sighs loudly. “Choi Soobin. Moved to here a few days ago. Yes, I’m from Seoul. No, to the girl next to Yeonjun, I wouldn’t like to get coffee. Now continue on with your learning, or your most likely pointless attempt at it.”

Mr. Kim is breathing hard, obviously trying to figure out whether or not Soobin’s being rude enough to get sent to the office. He’s used to the standard form of student rudeness—swearing or sex jokes. Soobin’s brand of rudeness is from a whole different planet.

“Isn’t he your new neighbor?” Chaeryeong whispers. “Is that how he knows your name? Why doesn’t he like coffee?”

Yeonjun flips open his notebook and fake-reads yesterday’s chemistry notes.

By second period, three girls have asked Soobin out.

By lunch, all three are crying in the bathroom.

By third period, the rumors are flying. He’s psychic. He’s psychotic. He’s an undercover cop. He’s an undercover FBI agent with a file on each and every student and that’s how he knows that Jiwoo’s brother is in rehab, that Sooyoung had diet pills for breakfast, that Sohee keeps a stash of Japanese porn in her locker.

It’s hard to hate a guy who pulled Yeonjun back onto a roof. It’s easy to hate a guy who has the ability to break every heart he comes across, and who can’t care less if he does.

By fourth period, Soobin’s in a fight.

Yeonjun has been keeping his head down all day, half-terrified someone will discover his association with Soobin and get thrown back into the spotlight. It’s so nice to not be in the spotlight. Not much happens in here, and the only thing more interesting than a boy with a dead brother is a supercilious, modelesque, strangely-mannered transfer student.

Yeonjun still has his head down on his way to Math class, and that’s why he bangs into someone’s back. Not just one person. It’s a bunch of people. The hallway is clotted with them, and they’re all staring in one direction. He hears what’s going on before he sees it.

“What did you say about my mom?” someone shouts. I know the voice. Jinhyuk, a dumb guy but not a bad guy, who dropped off a letter to Ares last month asking for help breaking up his little sister and her way-too-old boyfriend.

“Nothing of significance,” Yeonjun hears Soobin say, quite airily for a guy facing down someone who Yeonjun once saw basically pick his car up and pull it out of a snow bank. “Merely that if you’re going to try to cheat off me in class because your father is too busy having sex with your tutor for her to help you, you should know that I frequently write down wildly incorrect answers to amuse myself.”

Nice, Soobin.

Everyone else is blocking the view and Yeonjun can’t see what happens, or who advances first, but in the next few seconds he has the perfect view. Everyone in front of him scatters, dodging a falling Jinhyuk as he crashes to the ground. Soobin stands there, as impassive as ever. One eyebrow is slightly cocked, like he’s watching something vaguely interesting on TV.

Asshole.

“Really?” Yeonjun says and the spotlight swings back onto him again, but for the moment, he doesn’t care. “You’re a total jerk to him and then you knock him over, just to be extra nice or something?”

“Hello, Yeonjun.” The eyebrow settles back into place. “I wouldn’t say that I—”

“I would say that you. You’ve been at our school for half a day and you’ve already traumatized more than half the people here—”

“Er, Yeonjun,” Jinhyuk mutters, who is struggling to his feet, his face beet-red.

“—and now you’re beating people up. You know what? Just go back to wherever you came from. We don’t want you here.”

Soobin takes three steps toward Yeonjun, and for a moment he’s cowed by Soobin’s height and rigidity and dark expression—but he’s only gotten closer to lower his voice. “I’m sure you don’t,” Soobin says. “Ares.”

A freeze settles over Yeonjun. Impossible. How could he know? How could he already know?

“Yeonjun, look, I appreciate it,” Jinhyuk mumbles, “but he didn’t hit me, I slipped.”

A shiny glint catches Yeonjun’s eye and he looks down. The floors. Freshly waxed.

“What’s going on here?”

It’s Mr. Lee, the principal, his face already mottled with furious color. The crowd dissipates in seconds, people speed-walking to their next classes. A girl, one of the ones who was crying in the bathroom, pipes, “A fight with the new guy!”

“Yes, according to the standards of the universe at this school, someone slipping on a recently waxed floor constitutes a fight,” Soobin snaps. “A fight with the floor, which he lost. I don’t have much faith in your powers of observation, so I’ll let you in on a little secret—I’m not the floor.”

Yeonjun’s head is still pounding. Ares. He knows about Ares.

“You’re the new transfer student.” Mr. Lee folds his beefy arms—according to the rumors, he used to be a pro-wrestler famous for his voluminous mustache—and gives Soobin the be-afraid look.

Soobin is not afraid. “I am, and your wife is cheating on you with the gardener. Oh, sorry, I thought we were saying obvious things.”

Yeonjun knuckles his forehead again. He’s going to get permanent knuckle marks if he spends much more time in Soobin’s presence.

Mr. Lee’s face reddens, then purples, the mustache standing out brilliantly against all the color. “Don’t be smart with me.”

“I’m smart with everybody. I am smart. I can’t be smart with some and not others.”

Mr. Lee’s skin tone is approaching a legendary shade of puce that’s only appeared once before, when two seniors took his car for a joy ride. “Choi Yeonjun. Escort him. To the office. Now.”

Soobin tosses his hands up. “Reached the sending me to the office stage already, have we? Do you people have secret meetings where you agree to be predictable?”

Yeonjun flattens himself against the row of lockers. “What? Why me?”

Mr. Lee starts striding away so quickly that Yeonjun can barely hear what he mumbles to himself; “I have to call my wife.”

Soobin watches him go, hooks his hands above his head, and yawns.

Great. Apparently it’s Yeonjun’s fate to be frequently alone with Choi Soobin. Fate has it out for him. Yeonjun hunches his shoulders and storms off down the hallway. “Come on, then.”

Soobin catches up to him almost instantly. “Aren’t you going to ask how I know about Ares?”

“No, because I have no idea what that is.” Yeonjun wants to remain in front of Soobin so he doesn’t have to look at him, but Soobin’s fast pace means he’d have to break into a run. Yeonjun’s tempted.

“Oh, I think you do,” Soobin says. If only Yeonjun could beat the smugness out of his voice. “I think you know Ares as well as you know yourself.”

And then Soobin checks his watch.

“Look,” Yeonjun says. But he has no idea what to add. They’re close enough to the office that he can see through the glass door when Soobin grabs his shoulders.

“Lunch time. The principal’s in the back. Someone’s brought donuts.” Soobin rambles.

“Maybe they’ll share one with you while you wait to get detention.” Yeonjun tries to pull away, but Soobin spins him around and steers him through the front doors of the school. Sunlight blinds him and he shivers in the rush of cool air.

“W-what are you doing?” Yeonjun stutters.

“Doing you a favor. Come with me and I won’t tell anyone you’re Ares.”

Yeonjun is stiff with anxiety, and somehow he lets Soobin propel him all the way to the edge of the student parking lot. When Soobin sweeps open the passenger door of a blue Sedan in the front row, Yeonjun finally steps back.

“No, no, I’m not skipping school. You’re supposed to go to the office.”

“You wanted a picture of his face. You had your phone out.”

“Whose face?”

“The home intruder. I’ll take you to him, but he’s only available for the next half hour.” Soobin taps the sheer face of his watch. Expensive watch. Dark and glossy, just like his clothes. Just like his everything.

“The principal will be barely halfway through the donuts by the time we get back. He’ll be too busy with his emotional overeating to notice either of us were gone.”

Yeonjun hugs himself for warmth. “They always told me not to get in the car with strangers.”

“I’m not a stranger. I’m your neighbor.”

“My strange neighbor.”

But Soobin just stands there, waiting. He looks different in the sunlight. A little less alien. And Yeonjun can’t help it. He’s curious. He sighs, rubs his eyes, regrets his life choices, and gets in.

Yeonjun regrets his life choices even more after five minutes of Soobin’s driving, which he’s not even sure can be categorized as driving—more like gas-propelled falling. At one point he dives onto Soobin’s lap to swing the wheel away from an old lady on the curb.

Soobin glances down at him, the tiniest smirk pulling at his lips. “Less subtle than the drooling girl who asked me for coffee, but more unexpected, I’ll admit.”

“Shut. Up,” Yeonjun gasps, trying to remember if he owns anything valuable enough that he should worry about the fact that he doesn’t have a will.

Finally, Soobin stops in front of a fast food joint. Burger King. Yeonjun has never seen anything so glorious, not. He hurls himself out of the car, balancing against the hood until his knees stop their violent trembling. “Did you learn to drive—by playing Mario Kart—”

“I’ve never put a Mario in a cart and I never will. Now…”

And then Soobin’s very close to him. There’s a kind of energy thrumming through Soobin. An excitement. His proximity is like a shot of adrenaline and for a millisecond Yeonjun lets himself breathe it in, and then Soobin steals his phone from his pocket.

“Hey!”

“You’re clearly having some kind of issue with your knees, so I’ll do it for you,” Soobin says, striding away from Yeonjun through the parking lot until he reaches the grimy window of the restaurant. He aims the phone at the glass. The fake shutter sound snaps into the air.

And then Soobin comes back and puts the phone in his hand. “There’s your home intruder.”

It’s a clean-shaven man in a Burger King uniform, bags under his eyes, bent over a wilting salad in a plastic carton.

“From—last night?” Yeonjun turns the phone sideways and right-side up again. “How did you guess?”

“I didn’t guess. I knew. In his scramble to get down the trellis, he dropped this.” Soobin, clearly pleased with himself, waves a crumpled receipt in Yeonjun’s face. “Time of twelve-ten p.m., salad, price half off. Another one, day before, same time, same order. Clearly a vegetarian, ordering the only item without meat at Burger King’s, but why go to that restaurant at all if he doesn’t eat meat? Answer: he works there. He’s on his lunch break and he gets a discount. And he’s poor.”

A receipt. Soobin picked all that up from a receipt. “How do you know he’s poor?”

“Trousers sewn up three times, Convenience store-brand shampoo, I’d say so. That and the fact that Burger Kings pays $7.25 an hour.”

“But the person who wrote to me said the intruder wasn’t taking anything, so why would a poor person break into a house if not for money—”

“The person who wrote to you? You mean the person who wrote to Ares.”

Yeonjun locks his lips and throws away the key forever. He’s such an idiot.

“Our culprit is familiar with the house,” Soobin continues without missing a beat. He speaks so fast, but without an ounce of nervousness. Just surety. “There was a gopher hole in the backyard, difficult to see in the dark, but he sidestepped it without looking down. Your contact said nothing was stolen. That just means nothing obvious was stolen. He’s been taking food, toilet paper, necessities. He’s not taking any money out of guilt, meaning the people he’s stealing from are family. He’s a college graduate too embarrassed to admit a high-profile career didn’t work out, so he’s pretending he’s still got his city job while secretly working one that doesn’t give him a living wage. Show the photo to your client and see if I’m wrong, but I can tell you in advance that I’m not.”

“That’s,” Yeonjun starts. His words are all tangled up. “That’s. Insane. You’re insane.”

“I prefer the term brilliant.”

“I mean, that’s what I meant…it’s incredible. That you can do that.”

“Forgiven me then, have you?”

“For what?”

“Bringing up your brother.”

“Oh. No, I wasn’t mad about that anymore.” Yeonjun puts his phone in his pocket. “It’s more just you. The way you talk to people.” He says it without thinking, still distracted by the echo of Soobin’s rapid-fire hail of revelations, but not distracted enough that he doesn’t see Soobin’s expression slip.

 “I see. Admittedly, I’m not that likable.”

“I didn’t say that. What I mean to say…thanks.” Yeonjun clears his throat. “All this because you got ‘insomnia’ wrong? You must be more of a perfectionist than me.”

“A bored perfectionist.”

“How are you already bored? You just moved here.” A breeze dusts Yeonjun’s hair away from his forehead.

“I was born bored.”

Yeonjun envisions an image of a dark-haired baby glowering at everyone, and he has to laugh.

“I’ll drive you back,” Soobin says.

Yeonjun takes a step away from the car. And another one. And then five. And then he weighs Soobin’s driving against the mark that a detention will put on his record.

On the way back to school, Soobin leans against the seat, resting one elegant hand on the wheel, and drives so fluidly that Yeonjun abandons his concern for the sidewalk-strolling old ladies of the world. Was Soobin driving like that before just to terrify him? Could he ask him? Would that be weird?

Either way, the silence is oppressive.

“So now you’ve solved me,” Yeonjun says to the windshield. “No insomnia. I’m Ares. Now will you leave me alone?”

“No.” Soobin drums his fingers on the wheel. He’s not looking at Yeonjun, so he feels more comfortable looking at Soobin. Soobin’s profile might as well have been carved from stone. He needs a haircut. The dark hair is nearly in his eyes. “Not quite. Why are you Ares? That’s what I’m curious about.”

“If you’re so bored, learn to knit. I’m not that good of a hobby.”

“If I ever learn to knit, the first thing I’ll make is a noose to hang myself with. Let’s talk about Ares. Took me less than five minutes to find out about it, obviously. It’s the only interesting thing going on at that school.”

“Less than five?”

Soobin flashes his vampire smile. “I got the locker.”

Locker 247. The dented, empty one in the corner of the science wing. New students moved here so rarely that Yeonjun had figured it was safe to use as an anonymous drop-off point. He had stolen the key from the janitor’s closet.

“You saved my life, Yeonjun,” Soobin says.

“Excuse me?”

“I was about ten seconds from dying of boredom—painful way to go, they don’t pour enough research money into it—and then I opened that locker and I had something to do. Without that distraction, my first day would have been much worse. My best debut at a new school so far, I believe.” He turns a corner.

Yeonjun chokes. “What did you do to the other ones, burn them down?”

Soobin withdraws several letters from his pocket and tosses them onto Yeonjun’s lap. “Lots of standard help me cheat on tests and a few drawings of penises—your biology and art departments clearly need more funding—but there were a few fun ones. This one, for instance. ‘I want to know in advance if my new boyfriend’s going to cheat on me. If you’re a boy will you try to seduce Kang Taehyun and let me know how it goes?’ Oh, and this one: ‘Someone’s sending me love letters every day. Help me figure out who it is? I’ve enclosed one for reference.’” Soobin unfolds another piece of paper. “‘Dear Jisoo, know that you are the most beautiful and the loveliest and the smartest—’ Hang on, I need to pull over and vomit.”

“Really?”

“Only metaphorically.” Soobin sneaks a quick look at Yeonjun. “You’re solving people’s problems. Their mysteries. And don’t ask how I knew it was you. It’s obvious that someone whose name you didn’t know asked you to be on that roof last night. Fits Ares perfectly.”

“I don’t do all of them,” Yeonjun whispers. “Just the risk—”

“Just the risky ones,” Soobin finishes. “I was right, then.”

“Right about what?”

But Soobin refuses to answer.

Chapter Text

(written on the back of a crumpled love letter from the Ares locker)

Was right. Death wish. Subconscious or conscious, not sure. Today: drove highly erratically, but subject agreed to get back in car. Most likely subconscious. Seeks out risky endeavors on one level to divert self from pain, on another level to put self in danger. Should probably inform “authority figure.” Subject would hate that. Will hold back for now.

Most interesting: obvious recent change in personality. Shoulders regularly hunched, yet no evidence of the spine problems that would arise if this were chronic. Occasional outbursts of anger and feeling; shoulders straighten. Subject is attempting to make himself smaller. Would say needs therapy, except therapy always makes it worse. Conclusion: has become markedly more reserved following death of brother.

Also interesting: has passed point by which most people either stop speaking to me or attempt to cause me bodily harm. Doesn’t need to respond when I speak. Why does he respond? Pities me? Childhood reinforcement to respond when spoken to? Will investigate.

Ares thing could be an effective distraction. Obviously I’ll partner with him on it. It is my locker.

|||

If someone saw where Yeonjun was right now, in Kang Taehyun’s room, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, they’d think they knew what he was here for.

They didn’t.

“I did my legs,” comes from the voice from the bathroom.

“I said clean-shaven. That means every hair. I’ll be conducting an inspection—” Yeonjun drops his voice to porno levels of husk— “and believe me, you want to pass.”

Yeonjun can nearly hear him shaving faster.

This was easy. Too easy. All Yeonjun had to do was come over and invent a question about the biology exam. Whoever this guy’s soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend is, he was right about him.

Yeonjun thought this would be interesting. At the very least, exciting. It’s not. He just feels sleepy.

He can’t stop thinking about Soobin. Who is infinitely more interesting than this.

At least now he knows people still find him attractive.

Focus. Proof. He needs proof. Yeonjun takes out his phone and leans against the bed, making sure enough of Taehyun’s possessions are visible that it’s obvious he’s in his room, and snaps a picture of himself from the neck down.

Mission accomplished.

Then Yeonjun waltzes to the bathroom door and drums his nails on the wood while pulling on his pants with his other hand. “Tae, you better pluck the nostril hairs too. Trust me, I’ll make every hair worth it.”

Yeonjun leaves him desperately deciding whether or not the nose pain is, in fact, worth it.

It’s not.

He’s already out the door.

|||

Sending…sending…

Ding!

Do you recognize this guy?

Yeonjun types. He’s videochatting with a girl from his math class. And, as it turns out, the one who’d written to him about the burglar. Ares has a Skype account. But Yeonjun’s camera’s turned off. Hers isn’t.

Ares also has Twitter account—over 550 followers, nearly everyone from school. Whenever Yeonjun solves someone’s problem, he tweets about it, asking the person who’d written to him to message him privately. Then he gives them his Skype username. He likes to see their faces. The human touch.

There’s a faint click from the girl’s side as she opens the file, and an even fainter gasp. Her shock comes in brief, staticky breaths. “It’s my brother. He’s supposed to be in New York City.”

So Soobin had been right. Incredible.

He’s the one breaking into your house .

“I don’t understand,” she sniffles. “Why?”

Yeonjun hesitates with his fingers over the keyboard. Soobin would spit out the facts like gunfire, unaware that some facts can tear through people’s hearts as if they were.

I’d ask him.

“I will. Oh, I will.” She wipes her nose. “Thanks a lot. I mean it. Who are y—”

Yeonjun closes the chatroom.

Silence settles, heavy. He tweets one more time: This is for whoever was wondering about a certain person’s fidelity. He’s being dm’d within seconds. Dangergirl is the handle. No real name. Yeonjun shrugs—he doesn’t need to know who everyone is—and sends the headless picture of himself on Taehyun’s bed.

And just like that, he’s out of distractions.

He could go to bed, but it’s three p.m., and his mother will knock on the door when dinnertime comes and see him sleeping and be faced with the fact that her son is an utter mess. She tries so hard not to face that fact that he hates to undermine her efforts.

So he leaves.

He wanders around aimlessly for an hour or two, he’s not sure, but it’s long enough for the light to soften and turn evening-yellow. He heads in the direction of the graveyard. Turn back. Turn around again.

Do the people living next to the graveyard know that they’re living next to his brother?

He’s at the gate. Curling his fingers around the bars. All the headstones look different. He wants them to be indistinguishable. He wants to not be able to pick Beomgyu’s out. They’d spent too much money on the headstone. Beomgyu’s college fund. But it didn’t matter. Beomgyu wouldn’t have used it anyway.

Yeonjun leaves numbly, without going in. The sky is gray. Everything is gray. Everything’s been gray for a long time now.

He crosses the road. There’s a car, but it will stop. They always stop.

This one doesn’t.

“Yeonjun!”

He’s hit with a force so powerful he thinks it’s the car—he topples on his face and stomach and skids eight feet across the sidewalk—is he dead, maybe he’s dead, but he’s not, his wrist hurts too much.

“Hypothesis correct, then,” gasps a disheveled Soobin, rolling upright next to him.

Next to him? Yeonjun struggles upright, grit embedded in his palms. His wrist really hurts. “Were you—were you following me again?”

Soobin’s elbow is bleeding where he scraped it on the pavement. “I was curious to see if you’d end up on someone else’s roof. Although I suppose ending up in front of a car is nearly as unusual.”

“Oh my God,” Yeonjun manages. “You’re a stalker.”

“I prefer the term life saver.” Soobin inspects his bleeding elbow dispassionately. “My hypothesis, incidentally, was that you’re suicidal. You looked at the car before you walked in front of it.”

“I thought it would stop,” Yeonjun says and winces, touching his wrist. “Ow. Shit, that hurts.”

And then he decides that he really hates Choi Soobin. Because he calls an ambulance.

The ride to the hospital is brief and incredibly embarrassing. Embarrassing because Soobin is in the ambulance (“Do you want to ride up with your friend?” “He’s not my friend.” “Never mind, then—” “No, I want to come. It might be useful to know how the inside of an ambulance works”) and because Yeonjun really, really doesn’t need an ambulance.

Especially when the doctor tells him his wrist is not broken.

“Not even sprained,” The doctor says cheerfully. “You just wrenched it. Put some ice on it, take an ibuprofen and you’ll be fine.”

Soobin is in the waiting room when he stalks through the door. Yeonjun saw a Bengal tiger once at the zoo. Beomgyu loved it, but all he could think was how out of place it seemed, all the people standing around it with their stupid cameras. He feels the same way about Soobin.

“No cast,” Soobin observes as Yeonjun approaches him. “Not broken, then. I’m assuming the expression on your face is because you’re angry at me for bruising it. But the balance of having saved your life outweighs that, I feel, so let’s agree to blame the sidewalk.”

“You really didn’t need to call an ambulance,” Yeonjun says through gritted teeth, aware that a young mom to their left has stopped her dreamy staring at Soobin to now skeptically look at Yeonjun.

“Your head hit the pavement. It’s always best to play it safe with potential head injuries. For instance, I believe you have a latent one that’s acting up, considering how you stepped out in front of that car.”

Yeonjun bites his lip. Maybe the car will come back. Maybe it’ll crash right through the wall of the hospital and kill them both.

“You’re not angry because I called the ambulance.” Soobin’s piercing eyes cut right into him. “You’re angry because you don’t want your mother to find out about this.”

“Will she?” Yeonjun forces out the words.

“The insurance bill will tell her, whether or not I do. You’re asking if I’m going to inform her that you’re a suicide risk. Which I’m sure is the proper thing to do, but it sounds rather tedious.”

Yeonjun’s carefully constructed façade of an unbroken him is crashing down. “Soobin—no—you can’t—I’m not—”

“You let yourself fall off that roof. You got back in that car even after I drove like a madman. You stepped into the street in front of a car that someone else was driving like a madman.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Hardly the most difficult deduction I’ve ever made.”

“I was just spacing out, all right? I didn’t realize they were going that fast.” The breath has been sucked out of him by some black hole. “You can’t—if my mom thinks—she has to think—”

“That you’re fine? That your brother’s death hasn’t affected you at all? That you’re still the perfect one? Try to be a little less obvious, Yeonjun.”

Yeonjun blinks, hard. He is not going to cry. Especially not in front of Choi Soobin. Who, apparently, is the only one in the world who can see the ruined parts of him.

Which makes him very dangerous.

“You’re lucky I’m me,” Soobin says. “Most people aren’t.”

“What?” Yeonjun croaks.

“I don’t want you to be committed, or caught up in hours of therapy, because you’re the only thing keeping me from utter, mind-crushing boredom at the moment. This Ares thing. It’s something. Better than nothing. I’ll keep your secret.”

Yeonjun lets all the air out of his lungs. Soobin said he’s lucky he’s him. Meaning Yeonjun should be lucky he’s selfish.

“But you need to promise me something.” Soobin extends his hand. It hangs there, waiting. “No more putting yourself into these situations. Subconsciously or not. Shake on it.”

Yeonjun does. He’s half-expecting Soobin’s hand to be cold, like metal, but it’s not. He feels human.

Soobin keeps his grip for a second too long, until Yeonjun wants to squirm away from his eye contact. “I mean it. If I think you remain a danger to yourself, I will tell someone. Even if therapy is self-indulgent quack science that reinforces the belief that one’s silly internal streams of thought are worth listening to.”

“Good to know your opinion on things.” Yeonjun rolls his eyes.

“I don’t express opinions. I express facts.” Soobin takes a step back from him and he feels like an electric line has been broken. “Call your mother for a ride. Tell her you tripped.”

“Why don’t you give me a ride?” Yeonjun asks, surprising himself.

“No car.”

“What do you mean no car? You drove me to Burger King yesterday.”

“I can always tell who leaves their keys in the glove box by the bumper stickers.”

And with that, Soobin strides out of the room, leaving Yeonjun wondering why he’s not more surprised that Soobin steals cars.

|||

Yeonjun puts his good hand out to knock.

And withdraws it again.

And put it out again.

It’s been two days since he bruised his wrist. Two days for his mother to freak out, find every scrape and cut, and order him to stay home from school, no matter how many times he insisted he was fine. (“You needed an ambulance, Yeonjun! An ambulance! It was a bad fall and you need to recover.” “…I really didn’t need the ambulance.”) Two days since he’s seen Soobin. And two days for him to wreak havoc on Danwon High.

According to Chaeryeong, in those two days, Soobin had:

1. Won three fights.

1. Lost one fight.

1. Made Principal Lee turn an entirely unprecedented shade of pink, a color now universally dubbed Soobin Cerise.

1. Deduced that Ms. Ji and Mr. Yang were sleeping with each other.

1. Was sent to the office four times.

1. Walked out of class five times after correcting the teacher and muttering something about increasing the amount of stupidity in the world.

Now he gets why Minhyuk asked him to keep an eye on Soobin.

But Soobin needs more than an eye. He needs—well, Yeonjun doesn’t know what, but definitely more than an eye. An authority figure, at least. Unfortunately, judging by their empty garage, Minhyuk hadn’t gotten back yet.

Meaning Soobin’s in that house alone.

Yeonjun steels himself, takes a deep breath, and raps his knuckles against the wood.

The door opens immediately. “No casserole this time, I see.”

“I’m guessing that’s from the fight you lost?” Yeonjun says, gesturing at Soobin’s face.

Soobin touches the small cut on his lip. “Lovely to know you have an informant on me.”

Soobin’s dressed in a loose-fitting silk shirt as dark as his hair, which tumbles handsomely around his forehead. The cut just makes his face more vivid. Yeonjun looks away. “I’m just here to say…”

“Come inside. I’ve already wasted ten minutes waiting to see if you were going to knock and I’m not going to spend another ten loitering on the porch.”

“I’m just here to say thanks. You saved—” Yeonjun tries again as Soobin leads him down the front hallway, which is bare as a skeleton—no carpet, no paintings on the walls, no shoes by the door.

And then he starts coughing.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got pneumonia now too.” Soobin gets out of sight as he retreats into the kitchen. His outline is hazy. The room is full of smoke.

“Jesus Christ—”

“Choi Soobin, actually. And you were doing such a good job remembering my name.”

“We have to get out of here now.” Rubbing his watering eyes, Yeonjun fumbles for Soobin’s arm. Where’s the fire? Upstairs? It doesn’t matter, he has to get Soobin out before it spreads—

“I’m supposed to offer you tea, aren’t I?” Soobin asks lazily.

“Your house is on fire and you think I want tea—?”

“Oh, please. I was smoking.”

Yeonjun stares at the tall figure through the haze. “You were smoking? How many? A cigarette a minute?”

“Not bad, Yeonjun. Not bad at all. You’re better at deductions than I gave you credit for.”

It’s then that Yeonjun notices the heaps of empty cigarette cartons on the kitchen counter, strewn haphazardly across the granite. There are little piles of ash on the floor. “Jesus.”

“Wrong. Still Soobin. Did you know you take the Lord’s name in vain about as often as you breathe?” Soobin smirks. “You’re sinning.”

Yeonjun ignores him, wrenching open the kitchen window before crossing to the living room to do the same there. He trips over a box, and then another one—the room is full of boxes. Nothing is unpacked.

“I believe you were thanking me for saving your life.” Soobin is leaning on the door frame, dragging on a newly-lit cigarette. Yeonjun opens the remaining living room window before grabbing Soobin’s cigarette and stubbing it out. Soobin frowns at him.

 “You’re welcome.” Yeonjun says as he searches for a trash can to put it in, finding none. “Why haven’t you unpacked anything?”

The living room, with its high ceilings, wooden floor, and lack of furniture, is chilly and barren. The boxes aren’t even stacked. They’re strewn everywhere. One is slightly torn open, spilling clothes onto the floor.

“Unpacking is tedious,” Soobin says.

“You can’t live like this.”

“I’m alive, aren’t I? Here. A pulse and everything.” Soobin grabs his hand and presses it to his neck. Even his stupid neck is beautiful. And warm. Yeonjun doesn’t know why he keeps being surprised by that. What is he expecting? A machine?

Soobin pulls away. The smoke is trickling out of the room and Yeonjun can breathe without feeling like he’s going to hack up his lungs. “It’s Minhyuk’s favorite trick,” Soobin says. “We move in, he goes off on some business trip, and he expects by the time he’s back I’ll have gotten fed up and put everything away for him.”

“And your parents are…fine with this?”

“Our parents are fine with anything and everything as long as they’re a good distance from us.” Soobin smiles. Not the hurt cover-up smile of someone abandoned. The ironic smile of someone who doesn’t care. “Minhyuk’s my legal guardian, you know.”

Oh. Right. “Well, he’s doing a shit job.”

“I don’t need a guardian and he knows that as well as I do.” Soobin picks up another cigarette.

Yeonjun knocks it out of his hand. One more thing on the floor won’t hurt this house. “As far as I can tell, you’ve had a million of those today and you’re not having any more.”

Soobin glowers at him. “I saved your life and now you won’t even let me have a cigarette?”

“Your millionth cigarette,” Yeonjun corrects him, rubbing him forehead. “And we’re unpacking.”

“You’re unpacking. Godspeed.”

But after ten minutes of watching Yeonjun wince as he tears boxes open with his sore wrist, Soobin finally kneels beside him. Together, it only takes them a couple hours of quiet work. It’s almost relaxing. The brothers don’t have many possessions.

Yeonjun lifts an instrument out of a box filled with towels. “Minhyuk plays the violin?”

Soobin coughs. “Not Minhyuk.”

“You? Really?”

“Shut up.” He snatches it away, but he doesn’t toss it in a corner like he’d done with everything else. He lays it carefully on the floor.

And then there’s only the cardboard boxes to crush and put aside for recycling. Yeonjun ignores the slight ache in his wrist. “See? That didn’t take long. Knew it wouldn’t, with the two of us working.”

“No you didn’t. You didn’t know it would be the two of us,” Soobin says.

Yeonjun is already becoming familiar with the slight line that appears between Soobin’s eyebrows when he’s annoyed. Yeonjun straightens and stretches, wiping sweat off his forehead. He feels better. Even if there still isn’t any furniture, at least there aren’t boxes sitting forlornly everywhere. “Did too. You wouldn’t let someone with a sore wrist unpack all your stuff for you. You’re not a heartless bastard.”

“How flattering.”

“I said you’re not, didn’t I?”

“All evidence to the contrary.”

Yeonjun remembers the handshake. “Not all evidence.”

There’s a brief silence. Right. He’s standing in a house alone with Choi Soobin, with no more activity to occupy them. The silence is suddenly awkward. “So, uh…I’m starving.”

Soobin says nothing, his brow still furrowed.

“At this point you’re basically supposed to ask if I want anything to eat,” Yeonjun prompts.

Soobin waves in the direction of the kitchen. “Go find something yourself, if you’re so invested. Your ancestors were hunter-gatherers.”

There’s nothing in the kitchen. No toaster. No fruit bowl. No dishes in the sink. The fridge isn’t even plugged in. When Yeonjun opens the cupboard, a bug scuttles out of sight. “Soobin! You don’t have any food.”

“Your observations are getting even more astute. I must be rubbing off on you,” he calls out from the living room.

“It’s kind of hard to hunt or gather when there’s nothing to hunt or gather,” Yeonjun calls back. “Unless you think I’m gonna go cannibal and hunt you.”

“You’re likely descended from cannibals as well.”

“Soobin,” Yeonjun says. “What have you been eating?”

“I don’t eat when I’m investigating. Interferes with brain function.”

“What have you been…investigating?”

“You.”

Chapter Text

(written on a piece of cardboard torn from a box)

Subject said “Not all evidence.” Clear attempt at joke. I don’t miss evidence. Subject is not first to call me a heartless bastard. (Won’t be the last.) Is the first to say I’m not one. Possibly affected by a head injury that the doctors missed.

Will make an attempt to keep subject from harm. If he succeeds in dying, will doubtless “feel” guilty. Tedious.

Odd situation overall. Never been voluntarily visited before. Never had someone order me a pizza before. Never spent time with someone before with no apparent agenda on either end. Subject seemed determined to “chat” despite previous assertation that I do not. Oddly: didn’t mind. Have always minded. Why do I not mind? Should cease this attachment before it becomes significant. But then, it won’t. (They never do.) Not that I want it to.

Am clearly going insane from boredom. Obvious. Why else would I care whether or not a completely ordinary guy wants to walk in front of a car?

Well. Not ordinary. Some are born with high tolerances to alcohol, drugs. Perhaps subject was born with high tolerance for me. But he’ll reach his threshold eventually. (People do.)

Just received e-mail notification. Interesting: Yeonjun’s name in subject heading. Must check.

…

Just read e-mail. Important note to self:

Under NO circumstances allow Yeonjun to attend school tomorrow.

|||

Yeonjun is used to his morning fight with himself.

Get up.

No.

Why not?

No reason to.

You’ll miss school.

I don’t care.

You do care.

But this morning, it doesn’t happen. He’s dressed and in the bathroom almost before he realizes it. He backtracks. What’s different about today? He gets to see Soobin, but that can’t be it. That would be stupid.

He barely knows the guy.

Why is Soobin the first thing that’s made him want to get out of bed in months?

Yeonjun glances at his phone. Yesterday, they’d exchanged numbers. It’s good to have your neighbor’s number. In case of an emergency. Yeah. It’s practical.

“How’s your wrist?” His mother calls from downstairs.

“Fine today,” He calls back. They rarely have a conversation that doesn’t occur over opposite ends of the stairs.

“All right, then. I’m going to work. Breakfast’s on the table.”

Five minutes later, he’s munching on cereal and thinking of things he knows about Choi Soobin:

1: He and his brother don’t get along.

2: He and his entire family don’t get along, apparently.

3: He takes terrible care of himself. The smoking, the forgetting to eat.

4: He’s not actually a heartless bastard.

5: In theory.

He’s halfway out the door—would it be polite to ask Soobin if he wants to walk to school together?—when his phone beeps.

Soobin: Yeonjun. Come quickly.

The message blinks at him. Should he ignore it? If he doesn’t leave now, he’ll be late.

Soobin: Very important.

Soobin: I need you.

His heart skips oddly. Soobin doesn’t seem the type to ask for help. What if he really did catch the house on fire? Yeonjun’s used to having morbid fantasies about himself, but somehow they’re sharper, more real, when they’re about Soobin.

He drops his backpack on the front steps and sprints across the road. When he reaches Soobin’s house, he doesn’t knock. He bangs. “Soobin? What’s wrong?”

The door opens and Soobin’s standing there, not on fire. Yeonjun tries to control the weird rush of concern he hadn’t expected at all. “Are you okay? You texted me.”

Soobin reaches out and hauls him inside so fast his head spins. “Yes, fine. So glad you could make it. Do come in.”

Is it his imagination, or does Soobin look frazzled? His hair is slightly more unruly than usual. Leave it to this guy to express emotions through his hair. “What do you mean come in? We have to go to school.”

“Haven’t you heard? School’s canceled. Gas leak.” Soobin pulls him down his weird barren hallway until he breaks free.

“But that’s not true. They send out a schoolwide email when they cancel.” Yeonjun pulls up his school e-mail on his phone and waves it in Soobin’s face. “See? Nothing.”

Soobin snatches the phone and studies it. There it is—a flash of relief crosses his expression. Searching for emotion in Soobin’s face is like birdwatching. Ah, yes, the rare relief-bird.

“You’re right. Nothing,” Soobin mutters. “Might as well skip school anyway, though, at this point. Retain a few extra brain cells. Care for any leftover pizza? Look, I’m offering you food and everything.”

Yeonjun stops in the middle of the hallway. “Are you nervous about school?”

“What?” Soobin asks like Yeonjun just accused him of stabbing someone in the chest and he’s a normal person who’d be offended by that. “Why are you smiling?”

“I’m usually the one saying ‘what’.”

“You say it when you don’t understand something intelligent I’ve said. I say it when I don’t understand why you’ve said something ludicrous. There’s a world of difference.”

“I just thought, you know, maybe you don’t want to go to school because you’re worried about it. It’s stressful, transferring schools. But don’t worry, I’ll—”

“If I was going to waste time worrying about something, it would be something of much larger consequence than school,” Soobin says with so much disgust that Yeonjun abandons his theory.

“Then what is it?” They’re in the kitchen now. Yeonjun selects an empty cardboard box as a makeshift trash can and sweeps most of the empty cigarette packs into it. “I’m not skipping school. I have a perfect record.”

“I’ll break into the record office and change it.” Soobin’s pacing, back and forth. “No one will ever know.”

Yeonjun sets down the cardboard box. “Soobin, this is a weird question considering you’re obviously already insane, but have you gone crazy?”

“Possibly, but that’s unrelated.” Soobin takes one of the remaining cigarette packs and drops it in the box. Yeonjun knows something up if he’s helping him clean. “I thought we could spend today getting to know each other. Like you suggested at our first meeting. We could…” Soobin shudders. “Chat.”

“You’re obviously lying. You just grimaced your way through that.”

“I grimace my way through everything.”

“Touché,” Yeonjun says. “But, I’m going to be late. Goodbye.”

Soobin seizes his non-sore wrist. “You shouldn’t go in today. There’s a new variant of bird flu running rampant among students—”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’m an excellent liar. You’re just a hard person to lie to,” Soobin says irritably. “Come with me and I’ll show you why you can’t go to school today.”

Soobin’s acting so out of character that Yeonjun’s curiosity outweighs his desire to get to school on time. If he needs to, he can run. He follows Soobin into the living room, which is still empty but for a stack of cardboard in the corner and a few miscellaneous items strewn on the floor.

“Take a seat,” Soobin says.

“You don’t have any chairs.”

“You’re just determined to be difficult, aren’t you?” Soobin’s laptop, a Dell, is plugged into the wall. He reaches for it, but something makes him hesitate.

“Just show me already.” Yeonjun sits cross-legged and opens the lid himself. It’s not password protected, and Soobin’s e-mail account flashes onscreen.

“Hang on,” Yeonjun says. “That’s my name.”

He scrolls down.

“Hang on…”

Oh my God.

“And that’s the—rest of you, too.” Soobin slams the laptop shut so quickly it almost takes off Yeonjun’s fingers. But he would gladly trade his fingers to scrub the contents of that screen from Soobin’s memory. Possibly his whole arm. Possibly his whole body.

“I would make some sort of joke about you moonlighting as a porn star being another reason you don’t sleep, but judging by your pallor I’m guessing that wouldn’t be the best course of action.”

Yeonjun barely hears him. All he can see is that picture, burned into his eyelids. The picture of him. The one he’d sent to Taehyun’s anonymous lover. The picture of him wearing basically nothing. Except someone had taken some serious Photoshop skills to it and now it’s a him who really is wearing nothing.

“That’s not…” Breathing wasn’t this hard five minutes ago, was it? “That’s not my…”

“I know,” Soobin says quickly. “Slight blurring around the edge of—yes. Obviously Photoshopped.”

“Not obvious to someone who isn’t you,” Yeonjun chokes.

“Not much is obvious to people who aren’t me.”

“How did they know it was me?” This can’t be happening. How is this happening. “My head isn’t in it, but the subject heading in the email said it was me.”

“Whoever it is has decent powers of observation. There’s a distinctive way on how your pants.. fit you, I guess. They’ve included a comparative photo from your Facebook page.”

Dear sweet baby Jesus. “Yes, let’s compliment their fantastic powers of observation. Thank God it was only sent to you.”

Now it’s Soobin’s turn to shift uncomfortably.

“Soobin, tell me it was only sent to you.”

“Just me,” he says.

“Thank—”

“And the rest of the school.”

This is the apocalypse. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a fake naked picture. A numbness spreads over Yeonjun. He knows how this works. The photo will follow him for the rest of the year. It’s probably already in the porn folders of half the people at school. It’s probably already uploaded to ten billion creepy websites. His mother will find out. Every college he has applied to will find out. His future grandchildren will find out.

Soobin clears his throat. “A very talented Photoshopper. The rest of the body doesn’t look touched at all.”

“Oh please yes, let’s also compliment their stunning Photoshop skills. Why don’t you hire them as your personal assistant?”

“It might be better to have a personal assistant who respects privacy.” Soobin slides his laptop away from Yeonjun, across the floor, like if it’s farther away he’ll feel better. “They must have had access to your phone at some point.”

“No, they didn’t.” Yeonjun buries his face in his knees. He is so astronomically screwed. “It was for an Ares thing. Kang Taehyun’s boyfriend wanted to see if he’d cheat on him. Surprise—he would.”

“You actually did that one?”

Yeonjun just shrugs.

Soobin rubs the back of his head. “No, this is good. We know who we’re looking for. We just have to find out who this Taehyun person’s boyfriend is—or was, most likely, considering recent events. If he won’t tell us, we’ve still got plenty to go on. Good Photoshop skills, one of your Facebook friends—”

“We don’t have time for that right now.” Yeonjun stands up.

“Don’t we?”

“I have to go to school. I’m not going to let a stupid thing like this ruin my attendance record,” Yeonjun says fiercely.

“You and your attendance record. I’m sure the two of you will be very happy together. I look forward to attending your wedding someday.”

Yeonjun can’t help but smile. Some of the tension bleeds out of him. “If I hide, it’ll just make it worse. And anyway, why does it matter? I’m already verging on outcast. I gave up on keeping up with friends after Beomgyu died. Maybe no one will even care. Maybe it’ll blow over.”

Soobin is watching him inscrutably, his eyes full of that strange light they get when he’s thinking.

“Anyway, thanks for warning me,” Yeonjun says. “It was neighborly.”

“I’ve never been accused of being neighborly before.”

“Maybe you just haven’t had the right neighbor.”

And when he walks out the front door, Soobin follows him.

|||

“Did you see it?”

“Everyone saw it.”

“Do you think he knows?”

“Of course he knows. Look at his face.”

Yeonjun’s counting every smudge of marker on the whiteboard—fifteen so far, four blue smudges and eleven black—but it doesn’t stop his ears from working. He should have sat in the back, with Soobin. The front seat is good for catching everything the teacher says. It’s also good for catching everything the people sitting behind him are saying.

He’s early, despite this morning’s events. By the time the bell rings and everyone else filters into the classroom, there’s a little circle of empty desks around him. As if naked pictures were contagious.

Halfway through a lesson on the Civil War, he gets a text:

Soobin: Are you all right?

Yeonjun: Now that’s a question I never thought I’d get from you.

Soobin: I’m being neighborly. And I asked you after the car incident.

Yeonjun: Felt a bit better then, than I do now.

Soobin: Tell people you bruised your wrist fighting a bear.

Soobin: Maybe then they’ll be too intimidated to make remarks.

Yeonjun: Was that you making a joke?

Soobin: If you have to ask, I’m assuming it wasn’t an effective one.

Yeonjun smiles. It’s a smile that doesn’t last long, though, because in the next minute Lee Chiwoo, a standard brand rich kid with an eyebrow piercing that he thinks makes him a rebel, leans forward and in whispers, “Fag.”

Hushed giggles circulate. Yeonjun leans forward, his face flaming. He doesn’t care. He totally absolutely does not even care. He doesn’t care so much that Lee Chiwoo can go and screw himself sideways. But he doesn’t say that.

In the back, there’s the sound of a chair scraping back. Mr. Kim looks up from his diatribe on the Civil War. “Do you need something, Soobin?”

“I’m having difficulty hearing the lesson. Which I’m sure is scintillating, so I’d hate to miss it.”

Yeonjun glances over his shoulder. Soobin is standing up. Someone that tall should be ordered by the government to remain sitting at all times.

“Well, you can move up front if you like—”

But Soobin is across the room before Mr. Kim finishes, dropping into the seat next to Yeonjun with unnecessary noise. He hooks his arm over the back of his chair and says to Chiwoo with his most deadly vampire smile, “May I borrow a pen?”

Chiwoo hands one over, scowling.

When the bell rings, Yeonjun gets up quickly, leaving before Soobin or anyone else can catch a glimpse of his face. He doesn’t need Soobin’s dramatics. He doesn’t need Soobin, period. He’s halfway to the cafeteria when Chiwoo rushes by, swearing and holding his ink-drenched shirt out in front of him.

Huh.

Five minutes later, Yeonjun reaches for the pizza at the same time as Chaeryeong.

“Yeonjun!” she yelps like she’s been burned. “Did you hear?”

He slaps another slice of pepperoni onto his tray. “In what universe do you think I wouldn’t have heard about my own naked—”

“Not that.” She shakes her head hard so that her ponytails fly everywhere. “Choi Soobin. That hot new guy. Apparently he borrowed Chiwoo’s pen in class and then snapped it in his face when he was handing it back. Got ink all over his shirt. We all know how Chiwoo feels about his polos.”

Chiwoo is very fond of his polos. He’d probably done something to annoy Soobin. Used poor grammar, most likely. Maybe the polo on its own had been enough. “Hot? You don’t think he’s weird?”

“Of course I do, but he’s still hot. Like freakishly hot. Like Twi—”

“Don’t.”

“Twil—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Twilight hot.”

“Nobody even cares about Twilight anymore, Chaeryeong. Welcome to the modern day and age.” Yeonjun stabs his plastic fork into the salad bar. The wilting lettuce deserves it.

“There are people on the internet who care,” she sniffs. “And anyway, don’t worry about the picture. I wouldn’t judge you for that. Some men are so trashy. You send them one dick pic and suddenly—”

“It’s not a dick pic!” Yeonjun shouts. Heads turn. Mostly boy heads. The word dick is like a dog whistle to them. He lowers his voice. “It’s not mine. It’s Photoshopped. Christ.”

Chaeryeong pats his arm. “It’s okay, Yeonjun. Nothing to be ashamed of. Your dick looks great.”

Yeonjun chokes and decides to give up on life forever.

When he sits down, Chaeryeong goes to join her real friends. The people he might have tried to sit with if he cared more. If naked photos of him weren’t floating around in everyone’s inbox.

Yeonjun is almost finished with his crappy salad when Soobin takes a seat beside him. He’s too tall for the cafeteria table. It makes him look ridiculous. Like an adult playing with a kid’s plastic toy. And suddenly, Yeonjun’s annoyed. For absolutely no reason on God’s green earth.

“You probably don’t want to be seen with me,” Yeonjun points out.

“I’d say the opposite is more true. I guarantee that by the end of this month, people here will hate me more than they could ever look down on you for that photograph.” Soobin scans the cafeteria disinterestedly.

“You’re optimistic.”

“That’s the third time you’ve called me something no one has ever called me before.”

Yeonjun eyes the space in front of Soobin. No tray. “Where’s your lunch?”

“High school cafeteria food is the closest metaphor to death I can make.”

Suddenly Yeonjun feels like he’s going to scream. The entire school has seen him naked, or they believe they have, and Soobin’s making wry comments about the cafeteria food like—like it hasn’t made him think less of him. But it has. It must have. Yeonjun throws his empty milk carton on his tray and stands up.

“You don’t need to keep hanging around me, just so you know. I’m not entertainment anymore. Not interesting. I’m done with Ares.”

“You’re breaking up with your alter ego, are you?” Soobin leans against the table, its sharp edge pressing into his ribs. “I should have brought my violin.”

“If Taehyun’s boyfriend knows it was me in the picture, then he knows I’m Ares. Don’t think he’ll be keeping that information to himself. Keeping things to himself doesn’t seem to be a habit of his.”

“Wrong.” Soobin brushes his hair out of his eyes. He really does need a haircut. He looks like a shaggy dog. A weird alien model shaggy dog. “People at this school like Ares. Ares helps them. You help them. If he revealed that piece of information about you, people would be more inclined to be on your side. This photo is about punishing you, not gaining you support.”

“Why would he want to punish me?” Yeonjun definitely sounds as pitiful as he thinks he does. “He asked me to do it.”

“Maybe he assumed he wouldn’t go through with it and in his distress, found it easier to blame you. People frequently misplace blame,” Soobin says. “For instance, you could hardly blame me for half the things people get angry with me about.”

“Yes, I could.”

Soobin’s not listening. Suddenly, his eyes sharpen like a knife and he looks almost happy for the first time. “Or maybe…oh. That is interesting. Clever, even.”

“What is?”

“I have to investigate first to confirm,” he says, mostly to himself. “But in the meantime, I have a plan to help you with the backlash.”

Yeonjun stares at him. At this absolutely bizarre, unfeeling genius who is offering to help him for no reason at all. The worst part is that he’s glad about it. And he definitely doesn’t deserve that.

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Soobin says automatically, but he frowns a little.

“I thought I was just entertainment to you. Remember?” Yeonjun’s voice comes out dull. “You don’t need to help me feel better about rumors or anything like that. It doesn’t seem very you.”

Soobin stops leaning on the table, his back straightening. “And you know me so well, do you?”

“You make your personality pretty obvious. Smart. Doesn’t care.”

“You did say I wasn’t a heartless bastard, so maybe you don’t know me,” Soobin says curtly.

“Didn’t know you paid that much attention to what comes out of my mouth.”

“It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Yeonjun stops. There’s an odd smirk on Soobins face. Is he being sarcastic? He can’t tell. He’s too tired to figure it out. Today is not a good day.

This time, when he leaves, Soobin doesn’t follow.

Yeonjun means to go to class, but he can’t face it. Instead, he skips for the first time in history. He nearly walks out the door, but what if the people in the front office see him? So instead, he lurks in the hallway between the art department and the gym. One hour and he can go home. Take a nap.

And see his mother.

If she finds out about the photo…

There’s the click of a door opening nearby. Someone’s coming out of the boy’s bathroom. He freezes midstride when he sees who it is.

“Yeonjun!” Kang Taehyun stammers, wiping his still-wet hands on his pants.

“Oh… hi, Taehyun.” Excuses. Quick. “Hey, I’m sorry I left super suddenly the other day. I got a crazy stomachache.”

“Don’t worry about it. I figured it was something like that. Hope you’re feeling better.” He keeps wiping his hands even after they’re dry, eyes fixed on Yeonjun. He’s sort of cute, in a creepy hangdog way. He’s short, at least, shorter than him.

“I wanted to tell you…that picture—I didn’t take it. Like there aren’t any hidden cameras in my room or—or anything. I wanted you to know.” Taehyun says while scratching the back of his neck.

“No. I took it. Sometimes the urge to take a selfie strikes at the strangest times.” Yeonjun laughs weakly and takes a swift look around to confirm Soobin still isn’t nearby.

“Right,” Taehyun says, clearly confused. Kind of endearingly so. Yeonjun almost feels bad for him before remembering he cheated on his boyfriend. Albeit a boyfriend who spread naked pictures of him around school. Speaking of…

“Hey, Taehyun, what’s your boyfriend’s name?”

“Boyfriend?” He pales and starts toying with his belt loop, his fingers slipping in and out. “What boyfriend? I don’t have a boyfriend. No boyfriends around here.”

“I heard you’re dating someone,” Yeonjun says cautiously. “Or at least you were.”

“Me? Not me. Do you think I’d invite you over to my place if—” He breaks off, hesitating like the protagonist in a romantic comedy. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to get together again? Since you had to leave before. I thought this time we could take it slow, get dinner at Adolfo’s, see a—”

“I can’t.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“No thanks, Taehyun.”

He literally hangs his head. Yeonjun almost feel bad again, but his negative emotion generator has worn itself out for the day.

“Well…I’ll see you around, then, “ Taehyun says, wandering off with his head still down.

It’s been ages since someone has asked him out. It used to happen often enough. Beomgyu always said—but it’s not a good time to think about that.

So Yeonjun’s determined to pretend Taehyun’s boyfriend doesn’t exist. That’s fine. The only real reason to get his name would be revenge, and he’s not interested in that. It wouldn’t make anyone forget the photo.

He’s just beginning to feel guilty about how he snapped at Soobin when the bell rings. He winces. Should have left early. Now he’ll have to fight through the end-of-day rush to get to the doors. Maybe he’ll just stay down here until everyone’s gone.

But that doesn’t work either, because everyone who was in gym class bursts out into the hall, some still in their shorts. He shrinks against the wall. Most buzz by without seeing him, but Chiwoo and his friends don’t.

“Hey!” Chiwoo crows when he spots him. He’s wearing a different polo. He probably carries a spare at all times. “It’s Dickpic. Hey, Dickpic, why don’t you give us a show? I heard it’s free.”

Soobin would say something about the lack of creative nicknames in the world. But Yeonjun is not Soobin. He hunches his shoulders and tries walking away, like they tell you to, but someone grabs his wrist. The wrong one. Ow.

“Come on,” Chiwoo coos. Yeonjun inches away from his ugly rich boy face. He wishes he was miles away. Eons.

“There you are, Yeonjun.”

It’s Soobin. Of course it is. Soobin rounds the corner of the hallway, and their eyes meet. In the next second, he’s beside Yeonjun. With one hand, he pulls him against his chest, and with the other, he wrenches Chiwoo’s arm upwards.

What is happening?

“What the fu-uck.’ Chiwoo’s voice gets reedy as Soobin twists harder. Soobin’s face is ice-granite. Inhumane. His eyes are glittering. One time Yeonjun took a personality test in a magazine that asked if he’d ever be willing to kill someone if he knew he wouldn’t get caught. Looking at his face, he knows what Soobin would have picked.

“It’s that psycho,” someone behind them says, and anger rushes into Yeonjun. Who’s the psycho?

Soobin doesn’t relinquish his grip. “Tell me, Chiwoo, because I’m curious—does this misdirected aggression stem from the fact that your childhood pet dog, Ringo, was run over by a car? Or is it the fact that you’re addicted to online porn and you’re used to seeing people as objects? Or perhaps it’s the fact that your parents are separated and you rarely see your mother. Is that why you’re harassing my boyfriend?”

Wait.

What?

“How the hell did you know that?” Chiwoo squeaks.

“Boyfriend?” Yeonjun butts in.

“I know many things,” Soobin says terrifyingly, “including the fact that you’re never, ever going to bother Yeonjun again.”

“Boyfriend?” Yeonjun repeats.

Soobin pulls him closer. So close he can hear his heartbeat. More evidence against the heartless theory. Although bastard is still up for debate. “Yes, boyfriend. Choi Yeonjun is my boyfriend. And if you don’t delete that photo of him from your computer—” Soobin flashes a sinister smile. “I’ll know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, whatever.” Chiwoo rubs his arm, possibly remembering that Soobin is three to one when it comes to fights. “Come on, guys.”

“I’m not your boyfriend,” Yeonjun says when they’re gone.

“I’m aware.”

“Good, because I just wanted to make it super clear that I’m not. Your boyfriend.”

“I’m aware. I thought I told you I loathe repetition.” Soobin scowls. “Let me explain, because I’m not one of those people who doesn’t have reasons for the things I do. I’m helping you.”

“By pretending to be my boyfriend? Which you’re not?” Yeonjun rubs his wrist.

“Taehyun’s possible boyfriend gave me the idea. He doesn’t want people to know you’re Ares because that would be so interesting, it would eclipse the photo. So I came up with something else interesting. Congratulations, Yeonjun, you’re now dating the universally disliked but apparently attractive—people really need to refine their standards of beauty—new vampire student.” While he’s talking, Soobin reaches out, briefly inspects Yeonjun’s wrist, then lets it go. It’s so subtle that Yeonjun almost doesn’t notice it happening.

“You think everyone’ll forget about the photo if they’re convinced I’m your boyfriend?”

“Correct.”

“But I’m not your boyfriend.”

“Should I write that on my forehead so you don’t have to worry I’ll forget? Maybe I’ll have it put on a T-shirt. Less likely to smudge in the shower.”

Yeonjun half-smiles. His heart is still beating fast, but slower than before. “So how did you know all that stuff about Chiwoo?”

“Simple,” Soobin says, obviously pleased that he asked. “He was wearing one of those military dog-tag style necklaces, but on closer inspection I saw that it was actually a dog tag. Ringo. The tag was bent and battered, like it’d been run over by something heavy. The porn one is always easy, just look to see if one of their forearms is more muscular than the other. The last one was obvious from the watch.”

“The watch?” He hadn’t even noticed Chiwoo had been wearing one.

“Yes, the watch, what else? Expensive watch, very expensive. Obviously a gift. The inscription—For Chiwoo, the date, and kisses. Clearly his mother—too expensive for an aunt or girlfriend and the father wouldn’t have put kisses. But she got the date of his birthday wrong. She put July, but he’s wearing a class ring with his birthstone and it’s not the ruby. It’s amethyst. January.”

“That’s incredible.” Yeonjun shakes his head. “You really are an actual genius.”

“You’re just now noticing?”

“A humble genius.”

“We don’t have time to discuss the finer points of my modesty. Now come with me.” Soobin strides off down the hallway at top speed.

Yeonjun wanted to stop him. Ask him why someone like him would bother helping someone like him. Tell him he’s still reeling from it. But things with Soobin always move too fast. “Where are we going in such a rush?”

“We have to start investigating,” Soobin yells back. “We’re going to find out who Taehyun’s boyfriend is. Ex-boyfriend now, most likely.”

“What for?”

Soobin turns around and cocks his brow.

“Revenge, obviously.”

Chapter Text

(scribbled on a page torn from a biology textbook)

Yeonjun asked why I care. Don’t “care.” Obviously. Caring = waste of time and distraction from all that is effective. To care = to cease to function correctly. Must explain to Yeonjun. Helped him because I wanted to. Because he is a useful distraction to me. Because an event like this could intensify his depression. Not because I cared.

Have significant problem, though: I like Yeonjun. Or rather: I do not dislike him. Have never not disliked someone before. Have been making jokes for him. JOKES. Perilous situation. Must find a better distraction and cut this off. Will interfere with brainwork.

Have theory about the truth behind who contacted Ares about Kang Taehyun. First, must uncover identity of Taehyun’s ex-boyfriend. Simple matter. Should take less than five minutes once armed with list of Yeonjun’s Facebook friends. Was not serious about revenge. (Mostly.) Want to see if I’m right about theory. Need ex-boyfriend’s name first. Always want to see if I’m right.

Hope picture debacle isn’t having too strong an effect on Yeonjun. Will check in with him later. Is stronger than he thinks.

|||

It’s a strange kind of calm, knowing every single person at school has seen him naked.

“You and Taehyun have fifty-nine mutual friends,” Soobin is saying. There’s finally a chair in his living room, and he’s sitting in it. A rusty lawn chair Yeonjun stole from his basement. Soobin’s bent over, typing so hard it’s like he’s playing a miniature version of Whack-A-Mole. “Twenty-nine of them are male.”

“I don’t care.” Yeonjun is leaning against the wall, ordering a pizza online. Or trying to.

“Twelve of them are potential candidates for our over-sharer.”

“Soobin, I don’t care.” Yeonjun hovers the mouse over the empty check box next to pepperoni. “Do you want pepperoni again?”

“Didn’t you say you had his Twitter account name?” Soobin glances up.

“I don’t care about his Twitter account. The only thing I care about is whether or not you want pepperoni on your pizza.”

“I told you caring is risky. See: now you can be blackmailed. I’ll trade you my pepperoni preferences for this boy’s Twitter handle.”

“I’m just going to order pepperoni. For the sake of my sanity.” Yeonjun types Soobin’s address into the pizza place’s website, clicks Create Order, and shuts the laptop. “Are you really going to pretend to be my boyriend?”

“Doubt it’s Kim Jihoon, he’s been dating someone for three months,” Soobin mutters, absentmindedly picking rust off the armrest.

“You’re going to have to hold my hand. In public. At least once.”

“Younghoon—oh. Not him. Too straight. Obviously.”

“And kiss me. Possibly kiss me.”

“And then there were ten.” Soobin stretches back in the lawn chair. It groans underneath him, threatening to give out. Yeonjun should probably get a camera to film the moment when Soobin crashes to the floor atop the remains of a lawn chair. “This would go a lot faster if you gave me his Twitter handle. And stop smirking for no apparent reason.”

“You’re always smirking!” Yeonjun snaps.

“I only smirk for reasons that are apparent.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

It’s a blunt question, not the kind Yeonjun is in the habit of asking, and it escapes from some small part of him that he hadn’t known existed.

Soobin straightens, impossibly elegant as always, even on a lawn chair in the middle of an unfurnished room. He never looks like he belongs. Yeonjun tries to think of a place where he might look like he belongs, and the only thing he can come up with is a museum.

“I’ll tell you if you give me his Twitter handle,” Soobin says.

It doesn’t matter. It’s so stupid.

“Look, I don’t even know the twitter handle. Some random user named Dangergirl contacted me but I doubt that’s the one.”

Soobin smiles. “Don’t you want to know first if I’ve ever held someone’s hand? That was your first criteria for pretending to be your boyfriend.”

“Sure, whatever.” Yeonjun is blushing now, he can feel it. This is the world’s dumbest conversation. He shouldn’t have relinquished the valuable topic of pepperoni.

“No. I haven’t.” Soobin’s gaze flicks over the screen hungrily. He speaks so distractedly that his voice gets quieter. “I’m not interested in that kind of distraction.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never even held hands with someone? Or—someone’s held your hand, at least. Your brother. Or parents. When you were little.”

“I’ve got an excellent memory.” Soobin scrolls faster, the blue light reflecting on his face. “Oh, don’t sit there looking at me like that. You’ve never dated anyone either. And I’ve had considerably more opportunities than you.”

“I used to be asked out a lot,” Yeonjun says fiercely. “I used to be…”

Attractive.

Soobin stops scrolling. For a second, Yeonjun can’t tell if his stare is burning or freezing him, and he thinks Soobin’s about to say something he’s not sure he wants to hear, but instead, he says, “Huening Kai.”

“I did not used to be Huening Kai.”

“Huening Kai,” Soobin declares, “is the one who sent out your photo. I’ll save you the trouble of asking how I figured it out and just explain it to you. Tricky, as his location’s hidden and his name’s not used. But Dangergirl was always a clue.”

“He…likes danger?”

“No. You like danger. Huening Kai likes Danger Girl, a comic book series started in 1998. And guess which one of your and Taehyun’s mutual friends has this profile picture.” Soobin swivels the laptop to face Yeonjun. He blinks at the little square image of a dark-haired comic book heroine.

“I told you it would be faster,” Soobin says. “As I said. Never wrong.”

“So you’re a comic book nerd.” Yeonjun folds his knees against his chest. “More things I know about you.”

“Not a comic book nerd. Just observant with a good memory. Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Kissed anyone,” Soobin says.

“You just said I never dated.”

“Just because you’ve never dated doesn’t mean you’ve never kissed anyone.”

The doorbell rings. Yeonjun stands up. They’ve been sitting there, talking about whether or not he’s ever kissed someone, for longer than he realized. Time goes quickly when he’s talking to Soobin. The pizza guy’s hat is bobbing in the door window.

Soobin slams the laptop shut—he always slams it, he probably has to replace the screen every month—and grabs his coat.

“That enthusiastic about the pizza, are we?” Yeonjun questions doubtfully.

“Pizza? What pizza?” Soobin says. “We’re going to have a chat with Huening Kai.”

By the time Yeonjun makes it to the door after him, Soobin’s halfway down the road, the pizza guy staring bewilderedly after him. Yeonjun swears under his breath, shoves some money at the guy, drops the pizza on Soobin’s floor, and takes off after him.

“I really ought to steal Minhyuk’s car,” Soobin is saying when Yeonjun catches up to him, which takes a little while, considering Soobin’s ordinary stride is almost as fast as his run. “He loves that car more than anything. Meaning I’d have to crash it at least once.”

“Soobin, I don’t want this,” Yeonjun says loudly, jogging so he won’t fall behind.

“He only lives four blocks away. He’s president of the comic book club and they meet at his house. The address is on the Facebook page.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Yeonjun tries to dart in front of him, but it’s like standing in front of a tornado. A very tall, handsome tornado. “I don’t want revenge. I don’t want you to go in there and yell at him—”

“I won’t yell, then.”

“Soobin. You’re not getting it.” Yeonjun’s out of shape, he hasn’t jogged since the accident, and now he’s panting and Soobin won’t walk any slower. He grabs Soobin’s sleeve, jerking him back. “I don’t want—”

“Of course you do,” Soobin snaps. “Everyone does. Someone wrongs you, you want to hurt them. It’s human nature. It’s how people work.”

It’s amazing how fast he can switch from amazing Yeonjun to annoying him. “And you’ve conducted how many studies on that?”

“Personal experience is my study.”

“You’re a big revenge-seeker, then.” It’s windy and Yeonjun’s hair is blowing over his eyes.

Soobin smiles again. That odd smile he uses whenever he says something that would make an ordinary person sad. “I motivate revenge-seekers.”

“How could anyone take revenge on you?” Yeonjun says, half-joking. “You don’t care about anything, so no one can hurt you. Remember? No risk.”

There’s a silence. A car drives past and turns around the corner.

“Bit jealous of that, actually,” Yeonjun says awkwardly.

Soobin fastens the top button of his coat.

Yeonjun sighs. “I don’t want revenge because I don’t want the attention. People stared at me all the time even before the photo. Grief makes people interested in you. Not in a good way. And now with the photo thing, I don’t need Kai telling people around school that I came to his house and freaked out—”

“Fine.” Soobin abruptly starts walking again. “We’re not doing this for revenge.”

“No?”

“We never were.”

“Then why are you so interested in Huening Kai?” Yeonjun asks, hurrying after him.

“Because he wasn’t the one who contacted Ares.”

“Okay…? Then I reiterate my first question.”

“But he was the one who sent the photo out.”

“So you’re saying there’s a third person involved? And we’re going to meet Kai to find out who this person is?”

“That’s secondary. Mostly I just want to see if I’m right. I’m ninety percent sure that I am.”

“Uh huh,” Yeonjun says as they turn a corner into a residential neighborhood. “That’s two more things that I know about you—you’ll do anything to prove you’re right.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“And anything to find out why you’re wrong, if you are.”

“Exactly. That’s how we started—” Soobin stops, frowns, and waves a hand between the two of them. “Whatever this is.”

“This?”

“Insomnia,” Soobin says. “I got it wrong.”

“No, what did you mean, whatever this is?” Yeonjun says, amused. “You mean friendship?”

And then he pauses. Because it’s true.

How long has he been friends with Soobin?

And Christ, why? Soobin was callous, invasive, and cold. Then again, he’d defended him at school. Pushed him out of the way of a car. Been the first not to dance around the topic of Beomgyu. Been the first to see his broken side and treat him like a human being anyway. So he guesses there were reasons.

“I’ll give you something else to know about me,” Soobin says curtly. “I don’t do friendship.”

Ouch. “You sound like a fashionista saying you don’t do green, or something.”

“You come up with the strangest comparisons.”

“I have to find some way to bug you.”

“Congratulations on your success.”

“Anyway, never?” Yeonjun questions, even though he should probably just shut up. “You must have—”

“And here we are.” Soobin stops so suddenly that Yeonjun bumps into him. They were standing in front of a little white house, identical to every other house on the block. There’s a collection of dying flowers by the front steps. “Casa de Huening.”

Yeonjun hugs himself to ward off the chill that runs down his spine. “Soobin, I’m not—”

But he’s already knocking. And Kai’s already opening the door.

Yeonjun had a few classes with the tall, glasses-wearing boy who always wears a T-shirt with the logo of some TV show or comic, but he’s never stood out to him until now. He never looked like the type of person to ruin someone’s reputation with a photo. He had basically been picturing someone from Mean Girls.

“You’re Choi Soobin, right?” Kai says warily, though Yeonjun can detect a spark of interest. Soobin—drawing people in with his limbs and his cheekbones, and then pushing them away again with his personality.

“I am,” Soobin says. “And I’ve come to join your club.”

Yeonjun does his best not to splutter.

“I’m very interested in comic books,” Soobin says. “Particularly Danger Girl. My favorite character is Sydney. I adore her complicated love/hate relationship with Johnny Barracuda. Yeonjun, if you require the Heimlich maneuver, just let me know.”

Yeonjun attempts to control the choking noise he’s been making as a result of suppressed laughter.

“Yeonjun?” Kai says slowly. “Choi Yeonjun?” He looks past Soobin, straight into Yeonjun’s eyes, and something bad dawns on his face.

“He’s also a big Danger Girl fan,” Soobin says, showing no indication that he’s going to pick up and run, which is what Yeonjun very much wants to do right now. “Your club is open to all students, is it not?”

“Um…yeah.” Kai’s voice is husky. He takes off his glasses and rubs them mechanically on his shirt. “I guess…come in…”

Soobin signals for Yeonjun to follow him. Yeonjun definitely does not want to follow him, and Kai won’t meet his eyes, but Soobin just holds the door open wider. Eventually Yeonjun trails through into the dim hallway.

“You are so a comic book geek,” Yeonjun whispers to Soobin.

“Wikipedia,” Soobin whispers back.

The house is neat, but dull—even the curtains seem faded. Yard sale curtains. A series of report cards are taped to the fridge, all B’s. In the living room, eight people are arranged around stacks of comic books and bags of microwave popcorn. Yeonjun recognizes them all from Kai’s quiet group at school.

“This is Soobin. And… Yeonjun.” Kai still refuses to look at him. Yeonjun’s all too happy not to look at him either. “They’re joining the club.”

There’s some nearly-hushed gasps and Yeonjun winces at the stares of people who’ve seen him naked, but they only last for a minute. Then the stares swing over to Soobin as everyone understands what kind of weirdo he is at once. Their kind of weirdo. If only Soobin really was just into comic books.

“Kai,” Soobin says, ignoring them all. People are endlessly fascinated by him, and he’s never fascinated back. “A minute alone in the kitchen.”

Kai pales eight shades. This time he does look at Yeonjun. “Why? We were just about to—”

“Oh, I’d just like you explain the meeting times to us, the rules, other various uninteresting things I’m sure we don’t need to bore everyone else with.” Soobin grabs his elbow and steers him back into the kitchen. Yeonjun’s been steered by Soobin enough times that he feels a twinge of pity.

Except—no. This boy had sent naked pictures of him to the entire school. He should be feeling the opposite of pity. Anti-pity.

“Tea?” Kai offers weakly once they’re all in the kitchen. Yeonjun starts counting the number of novelty saltshakers on the windowsill.

“I’d prefer something stronger. Like the truth,” Soobin deadpans.

Dramatic as always.

Nearly half the saltshakers are Christmas-themed.

“What?” Kai mumbles. He casts around for a distraction and his eyes land on Yeonjun. “Oh, Yeonjun…I heard about the photo thing. Must suck.”

“Yes, it must,” Soobin butts in conversationally. “Just like you hoped it would when you emailed it to every single person at this school.”

Kai is glued to the cabinets. “I didn’t.”

“You don’t lie as well as you Photoshop.”

“Photoshop? But I didn’t—I didn’t Photoshop—”

“Christ,” Yeonjun mutters. “Leave him alone.”

Soobin rounds on Yeonjun, his tone suddenly terse. “Yeonjun, if you could act just a bit more human for five seconds so I could accurately predict—“

“Human?” Yeonjun completely loses interest in the salt shakers. “I’m the one who’s not human? Me? You’re the one who’s not!”

Kai stares between them. Dead silence from the living room. Everyone is listening.

Soobin’s expression is unreadable. “Humans are malicious and petty and enjoy retribution and by all accounts you, Yeonjun, if you are in fact human, should be relishing this.”

“Well, I’m not.”

There’s a moment of silence so uncomfortable it nearly twangs, like a taut guitar string. Then Kai makes a shuddering noise. His face is crimson. “I don’t care! I don’t care. You deserved it. I’m not apologizing.”

Soobin throws Yeonjun a getting angry yet? look.

I’m not, Yeonjun mouths back.

Kai slams his fist on the kitchen counter, making the water in a nearby glass jump. “I always thought you were nice, Yeonjun! I felt bad for you when your brother died. I really did. I don’t know why you had to do this. Taehyun must have told you about me. He must have.”

Okay, now he’s starting to get mad, but he won’t give Soobin the satisfaction of showing it. “You asked me to do it.”

Kai laughs furiously. “That is the absolute most bullshit excuse for an excuse I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Kai’s right.” Soobin is smirking. Smirking. Yeonjun hates him. “You’re wrong, Yeonjun.”

“You’re the one who gave me the letter!” If only he could smash the water glass on Soobin’s insufferable head. “Addressed to Ares! Go see if my boyfriend will make out with you so I know in advance if he’s going to cheat on me or not—”

“You’re Ares?” Kai’s voice radiates with shock. Too much shock to be fake.

Soobin leans against the kitchen countertop, placing his fingertips together like an actual supervillain. Somehow, Yeonjun knows Chaeryeong would find it sexy. “What did we think we knew about the person who sent your picture out, Yeonjun? That they knew the truth about you. But Kai doesn’t. And yet he most certainly sent the photograph out. Meaning…”

“Someone else contacted Ares…” Yeonjun trails off. “You were right….”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kai says, his voice shaking. “All I know is that you hooked up with my boyfriend and then sent a picture to our club’s Twitter account.”

Every muscle in Kai’s face is rigid. Yeonjun had always seen him as a sidelines guy—in his classes, but not on his radar. Quiet enough not to stand out, not weird enough to get made fun of. Always in a tight knot of friends, never really speaking to anyone else. But all he can see now is someone he hurt.

Judging by Soobin’s expression, all he can see is someone who hurt him. His eyes are pitiless. “And you chose to handle your personal problems by sending someone’s naked photograph to everyone in school. Oh, sorry—someone’s clothed photograph that you made naked utilizing the considerable Photoshop skills you’ve acquired by making that scintillating fan art you’re always posting on Facebook.”

Then Soobin’s tone changes as he visibly registers something. “The club’s Twitter account, you say?”

“Yeah, it’s not just mine.” Kai is wavering, breaking down under all of Soobin’s forcefulness. “We post updates, and stuff…”

“Yeonjun!” Soobin exclaims and suddenly his shoulders are in Soobin’s excited grip. “Do you know what that means?”

Soobin’s face is way too close for him to locate his lungs.

“It was someone in the club. Someone with access to that Twitter account. They must use it on a rotating schedule. The person whose turn it was to use it before Kai is the one who contacted Ares. They knew Kai would be the one to log on next and get your message with the photograph.”

Yeonjun pushes him away. Kai’s crying. Oh no. “Kai…”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.” He scrubs his eyes with a fury Yeonjun’s all too familiar with. “I got that message, and…”

“Kai, hey.” Yeonjun is so tired of tears. From anyone. Especially when they’re caused by him. “I’m really, really sorry. I thought it was something you wanted. If I could take it back—”

“Don’t apologize, Yeonjun. Apologizing for things that aren’t one’s fault are for idiots and masochists, and I’d hope to believe you aren’t either.” Soobin is steel again. He flicks his MRI-stare over to Kai and Yeonjun already knows what’s coming.

“You were only dating him for two weeks. You’ve still got the movie ticket stub from your first date in your back pocket. Hardly worth revenge at this level. Your parents are overprotective and don’t let you date, that’s why you kept the relationship as secret as you could, and also why you don’t know how this works. But I know how it works, Kai, as I am highly observant, and so I’ll tell you: Taehyun never cared about you. He took advantage of the fact that you’d been shown little attention by men before and assumed you’d be grateful enough to sleep with him without much effort on his part—”

And then Soobin is blinking water from his eyes. He looks down at the liquid soaking his shirt. Yeonjun counts to three before placing the now-empty glass back on the counter.

“Yeonjun-” Soobin starts.

“Get out,” Yeonjun says. “Now.”

“But the cause of this entire debacle is sitting in the living room and I need to consult—”

“Out. Now.”

Something flickers in Soobin’s expression before he obeys. He disappears from the kitchen. Yeonjun hears the front door shut quietly behind him.

“I’m sorry.” Everything is hopeless. Yeonjun is hopeless. Soobin is the most hopeless of all. “He’s…he doesn’t mean—”

“Oh, yes he did mean.” Kai keeps wiping his face, over and over, even though he wasn’t the one who had a glass of water thrown in his face. “See, you’re lucky. Your boyfriend’ll do anything to hurt someone who hurt you. Mine—doesn’t care. Never cared. Soobin’s right.”

“Soobin isn’t—”

“Right? Your boyfriend?” Kai laughs and buries his face in his hands. “I don’t believe you either way. Get out of my house.”

“But—”

“Go away!” He screams. Yeonjun turns, and half the comic book club is standing in the doorway, staring at him. More stares. Always more stares. He rips himself away from the situation, makes himself walk—not run—outside.

Where the sun is shining.

And Soobin is standing by the front fence, smoking. Yeonjun marches up to him and snatches the cigarette from his fingers.

“For a second I thought you were going to slap me,” Soobin says.

“Still considering it.” Yeonjun stamps the ashes into the ground. “Stop smoking, unless you want to get lung cancer and lose your voice and then you’ll never be able to make anyone angry ever again. God knows what else you’d do with your time.”

Soobin stares at him for a long time. For some reason, the stare feels different than the ones from Kai’s comic book club. “I was right, by the way.”

“Oh, thank the Lord.” Yeonjun throws his hands up. Kai is crying and he’s still shaking and Soobin is so incredibly infuriating. At least the wind’s died down. “God forbid you should ever not be right.”

“Didn’t know you were religious, Yeonjun.”

“I’m not—just—shut up. What were you right about?”

“Two things. Someone else contacted Ares to sabotage Kai’s relationship.” Soobin rests his elbow on the fence. “And you’re not human.”

Yeonjun pulls his sweater up higher over his shoulders. “Let’s just go home before Kai sends his comic book army out after us.”

“Humans hate me,” Soobin says. “Without fail.”

“And I don’t?” Yeonjun knows he’s being mean, but he’s so pissed about what Soobin said to Kai, and he really has no idea how to feel about Soobin. Confused, maybe. Annoyed, definitely. Although he’s pretty sure it’s not hate.

“You don’t want me to get lung cancer.”

Yeonjun half-laughs, half-groans. “You have low standards for people liking you.”

“I didn’t say like.” Soobin’s face is inscrutable. “I said not hate.”

“That’s something, then.” Yeonjun shades his eyes against the sun. “Can we please go back to your house and eat the cold pizza that’s currently on your floor?”

“You make it sound so appetizing.”

And then Soobin slows his pace for him the whole way home.

Chapter Text

(written on the inside of an empty pizza box)

I am a scientist. I form hypotheses, I prove them right. Choi Yeonjun: ruining my hypotheses. One after the other.

Hypothesis: no one would ever want to be friends with me. Previously proven correct. Now disproven.

Hypothesis: a person can stand my presence for a minimum of one day before they stop speaking to me. Previously proven correct. Now disproven.

He’s an anomaly.

A puzzle.

Need puzzles. Without them, my mind runs itself into the ground. So: need Yeonjun.

People = so easy to read. So transparent. Except him. Nothing to do in this town. Must analyze when I can. Find a challenge where I can. Show off when I can. Would rather impress people than have them like me. Yeonjun is impressed AND likes me. (Doesn’t hate.) Unprecedented situation. Expresses concern for my welfare. Very unusual. Not sure what to do about it.

If only I had a better distraction. A puzzle to solve. Like a murder. That would be nice.

Should push him away.

Can’t.

|||

Gym class.

The hell of the 21^st century.

The worst part is that Yeonjun used to like gym class. He used to be good at gym class. He used to go for runs. Grief is about the worst thing in the world for physical fitness. Worse than cake.

Now the gym is just an arena almost as good as the cafeteria for staring.

“Today we will be playing basketball.” Mr. Sohn strides back in forth in front of the bleachers. Ex-military, his words come out like drum beats: TODAY we will be PLAYing BASKETball.

Yeonjun is sitting next to Soobin. Next to Soobin seems to be the only place he’s welcome these days. He’s only just found out Soobin’s in his gym class, despite the fact that he’d had a couple gym classes since he moved here—apparently he’d been skipping ever since he found out we’re required to wear gym shorts.

“We will choose TEAMS. This is more than a GAME. This is a chance for you all to show your ATHLETIC ABILITY.”

“This is a chance for us all to show off our legs. These shorts are fucking ridiculous,” Soobin whispers to him. Yeonjun grins. Soobin rarely swears. And he’s right, but partially. They only look ridiculous on him. Like King Tut in a wifebeater.

“Yuna and Jaehyun, you’re both team captains,” says Mr. Sohn. “Let’s take this SERIOUSLY. Pick your teams.”

Yeonjun leans back and stretches his arms, settling in for the long haul. At least with Soobin around, he won’t be picked dead last.

“Soobin,” Yuna says immediately.

Never mind.

Soobin groans. “Oh, what, I have to get up now?”

“Yes, you have to get up now.” Yeonun gives him a little shove to hide his annoyance. He guesses it makes sense. Half the school has seen Soobin win fights he hasn’t started. They have to know he’s fit. He can’t afford not to be fit, with the number of people he pisses off.

And when Yuna blushes as Soobin stops next to her, it makes twice as much sense.

The team picking process, which ought to be abolished in a court of law, goes on. Weirdly, Yeonjun’s chosen halfway through. Out of pity, most likely. Jaehyun had always been a bleeding heart. Yeonjun gets up and a thousand eyes pierce his spine.

He hates gym class.

More specifically, he hates basketball, which involves a lot of running and jumping and things he’s generally not enthusiastic enough of to do.

Mr. Sohn arranges everyone. Across the gym floor, Yuna is saying to Soobin, “You’re tall, okay, so just stand here and if someone chucks the ball to you, throw it in the hoop.”

Yeonjun turns away and hears Soobin say, “Why? What will throwing balls through hoops accomplish? Is it a metaphor? Are we trying to get rid of spiderwebs, or just wasting more time lest we actually spent it doing something useful?”

Yeonjun tries to stop grinning.

And then the whistle blows and everyone’s doing the running and jumping thing. Yeonjun hangs back. He’s already overheard three separate people on his team whispering about him. About the photo. So much for team spirit. And Soobin’s plan.

If one more person whispers about him, he’ll go insane. At least Soobin says things outright.

Somehow, that hurts less.

“What are you doing?” someone shrieks at him and suddenly a ball flies at his chest. Yeonjun dribbles it twice, completely forgetting what he’s supposed to do, before someone zooms past and steals it.

“Ugh,” Jaehyun’s friend says, near him. “Useless.”

“What do you expect, he’s probably daydreaming about the next guy he’s gonna sext,” whispers some other short guy from his math class. Both of them snort.

Yeonjun backs away. He feels strange today. Breathless. Like he really will go nuts if someone else whispers about him again. He just wants to hide. Sleep. He wants to sleep.

On the other side, someone passes the ball to Soobin, who rolls his eyes and shoots it through the hoop. Of course he’s good at basketball. Of course.

People cheer. Yuna slaps him on the back. “You really aren’t so bad.”

It’s official. Yeonjun’s more of an outcast than Choi Soobin.

The ball starts moving again. Chiwoo, who’s on the other team, shoulder-checks him hard. Ow. Yeonjun bounces to the ground like the stupid basketball.

Mr. Sohn blows his whistle. “Yeonjun! You all right?”

“Fine. I’m great.” Soobin is watching him now.

“Did you see that picture?” Someone near him asks. “The one that got emailed out?”

Yeonjun feels dizzy. He tries to be mad at Kai. Doesn’t work. Maybe he deserves this.

“Mr. Sohn, Yeonjun tried to tackle me,” Chiwoo whines.

“Yeah, I saw it,” whispers one of his teammates, catching on.

The conflict speeds over Mr. Sohn’s face—make the call, or admit he wasn’t paying enough attention to see who hit who? “Fine. Penalty shot for Yuna’s team.”

Chiwoo hoots and high-fives his friend, who has a matching eyebrow ring. They’re truly revolutionary. Not.

“I’ll take it. I made the last shot,” Soobin says. Surprisingly, nobody protests. Yeonjun guesses it’s hard to protest when Soobin states everything like it’s already been decided. Yuna beams as she passes the ball to him. He takes his position in the middle of the gym floor, back straight, like he’s the star athlete of the world instead of a genius who’s probably never touched a basketball before in his life.

And then he keeps going.

When Soobin reaches Yeonjun, Yeonjun has just enough time to say, “No, you’re supposed to take it from over there,” before Soobin covers his mouth with his.

Error.

Yeonjun is buffering: Gym class? Really?

Yeonjun is buffering: What the hell do I do with my tongue?

Yeonjun is buffering: Oh.

So that’s what a kiss is like.

Oh. Oh—

The whistle shrieks into the middle of everything. Yeonjun’s head is a building imploding. He can feel them—Soobin’s lips. Warm. Human. Alive. Shocking the ghost right out of him.

And then they’re gone.

“PDA, Choi Soobin!” Mr. Sohn is roaring. “Office! Now!”

Soobin is staring at Yeonjun and for a split second, there’s a tiny bit of surprise on his face—as if he hadn’t been the one to walk over and kiss him out of nowhere. Not the shot he was supposed to take.

Choi Soobin.

Just kissed him.

Soobin turns and strides out of the gym smoothly, as if he meant to go to the office all along and they were just making him late. Yeonjun emerges from fifteen layers of holy shit and says hoarsely, “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“No you are not, your team needs you.”

“I just got knocked over, okay? My ass hurts.”

He has no idea what he’s saying. He’s only dimly aware that he’s pushing past Mr. Sohn, who’s given up on him for the sake of shouting, “Quiet, everyone, quiet!”

Because everyone is whispering about the kiss.

And nobody is whispering about the photo.

Yeonjun catches up to Soobin halfway down the hall. “Soobin. Soobin!”

Soobin stops, glancing at Yeonjun calmly like it’s a completely ordinary day and nothing has changed? Yeonjun stares. How long can he stare at Soobin’s lips before it gets weird?

“Care to skip with me?” Soobin suggests. “I’m going out for lunch.”

Soobin’s lips are moving now. Talking. Christ, that’s distracting. “Can you just hold your lips still for a second?”

Soobin’s eyebrow twitches. “Is this a new variant on your usual shut up?”

“No, you can keep talking, just—quit waving your lips around.”

“What, am I holding them up on a flag?” Soobin folds his arms. “I hate to ruin your apparently limited knowledge of how the human body works, but if I’m going to talk, my lips are going to move.”

Yeonjun needs to stop talking. Now. Or at least say something that makes sense. “Soobin, what the hell was that in the gym?”

“We planned it, didn’t we?” Soobin questions, yawning. “I guarantee you, that picture is officially old news. People won’t be talking about it anymore.”

Yeonjun should be annoyed, right? He should definitely be annoyed. “Well—you could have warned me that you were going to—right then—”

“I saw an opportunity. Everyone was watching me. These things work best when they’re as dramatic as possible.” Soobin brushes a piece of lint off his shirt. “People love drama.”

“You love drama,” Yeonjun rolls his eyes

.

“Well, I’m a person. Contrary to the popular opinion.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I’m a person?”

“Yes, I will get lunch with you.”

Soobin had kissed him for no other reason than to help him.

Soobin looks a little taken aback. Then he smiles. Not the ironic smile, or the vampire smile. Just a smile. “There’s a car in the second row of the parking lot that I’m eighty percent sure has the keys tucked behind the visor.”

“And I’m a hundred percent sure that we’re walking.”

The nearest diner is right downtown, just a few minutes’ away and definitely not worth the federal crime. Yeonjun’s steps feel light. He feels light. Can you lose weight from kissing? Or maybe he just hadn’t realized how much the photo had been weighing on him.

This obsession with Soobin’s lips better go away, because right now, he could write a forty-page thesis on them and not get bored.

They get to the restaurant just as his stomach growls. The only free seat is a striped red booth in the back. Yeonjun orders a huge plate of mozzarella sticks to split—if he eats another pizza he’ll die—and he shovels them into his mouth. He feels like he hasn’t eaten in months.

Soobin looks around at the other unsuspecting diners and immediately starts analyzing. His version of small talk. “That woman is eating out to escape the meals at home made by her health-nut husband. Want to know how I know? Of course you do. She keeps checking her watch nervously, but it’s too early for a lunch break, and she’s not dressed for work. Her dog’s in the car outside. She left with the pretense of taking it for a walk. The car’s covered with vegan bumper stickers and—”

“Soobin,” Yeonjun interrupts. “We’re friends, right?”

Soobin shuts up as sharply as if he’d severed his sentence with a knife.

“Because you said you don’t do friendship. But, I don’t care. We’re friends.” Yeonjun fits another mozzarella stick into his mouth.

“Hemp,” Soobin says.

“What?”

“Hemp sweater. Present from her husband. She hates it, she’s been unraveling part of the sleeve for ten minutes.”

Awkwardness suddenly washes over Yeonjun. Maybe he should have waited for the lip thing to go away first. It’s probably creepy to want to erect a twenty-foot marble statue of your friend’s lips. “I mean, I think we could be. Friends. Or we’re going to be. Or I want to be. I don’t know.”

“Is that typically how friendships are consummated? An official declaration and all that?”

“No. But you’re not typical. So I thought I would make it clear.” Yeonjun fiddles with the salt shaker.

“Do I need to sign something?”

“No—”

“Are there monthly dues?”

“No. Are you really that clueless?”

“It’s a joke,” Soobin says. “People like jokes, or so I’ve heard.”

Yeonjun grins.

The start of a friendship isn’t supposed to be a momentous thing. Normal people ease into friendship all the time. But with Soobin, there’s no easing. Only jumping into freezing cold water in the middle of January.

“Thanks for the kiss.” Yeonjun slurps his ice water. “It was nice.”

“Was it now?” Soobin says idly.

And then Yeonjun’s choking instead of slurping. “No, I mean—it was nice of you. To do that. Even though you didn’t want to.”

“Well, it was amusing at any rate.”

Of course, he wouldn’t correct the didn’t want to. Of course he wouldn’t want to kiss Yeonjun. He’d expected that. But his stomach sinks at amusing. “Why was it amusing? Did I drool on you?”

“No. It was amusing to see everyone else’s faces.” Soobin pulls an expression that’s such a perfect mixture of extreme horror and fascination that Yeonjun laughs. Unfortunately, the laugh comes midway through a mozzarella stick, and a piece of it shoots out of his mouth. Soobin dodges and it hits a nearby man in the forehead.

“Decent aim. I’m surprised you’re not better at basketball,” Soobin observes as the man starts swearing in extremely creative ways.

Yeonjun leaps up. “I think maybe we should leave.”

“Excellent deduction.”

|||

That night, Yeonjun has dinner with his mother for the first time in weeks. Meatloaf. He hates meatloaf, but she forgot. Tonight, though, he’s determined to change his relationship with meatloaf.

Though there’s no anger on her face, he’s tense. He and Soobin hadn’t been called to the office when they’d gotten back to school, so he’d assumed they hadn’t been missed, but it’s possible Principal Lee had told her they’d skipped out and now she’s just biding her time.

“So, Yeonjun,” she says, mixing her peas with her rice. “How’s school?”

Yeonjun inspects the dining room table. “School’s fine. All A’s, still.”

“No, I meant… how are you doing? Being back there?”

He cuts his meatloaf into tiny pieces, and then the tiny pieces into tinier ones. The strain is clear in her voice. She’s not good with topics like this. He doesn’t want to force her. “It’s great. Nice to see old friends.”

And new ones.

“That’s good.” She exhales, and in the time after her breath leaves her, the air thickens with how hard both of them are struggling to find something to say.

“How’s work?”

“Good.”

More struggling silence.

“Oh!” His mother says suddenly, with the relief of someone alighting on a topic. “Have you talked to the new neighbors at all? The younger one’s going to your school, I think. What’s his name?”

The lips leap back into his mind. He’d managed to keep them out for two whole minutes. “It’s… Soobin.”

“Hm, his parents never seem to be around. Are they ex-hippies?” His mother mumbles into the room.

Yeonjun smiles. Then he stops smiling. “I don’t know. I have no idea what his parents are like. They don’t live there.”

“They don’t?” She tilts her head to the side. Beomgyu used to do that, too. “But he’s your age, isn’t he?”

“Yeah… his brother’s his legal guardian. But he’s off on a work trip right now. I guess he does that a lot.” Yeonjun frowns. How often is Soobin alone? In the other towns, he must have had friends. No matter what he says. He must have. Maybe a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Who knows with him.

“Poor kid,” His mother says, and he’s forever weirded out by the idea of Soobin as a kid. “We should have him over for dinner sometime.”

Oh God. If ever there was a disaster in the making. “He’s not that sociable. He doesn’t really like… people.”

“People like that are just trying to make it seem like their loneliness is a choice, rather than vice versa.” She sounds sad as she says it, gazing out the dining room window. Then she tilts her head to the side again. “Is that… smoke?”

He pushes his chair back. It’s dark, but Soobin’s porch light is on, and through their kitchen window, Yeonjun can see wisps of smoke curling out from his kitchen window.

His mother’s fork is frozen above her meatloaf. “Should I call the fire department?”

Yeonjun’s already by the front door, pulling on his coat. “I think I better go over first and check it out.”

“Thanks, Yeonjun. You’re always so good to strangers.”

And it hits him as he heads out the door—that’s how she talks to him now. Like he’s a stranger.

He walks quickly. It’s a cold night, the moon hanging low and fat in the sky. He looks both ways before crossing the street.

“Soobin!” He shouts, banging on the door twice before letting himself in.

The hallway is thick with smoke. Yeonjun opens windows as he goes. At this rate, Soobin’s going to turn the white walls gray. “Soobin, where are you? You better not be smoking again.”

“In the kitchen,” Soobin’s voice calls back. “It’s the microwave that’s smoking.”

“Tell the microwave it’s not allowed to smoke either.” Yeonjun sticks his head into the kitchen, texting his mother : it’s fine, just burned popcorn. When he looks up, black smoke is billowing from the microwave. Soobin is standing next to it, ineffectually waving a potholder at the dark clouds.

“You’re going to suffocate. Go stand by the window.” Yeonjun squints into the microwave, his eyes watering, throat burning. A blackened, misshapen lump is the source of the smoke. “What the hell is that?”

Soobin tosses his potholder aside. “A shoe.”

“And what did the shoe do to you that you decided to execute it through the microwave?”

“It belongs to Minhyuk.”

“Such a petty crime.”

Soobin frowns. “It’s an experiment. I’m measuring the melting rate of certain types of rubber under various temperatures.”

“And I’m sure that has nothing to do with sibling resentment.” Yeonjun fishes through a drawer, miraculously finds a pair of salad tongs, and carries the acrid-smelling shoe outside, where he deposits it on the gravel.

“It’s science,” Soobin says scathingly, following him.

“Science that filled your house with smoke. Which, you know, if you breathe too much of, it kills you. That’s science too.” Yeonjun inhales some night air to cleanse his lungs.

“I was also smoking,” Soobin concedes, and Yeonjun notices the cigarettes sticking out of his pocket.

Yeonjun groans. “Just don’t smoke in the house, okay? It’s a fire hazard. Also a lung cancer hazard. You’re going to kill yourself before you’re thirty.”

“Says the person who walks in front of cars.”

“What’s wrong with you tonight?” Yeonjun steps back into the house, picking up an empty pizza box and fanning some of the smoke out the window. Soobin watches him, while tapping his foot in an irritable, irregular pattern. He’s scowling. “You seem…”

“Galileo.”

“Not what I was going to say.”

“I’m Galileo in prison. I’m a supercomputer in a junkyard. I’m being wasted, Yeonjun. This town is killing me by inches, turning my mind to slush.” Soobin rubs the back of his head violently, standing his hair on end. Yeonjun makes a mental note to attack him with a pair of scissors next time he’s distracted. If Soobin even has scissors. The salad tongs probably wouldn’t work for a haircut.

“Well, at least it’s not making you melodramatic,” Yeonjun mutters.

“I’ve been scrambling for distractions ever since I got here. You. Ares. The person who sent out that photo, which you won’t even let me investigate anymore.” Soobin paces furiously. “All miniscule puzzles. None worth my time. I need a challenge.”

Yeonjun stops. He’s a distraction? A miniscule one?

“Where do I buy drugs in this domesticized pasture of suburban bliss?” Soobin asks.

Well, that just took a turn. “Drugs? Like, drugs drugs?”

“No, the non-drugs drugs. Yes, drugs. Cocaine will do. Adderall if not.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

“So, you’re saying all the times I wondered to myself if you were on crack, you were actually on crack?”

“Hilarious, Yeonjun. You’ll be a YouTube sensation.” Soobin storms into the living room and collapses into Yeonjun’s long-suffering lawn chair. Yeonjun follows him, switching on the light.

“I’m not finding you drugs, Soobin.”

“Then you’re bloody well useless, aren’t you?”

Yeonjun inhales. And exhales. A few days ago, he would have just left. Screw Soobin and his insanity. It’s times like this that Soobin reminds him of a really smart, really good-looking five-year-old.

But Yeonjun decided to be friends with him. He’s a little rusty when it comes to the rules of friendship, but he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to accept your friends as they are.

And this is Choi Soobin.

Yeonjun deals with long, blank stretches of empty boredom by laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, imagining situations in which he might die. Apparently Soobin deals with it by microwaving shoes.

“We’re going out,” Yeonjun announces.

Soobin rolls his head toward him. “So you are going to find me drugs.”

“If there’s one thing you want to be sure about when it comes to me, it’s that I’m never going to buy you drugs.”

“Goody-goody,” Soobin mutters. “Where are we going?”

Yeonjun doesn’t answer. He just takes Soobin’s arm and pulls him up out of the chair, and then out of the house. The shoe is still sending up tendrils of smoke into the air as they cross the road. Yeonjun’s kitchen light hasn’t been switched off. He pokes his head past the front door. His mother’s doing dishes. “Mom, can I borrow the car? I left my homework at school.”

“Sure. Keys are by the door.” She doesn’t look up. “The neighbor’s fine, then?”

As fine as Choi Soobin can be. “Yep. See ya.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Soobin asks ironically as they approach the car.

Yeonjun chews on his lip. Back when he was a social human being, it was the straight-A perfectionist crowd he hung out with. His mother always said she wanted him to have smart friends. Somehow he doubts Soobin was what she meant. “Do you really want to be introduced?”

“Not at all.”

“Thought so. Come on.” Yeonjun gets in the car, buckling in and adjusting the mirrors. It takes him a minute to remember how to turn on the lights. He hasn’t driven in a long time.

“I hope you’re taking me to the scene of a locked-room murder with no apparent clues,” Soobin says, his silhouette softened by darkness. “I’d love a decent murder.”

Yeonjun pauses. “Promise me you won’t ever say that in front of anyone in a position of authority, okay?”

“I don’t make promises.”

It’s only a ten-minute drive to the docks. Yeonjun used to love to swim. Now everything he can say about himself has to be prefaced with a used to. Nothing has caught his interest since Beomgyu died.

Except Soobin.

Yeonjun pulls into the parking lot, put the car into park, and climb out. The night sky is beautiful here. A million stars glitter above the endless blanket of water.

“What, are we going fishing?” Soobin gets out of the car and stands beside him. No one else is here. They’re alone. “Oh, I see. You’re curing my boredom by indoctrinating me into the one sport that requires you do nothing but stare at one place for hours on end. And they say I’m the genius.”

“You’re the only one who says you’re a genius.”

“My opinion is the only one that matters on the subject.”

“Jesus. We’re not going fishing.”

“That Jesus character again. Did you take me here to baptize me?”

Yeonjun whirls on him. “Shut up or this will become a murder scene.”

“In that case, I’m going to solve my own murder in advance—it was you. Nice quiet place for it. Careful not to leave fingerprints anywhere. Although the water is never as good a place to dump a body as people think.”

“You know, I almost wish there would be a murder,” Yeonjun growls. “You’re eighty times more annoying when you’re bored. Oh, there, look, this friendship is already making me want to commit homicide. How healthy is that.”

“Healthy friendships are almost always boring.”

“As if you’d know.” Yeonun tilts his head back and breathes in the sea air. The night is cold but not windy, and the moonlight tops each ripple with cream. The beach stretches out, a long abandoned stripe of sand between the ocean and the rest of the world, keeping it at bay. In the summer, there’s always at least two bonfires flickering on the sand. In the summer, boats are always tied to the dock. Now the dock is totally empty, water licking at the metal.

Soobin leans against the car hood. He looks so different at night. During the day, he looks out of place no matter where he is. At night, he looks like he belongs. The darkness makes all his edges more gentle.

“You better not have brought me here to get sentimental about the moon.”

“Oh, God, I did not.” Yeonjun shuffles. His brilliant plan is seeming stupider by the second. “I thought we could… jump in.”

“What for? Underwater fishing?”

“To stop you being bored.” Beomgyu had dared him to do it once, on an October a million years ago. The thrill of it, the way he hadn’t been able to stop laughing just because he hadn’t known anything could be that cold…cold enough to shatter all the bad things. Cold enough to crystalize.

“I’ll be just as bored with pneumonia as I would without it, thanks.”

“You won’t get pneumonia, we’ll get right back out and warm up in the car.” The water looks soft. Comfortable. It’s weird how much Yeonjun wants to do this. “It’s a thing people do around here, okay? Young people.”

“Oh well, if the young people are doing it, that’s different.”

“You’re a young person.”

“And so are you, though one wouldn’t know it, going by the fact that you say young people as if you were eighty-five.”

Yeonjun turns and opens the car door. “Forget it.”

“Wait,” Soobin says.

“No, Soobin, it was a stupid idea, okay?”

Yeonjun has been seized with the urge to do something young. Something without any grief in it. It’d seemed like an appropriate way to mark the beginning of his friendship with Soobin. It was one of those stupid little fantasies he has sometimes, not about anything big or magical, but just about doing something ordinary—something other people seemed able to do all the time.

“Yeonjun, would you wait for two seconds?”

“No.” Suddenly it seems very important that they leave this place as soon as possible. “Let’s go home. We’ll watch a movie or something. I’m sorry.”

“If I were you, this is the point where I’d probably say Christ,” Soobin mutters under his breath. Then he kicks off his shoes and yanks his shirt over his head. His chest gleams coolly in the moonlight.

Yeonjun can’t take my eyes off him. He’s definitely a creepy friend. “Soobin, what are you doing?”

“Not being bored,” he says, and takes a running leap off the end of the dock.

Yeonjun covers his mouth. Then he sprints to the edge of the dock while the echoes of the splash fade into the night air. Soobin bursts through the surface, gasping, his dark hair plastered to his forehead and his skin electric-white.

Yeonjun starts laughing. Idiot. “You okay?”

“You really were trying to murder me,” Soobin hisses, his teeth chattering furiously. “By getting me to do this.”

“No I wasn’t. Look.” Yeonjun leaves his shoes besides Soobin’s before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, and jumping in.

The cold is like a fist through glass. He breaks into a thousand pieces, pieces that all swirl apart in the water and come back together when he explodes through the surface. It feels like he’s been put back together right. Better, even. Yeonjun shouts every expletive he knows at the moon.

“You are a complete mystery to me, Choi Yeonjun,” Soobin manages.

Yeonjun cackles and splashes over to him, grabbing his shoulders and propelling him underwater again.

“D-definitely trying to kill me,” Soobin splutters when he resurfaces.

Yeonjun is so bizarrely fond of him. Of his dramatics and his smoking and his deductions and his rudeness and his lips and his unexpected moments of kindness. He feels warm about it, even though he’s freezing. He feels free, too. But also cold. Mostly cold. “C-come on, let’s get out.”

They haul themselves back on top of the dock, panting. Soobin rolls on his back. Water glistens on every inch of him, from the hard flatness of his stomach to the curve of his ribs.

“You’re pretty,” Yeonjun says without thinking.

Soobin’s eyes snap open. “You did not just call me pretty.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. You hallucinated it. Hypothermia.” Yeonjun launches to his feet, sweeping up Soobin’s shoes. “Last one to the car freezes to death.”

Yeonjun gets there first. He throws himself inside, locks the door, and blasts the heat until Soobin mimes breaking the windshield with his elbow.

“Are you bored now?” Yeonjun asks when Soobin’s slid into the passenger seat, his shirt clinging to him, his lips nearly blue. They weren’t blue when they kissed. But he shouldn’t think of that.

“Too cold to be anything at the moment. Maybe next time I’ll set myself on fire.”

Yeonjun twists the heat as high as it will go, and they stay there until neither of them are shivering anymore.

Chapter Text

(written on a grease-stained napkin)

 New hypothesis: he likes me for my mind.

Often expresses amazement at my observations. My mind is the only thing about me that he could possibly find appealing. Certainly doesn’t like me for my personality. So: he finds my intelligence to be an effective distraction. Mystery solved.

Other mystery (why do I like him?) not solved.

Now I’m the anomaly.

Kissed him (strange. Had some effect on me). Jumped into freezing water for him. (Looked so sad.) Losing control of myself. Of my mind. Not good. Without my mind, he wouldn’t like me.

Completely random that of all places Minhyuk should have picked this street, this house, and it was next to him, and he brought me a casserole. Entropy. Nothing more.

How much longer will this last?

Estimate: Not long. Days at most. Something will happen to break through his loyalty. I’ll do something to ruin it.

I always do something.

|||

“Yeonjun!” Chaeryeong shrieks. “You are a terrible person.”

“I am?” Yeonjun stops mid-bite of rubbery ramen.

“Yes.” Chaeryeong slams her tray down next to him. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t tell you what?”

“That you’re going out with Choi Soobin!”

“Oh,” Yeonjun says. “Right.”

“Oh, right? That’s all you have to say for yourself? I am ashamed of you, Choi Yeonjun.”

“I guess you’re feeling better.”

It’s been a few days since the basketball kiss and the jump into the water. Yeonjun hasn’t heard a word about the photo since then. He has, however, heard many words about his relationship status. His favorite rumor so far is that Soobin and him are hitchhiking to Vegas next weekend to get married. Soobin’s favorite is that Yeonjun dug up something gruesome in Soobin’s past and now he’s blackmailing him. He always likes the morbid ones.

“I was. Not anymore!” Chaeryeong’s been out with the flu since the beginning of the week. She still looks a bit droopy. Her hair’s down. Not even one bow. “I’ve tried calling you a bajallion times.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“You moron.” She takes a seat. Across the cafeteria, all of her usual friends are sitting with their heads swiveled nearly backwards, unblinking eyes aimed straight at them.

Yeonjun points at them. “Do they know they look like a bunch of owls?”

“I will nobly choose to ignore that. If.” She leans so far toward me that he has to lean back.

“If what?”

“If you spill. Everything. How many times have you done it? Is he good? How big is—”

Yeonjun chokes loudly mid-slurp, spraying milk everywhere. Chaeryeong nobly ignores this too. “Because we’re taking bets,” she finishes. “My guess is—”

“Oh my God. Stop right there.”

“Is it true that he has a big—?”

“Stop!” Yeonjun howls. “We haven’t done anything yet.”

“Ah.” She nods wisely. “You’re waiting til Vegas.”

“Yes. Wait—no. No. We’ve been—” Yeonjun slams his head on the table, “—dating for like five minutes, can everyone just calm down?”

“Oh, Yeonjun.” Chaeryeong tilts her head patronizingly. “You know nothing interesting happens around here.”

Yeonjun finishes his lunch at top speed. If Soobin was here, none of this would be happening. With Soobin around, people are generally too intimidated to interrogate him. But Soobin’s nowhere to be seen. He’s probably skipping again. Yeonjun will have to talk to him about that. There’s only so far he can go before he gets expelled.

Most likely, he’s already at home. After school, Yeonjun will go over and find him smoking out the house again, or doing some weird experiment. He’ll yell at him and air everything out. And then they’ll have to go find something interesting to do, because Soobin requires interesting.

He can’t wait.

“Where are you going?” Chaeryeong whines as he stands up.

“Gym class.” Yeonjun salutes.

“You know, you seem…” She leans forward on her elbows. “Different.”

“People change, I guess.”

She smiles. “Go make out with your boyfriend.”

He’d thought the boyfriend thing would get old pretty quickly, but oddly, he doesn’t mind it all that much. It’s funny, anyway. And yesterday Soobin had to hold his hand in the hallway, which was downright hilarious. And not altogether awful.

Yeonjun dumps a few things in his locker, considers going to check the locker for Ares letters, and decides against it. He doesn’t need Ares anymore. Besides, after the whole photo debacle, it’s probably best to take a break.

He heads down the stairs just as the bell rings. A few people rush past him. If only he was that excited to get to gym class. Frankly, their enthusiasm is impressive.

That’s when he hears the screams.

Loud ones. Coming from the gym.

People just messing around, obviously. They’re going to get in trouble with Principal Lee. But one scream keeps going, and going—

Of course it doesn’t have anything to do with Soobin. Why would it? There’s probably a rat in the supply closet. But Yeonjun’s already running.

There’s such a huge crowd by the doors that at first he can’t see what’s going on. Whatever’s happened, it happened at the worst possible time—everyone from my gym class has just shown up, and everyone from the art department next door has joined the crowd. “Oh my God,” someone is sobbing. “Oh my God.”

What the hell—

“Excuse me,” Yeonjun says and shoves to the front. High school is notorious for people who shove back if you shove them first, but today, everyone just gets out of his way.

“You killed him!” someone screams.

Killed?

Who killed who?

“That’s Choi Soobin,” someone next to Yeonjun whispers, and then Soobin’s name is being spoken all around him like a virus. Someone moves and suddenly he can see. All of his breath spills out of him at once. His heart stops.

The open-eyed body of Huening Kai is splayed on the gym floor, blood in a neat pool around his head.

And Soobin is standing next to him.

Beomgyu’s hanging from his seatbelt, blood that should be inside him streaming down his face in trickles, rivers, and his eyes are open but they’re wrong—

Yeonjun tries to speak, but his mouth feels like it’s been shot full of Novocain. Finally he manages it. “Go—go get the principal,” He mumbles to a stark-white freshman standing next to him, who jolts and flees.

This can’t be real. This can’t. Be. Real.

Soobin is totally still. He’s holding a bloodied hockey stick, his sleeve pulled down to cover his fingertips. To not leave fingerprints. Or to avoid smudging any that are already there.

Please, Soobin. Put that down.

I’d love a decent murder. Yeonjun recalls Soobin saying.

“You—you killed him!” someone shrieks again, hysterically. It’s a guy to my left, pointing his trembling finger at Soobin.

They’re all staring at Soobin with a mixture of terror and hate.

Soobin meets Yeonjun’s eyes.

There’s a dull sound in Yeonjun’s head, a distant echo—the sound of metalwork underwater. “Everyone calm down,” Yeonjun whispers.

“He murdered him!”

Yeonjun imagines plunging into the ice water, the cold shaking him into clearness, and points sharply at a sophomore frozen with her phone in her hand. “You. Call 911. Now.”

He strides out from the half-moon of people, into the empty stretch of space punctuated by Soobin and Kai’s body, and kneels next to Kai. One lens of his glasses is broken, distorting the blank eye behind it. His hair is stuck to the floor with blood. Last time he saw Kai, he was crying. Last time he saw Kai, he was alive. Yeonjun revives the memory of the cold and presses his forefinger against his neck. Kai’s skin is cool. There’s no pulse.       

“He’s dead. I checked,” Soobin says.

His voice is dispassionate and clean. Yeonjun is probably the only person in the world who could detect that slight shake.

“Get away from him!” cries a girl. Yuna. Yuna, who had a crush on him just the other day. “Yeonjun, get away!”

Yeonjun stands up, fighting a million things at once—nausea, dizziness, the weakness in his own voice. He has to say it now. It’s very important that everyone understands it right away. “Soobin didn’t do this.”

Soobin looks at him swiftly.

“What—what are you talking about,” Yuna croaks, her face just as pale and horrified and trembling as everyone else’s. “He’s standing right there. Next to him.”

“Did anyone see him do it?” It’s only because Yeonjun’s shouting that he realizes they’ve been talking in whispers. As if it’ll wake Kai up.

There’s a wave of silence, broken only by crying.

Yeonjun turns to Soobin. “You just found him here, right?”

Soobin nods, almost imperceptibly.

“See?” Yeonjun’s shouting again. He’s verging on hysteria. He has to be steady. “He only found him.”

“We found them. Together.” It’s Chiwoo. Even his usually cocky voice is breaking.

“So he found him first. And he picked—he picked that up.” Yeonjun adds in a faint whisper as his eyes scan the hockey stick , “Soobin, put it down.”

Soobin lets go of the hockey stick like it had cut him. It clatters to the ground.

“Yeonjun, come on,” Yuna whimpers. “Just come back over here.”

Soobin doesn’t look afraid, exactly. It’s just that he looks so alone. So starkly separated. Yeonjun reaches over and takes his hand, squeezing it. Hard. An I’m-not-going-to-leave-you-alone-to-this squeeze. Soobin’s still motionless. Like if he doesn’t move, this will all go away.

It won’t.

This will never go away.

“Yeah, sure,” someone yells, nearly insanely. “Stick up for your murderer boyfriend.”

“Maybe he helped him do it.” The murmur comes from somewhere in the back.

“Yeonjun, don’t do this,” Soobin says quietly. Sirens wail in the distance. The police are coming. The police will fix this.

Yeonjun grips his hand so tightly his own fingers burn. “Shut up.”

It feels like a million years before Principal Lee arrives, flanked by cops. This time, he doesn’t turn red—he turns white, whiter than Soonin had been when they’d jumped into the ocean.

When he’d jumped in the ocean for him.

“Everyone, out. Get out,” Principal Lee is ordering, dividing the crowd as he passes through. “All students to the auditorium, now.”

“Soobin did it,” someone says. “Choi Soobin.” They’re echoed by three others.

“Don’t lie!” Yeonjun’s still shouting. And now his eyes are burning, too. Maybe this is a trick. Maybe Kai’s staging some scene from a comic book and in a second he’ll get up and laugh at them.

“Out!” Principal Lee keeps shouting until finally, it works. People bleed around him and filter away until it’s just the cops and them. A vise tightens around Yeonjun’s chest. Soobin still hasn’t moved.

A voice comes over the intercom: “All students please proceed to the auditorium.”

“Jesus,” mutters one of the officers, staring down at the body.

Another one approaches Soobin. “Choi Soobin? Son, you’re going to have to come with us.”

“Choi Yeonjun!” Principal Lee is screaming at him, like he can scream things back to the way they were this morning, before anyone was murdered in his school. “The auditorium. Now!”

Yeonjun doesn’t let go of Soobin’s hand. He doesn’t think he’ll ever let go. They’ll even have to go pee together. A crazy laugh surges in Yeonjun’s chest and he has to battle it down. “Soobin didn’t do it.”

The nearest officer takes out a pair of handcuffs. “Back away, now.”

“He didn’t do it. If you take him you have to take me too.”

“We’ll be questioning all you students, don’t worry.”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin says. “Let go.”

One of the policeman grabs Yeonjun’s shoulders and drags him back while the other one cuffs Soobin, using more force than he personally thinks is necessary.

“You’re a sick kid,” The policeman mutters to Soobin, glancing down at the body again.

It makes Yeonjun furious. “He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. Why the fuck can’t you people understand that?”

“Language, Yeonjun!” And then he’s being hauled back by Principal Lee himself. “I’m sorry,” The principal says to the policeman. “His brother passed away recently, he’s gone through some hard times—”

Yeonjun breaks free. “Soobin. Tell them you didn’t do it.”

Two policemen kneel next to the body while the third pushes Soobin past him.

“It’s all right, Yeonjun,” he hears Soobin saying as they take him farther away. From him.

It’s not all right.

It’s so far from all right.

|||

A day and a half later, they still haven’t released Soobin.

Yeonjun spends most of the day and a half calling the police station, angrily demanding they listen. They don’t. School is canceled on Friday and then it’s the weekend, so he doesn’t have to see the faces of his classmates, most of which he really wants to punch. How could they accuse Soobin with no evidence?

Okay, Soobin had mentioned wanting a murder. Once or twice.

And sure, he displayed almost no empathy.

And yeah, maybe he had made it obvious to at least Yeonjun and the comic book club that he wasn’t a big fan of Huening Kai.

But Soobin isn’t a killer. He’s a good person—Yeonjun thinks—who happens to not seem very much like a good person when you first meet him. Just because he doesn’t have a filter doesn’t make him a murderer.

He’s also absolutely the absolute worst person to be in this situation. Knowing Soobin, he’d probably already insulted every officer who had questioned him and made himself look even more like a criminal in the process. The only ones who know that Soobin is human are him and Soobin, and he’s not about to convince anyone.

So Yeonjun keeps calling.

And trying really hard not to think about Huening Kai crying.

His funeral is held on Friday. Yeonjun doesn’t go. He can’t. He spends hours scrolling through the messages left on his Facebook wall, unable to write one himself. I’m sorry, Kai. I’m so sorry.

On Saturday afternoon, Yeonjun puts on his jacket and walks to the police station. His mother’s at work, so he can’t take the car. It’s a bitterly cold day. The tips of his hair, still wet from the shower, freeze solid.

Kai’s hair was wet too. Wet with blood. Who would have wanted to kill him? He was unobtrusive. Quiet. As far as he knows, Yeonjun’s the only one at school Kai ever did anything bad to. Kai helped people with homework. Smiled in the hallway. He didn’t deserve to die. But then again, neither did Beomgyu.

He’s halfway to the station when a very familiar figure steps around the corner in front of him.

“Soobin!”

It’s him. It’s really him. Tall and messy-haired and a very, very welcome sight. When he spots Yeonjun he gets a very distinct deer-in-headlights look. Yeonjun doesn’t care. He sprints forward.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun pants, stopping just short of hugging him. A kid and his mom walk past, the mom pulling her kid away. “What happened? They let you out?”

Soobin puts up a hand. He looks exactly as he did in the gym, same clothes, albeit a little rumpled. “Wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For me to think,” he says curtly. “I was in the middle of it when you decided to appear much sooner than I thought I’d be seeing you.”

Yeonjun waits, nonplussed, as Soobin closes his eyes, letting out an aggravated sigh before opening them again. “It’s no use. I was going to figure out the proper way to say this—”

“Since when have you ever tried to say something properly?”

“Since I’ve had to thank someone for sticking up for me,” Soobin snaps. “Which might be something I’d thank you for, if I were the type of person who thanked people, and if it hadn’t been so colossally stupid.”

Yeonjun blinks a couple times. “That was definitely the worst thank you I’ve ever heard.”

“I told you I was trying to figure out the right way to say it. Not my fault you decided to jump out at me before I was done.” Soobin rubs the back of his head again. He’s going to tear his scalp off if he keeps doing that so hard. “It was preying on my mind.”

Yeonjun jumps up and down to keep warm, blowing on his hands. “Huening Kai just got murdered, and that’s what preys on your mind?”

“My mind is expansive enough for multiple things to prey on.”

Yeonjun shakes this off, scrutinizing him. “So—what happened? Are you okay?”      

“Why would I not be okay?” Soobin’s brow furrows slightly.

“I don’t know. The police might have roughed you up or something.”

“You watch entirely too much TV.”

“Yeah, well,” Yeonjun mutters. “It’s cold out here. Let’s get coffee.”

There’s a Starbucks on the next block. They walk there together, not speaking in favor of keeping their scarves pulled over their mouths. It’s cold enough that very few people are out. When they reach the Starbucks, which, as it turns out, is where all the people are, Soobin finds the least overcrowded corner and Yeonjun orders drinks for the both of them, the complicated expensive kind with elaborate names.

“I don’t like whipped cream,” Soobin says when Yeonjun slides into the wooden chair next to him.

“It’s the best way to celebrate a prison break, didn’t you know?” But Yeonjun takes a spoon and scoops Soobin’s whipped cream onto his own drink before sitting down. “So tell me what happened. Why did they let you go?”

“Because I didn’t kill him.” Soobin stirs his coffee with one of those little sticks and eyes the people at the table next to them. Probably deducing which one of them is cheating on the other.

“Okay, no duh for us, but they didn’t know that.” Yeonjun takes a sip. It burns his tongue.

“Neither did you. The assumption everyone else made, it was the sane assumption to make.” Soobin’s watching Yeonjun intently.

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re my friend. That’s how I knew.” It’s not like Yeonjun can explain how alone Soobin looked, or how it made him feel.

Soobin lapses into silence. Yeonjun lets it stretch on for approximately seven seconds.

“God, Soobin, just tell me.”

“I thought it was obvious,” Soobin says, shrugging. “He wasn’t killed with the hockey stick.”

“Oh, my mistake. I was a little mislead by the fact that it was covered in his blood.”

“You were intentionally misled. If one is going to kill a person in a highly populated building in the middle of the day, one does not use something so loud and with the potential to require multiple blows, with the possibility of screaming. No. He was drowned.”

“Drowned?” Yeonjun’s very glad it’s loud enough in here that nobody’s going to overhear this conversation.

“In the locker room sink,” Soobin says. “Whoever did it took pains to hold his hair back and dry his face afterwards, but there were a few damp strands, as well as a bruise forming on his forehead that was too light to have come from a blow from the stick. That, and the fact that the blood pool was considerably smaller than it would have been had he been struck while his heart was still beating. I noticed it all within seconds. Once I informed the police and a rudimentary medical exam was performed—waste of time—they finally believed me, and I was exonerated. He would have to have been killed earlier in the day, during a period of time in which I was confirmed to have been in Science class, correcting the teacher on her pronunciation.”

“That’s brilliant,” Yeonjun blinks, shaking his head and warming his hands on his cup. “You should be the cop. But then why did they keep you for so long?”

“Something about my attitude,” Soobin says carelessly. “They said they thought it would do me some good. Which was stupid of them. Good is done to me only when I allow it.”

“Right…” Yeonjun trails off. Soobin’s sipping his drink, perfectly calm. Unruffled. There’s even a small smile on his lips. Like he doesn’t understand the mountain of crap he’s landed in. “Soobin, you know even if the police don’t think you did it, that’s not going to stop the rumors. Half the school is convinced they caught you in the act.”

“Oh, I know,” Soobin says, his smile widening.

“And you’re…happy about this.”

“Of course I am.”

“Yeah. Okay. Why?”

“Because it means we’ve got an interesting killer.” His smile is positively shark-like now. Yeonjun catches the couple at the next table glancing at them anxiously. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for an interesting killer.”

Christ. “And you wonder why people think you did it.”

“No, I don’t,” Soobin says, leaning forward in that way he does when he’s got something fascinating to share, when it’s obvious he doesn’t care about anything but himself and his information and Yeonjun’s reaction to it. “I don’t wonder at all. They think I did it because they were meant to. I received a note the morning of the murder in my locker, asking to meet me at lunch to discuss something important. I incorrectly deduced it was Kai wanting to talk about the photograph. Although, in a way, I was right. He was there.”

“Soobin,” Yeonjun starts.

“Anyway. The time requested was very specific. 12:25 p.m. Only five minutes before lunch would end and the gym would fill with people. I had assumed Kai didn’t want to be alone with me for long. In reality, the killer timed it perfectly so that I would be discovered alone with his body and a very dramatic murder weapon, albeit not the real one. Meaning…”

“The killer has a grudge against you,” Yeonjun says, completely forgetting about his drink. “You do realize you’ve been making sure every single person at school has a grudge against you ever since you moved here?”

“I was just being myself.” Soobin leans back in his chair, his smile turning dry. “They say that’s the best way to make friends.”

Yeonjun sighs.

“We’re going to work out who did it, obviously,” Soobin continues, making no effort to scoot in as two people squeeze past for the table behind them.

“We?”

“Yes, we. Us. We’re a good team, as previously established. I think better when I write things down or work out loud. The second is preferable.”

The people behind them ask if they’re using their third chair, and Yeonjun pushes it toward them without looking. “You mean you just want someone to show off to.”

“And that.”

“Soobin,” Yeonjun says in a low voice. “I don’t know if we should get involved. People at school—they hate you right now.”

“They hated me before.” Soobin says it like they’re discussing whether or not it was raining yesterday. Yeonjun’s never met someone so impervious to hate.

“This is different. They didn’t think you were a murderer before. I know how rumors work.” Soobin’s not paying attention. Yeonjun reaches over and gives his wrist a little shake. “You have to be careful, okay?”

“You may ask many things of me, Choi Yeonjun, but you may never ask me not to get involved in the first interesting murder that’s entered my life so far.”

The bell rings. Two girls from school have just walked in. Their faces change from rosy with cold to flushed with anger as they catch sight of him and Soobin.

“Okay,” Yeonjun says, averting his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just go.”

And as they push past, dropping their empty cups in the trash, the girls watch them leave in a way Yeonjun doesn’t like at all.

Chapter Text

(written on a scrap of paper provided in a holding cell)

Psychology analysis of Choi Yeonjun:

Negative traits: Self-destructive tendencies. (Example.: depression, no other outlet.) Seeks risk as form of self-medication. Reserved. Suspicious. Prone to guilt. Prioritizes appearance of normality. Hidden aggressive streak. (Example.: casserole.) Believes the best of people. (Example.: Me.) Defends others before himself. Poorly handles grief and loss. Empathetic. (Example.: cares too much.)

Positive traits: Clear-headed in the face of an emergency. Loyal. (See note.)

Intelligence level: High. Tempers this for fear of standing out.

Primary fear: Drawing negative attention to himself (side effect of being known for brother’s death). Prefers to fly under the radar. Does not want people to look at him long enough to see damage.

Secondary fear: Appearing unstable to mother. Keeps appearance of high-functionality in all arenas for this purpose.

Recent note: Difficult to gain trust, but extremely loyal once trust is gained. (Finding me with a dead body didn’t put him off me.)

Former conclusion: Invested in normality, will not associate with me.

Conclusion incorrect. Associates with me. Anomalous.

Possible mental deficiencies? Debunked.

Secondary conclusion: Uses me as another form of risk-taking. Am a distraction (as he is distraction to me. Was a distraction. Is?) Finds value only in my intelligence.

Secondary conclusion incorrect. (Or rather, outdated.) Defended me at his own expense. Displayed concern for my safety. (Example. Emotion involved.)

Third conclusion: TBA.

|||

Yeonjun dips the paper towel back into his water bottle and keeps scrubbing. The paint is just beginning to smear, but the words are still readable. GET OUT OF OUR SCHOOL MURDERER. His arm aches. He rests his forehead against the cold metal.

“Yeonjun?”

Yeonjun jumps. Water spills across the floor. “You’re supposed to be in Math,” He hisses.

Soobin summons up a quick math formula.

“Right.”

“I’m asking why you’re cleaning my locker.” Soobin tucks his hands into his pockets, bending over. Yeonjun rushes to hide the graffiti and bangs his elbow instead, biting his lip to stop his eyes from watering, but there’s no use anyway. Soobin’s seen it.

“I’m in training to become a janitor. What do you think?”

“Get out of our school murderer,” Soobin reads over his shoulder. “A comma wouldn’t go amiss there. Unless they’re assuming I’m having some sort of penetrative sex with the school murderer. Which would make it a lot easier to figure out who it is.”

Soobin never fails to surprise him. Yeonjun splutters with laughter, but the graffiti looms in his peripheral vision and the laughter dies quickly.

Soobin frowns. “If I’m going to make sex jokes I expect laughter lasting at least ten seconds. Again, why are you cleaning my locker? I don’t care how it’s decorated.”

“I know you don’t.” Yeonjun puts down the wad of paper towels. The locker needs a new coat of paint anyway. “I care.”

“Why?” Soobin asks sharply.

“Why aren’t you in class?” Yeonjun counters.

“Because I doubt the murderer currently on the loose, whom you and I are the only ones intelligent enough to catch, is doing math calculations.”

Yeonjun turns back to the locker, picking up his dripping water bottle. “I told you I think we should keep a low profile. Leave this to the police.”

“I’m smarter than the police. So are you. My shoes are smarter than the police.”

“Albeit in more danger of being microwaved.” Yeonjun stands up, wincing at the ache in his knees. He’s been doing this for longer than he thought. “If you’re skipping third period anyway, why don’t you just go home?”

“Because I have fourth period with you.” Soobin leans against the row of lockers. “And we need to break up.”

“No.”

Soobin smirks. “You can’t stop someone from breaking up with you. Isn’t that how a relationship works?”

Yeonjun does his best to imitate Soobin’s electric stare, looking straight into his eyes without wavering. “If we break up, everyone will think it’s because I believe that you killed Kai. And if people think your boyfriend thinks you killed Kai, that’ll just make them more convinced.”

“They’re going to go on thinking whatever they like, no matter what we do,” Soobin says. “If we don’t break up, they’ll start believing you were involved in the murder.”

“Oh, I see.” Yeonjun leans against the lockers playfully and folds his arms to match Soobin’s pose. “You’re trying to protect me.”

“It’s practical.”

“Because you care.” Yeonjun prods him in the chest lightly, copying Soobin’s smirk so none of the warmth in his stomach will show on his face.

“I don’t care. I care absolutely nothing about what they think.” Soobin scowls at him.

“You don’t care what they think of you. You care what they think of me.” Yeonjun pushes himseld off the wall and swings his backpack up onto his shoulders. “And you want to know why I was cleaning your locker.”

Soobin says nothing. A furrow develops between his brows.

“Let’s go to class, you stupid genius.”

It’s a Monday, and fourth period is the only class Yeonjun has with him. They’d eaten lunch at the back of the library, where no one could see them. Even so, it’s impossible to avoid the animosity toward Soobin. It lights up the school like radiation. Only Kai’s few friends, his quiet circle, are the ones sadder about his death than they are furious at Soobin. Nobody cares that the police let him go. They only care that now they have an excuse to loathe him.

When they walk into the classroom, a deep freeze settles over the room. Every pair of eyes is on Soobin. Fear and hatred. It’s a hundred degrees worse than anything Yeonjun ever experienced, but Soobin takes his seat at the back of the classroom like everyone else is invisible.

Yeonjun: I think everyone’s forgotten about my Photoshop dick.

Soobin: Don’t be offended. It was an excellent Photoshop dick.

Yeonjun smiles at his phone and sits back. He’s waiting for someone to whisper something nasty to Soobin. Yeonjun’s ready for it. Soobin defended him before. Now it’s his turn. But nobody does. This hate isn’t petty. It’s cold and solid. Yeonjun feels the badness of it worming inside him and it’s only the sight of Soobin gazing idly out the window, like the tree outside is infinitely more interesting to him than anything that could happen in this classroom, that gives Yeonjun any strength.

The teacher today is a sub. She writes her name on the board—Mrs. Kwon—and starts talking about How to Kill a Mockingbird like the real topic on everyone’s minds isn’t How to Kill Choi Soobin.

Midway through the lesson, Soobin stands up. Everyone goes completely still. Yeonjun can almost hear their heartbeats.

“It’s not working out between us, Yeonjun,” he says loudly. “I’m afraid I’m dumping you.”

And he sits back down.

As if Yeonjun would let him off that easy.

So he stands up, the sound of his chair scraping back nearly deafening in the silence. “Like hell you’re breaking up with me, Choi Soobin.”

Yeonjun takes his seat again.

“Um…perhaps if we could save this for later…” whispers a petrified Mrs. Kwon, frozen with her marker halfway to the whiteboard.

The classroom is a dead quiet sea of stares.

Soobin is glowering at him. Yeonjun smiles back sweetly and Soobin gets up again. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says.

Did Soobin read a handbook on how to break with someone? Probably. What a dork. Yeonjun gets up again too. “It’s not either. It’s both of us. Which is still a thing, because we’re not breaking up.”

“Personal matters…are for outside the classroom,” Mrs. Kwon squeaks. Nobody listens to her. Yeonjun thinks the classroom is about to combust.

Soobin narrows his eyes. “I like girls.”

Breaking out the big guns, then. “Not according to last night,” Yeonjun fires back.

One terrified giggle escapes someone in the front row.

“Stop it, Yeonjun,” Soobin says under his breath, turning up his death glare as high as it will go.

Yeonjun grins. He’s winning. Today, he doesn’t mind the stares. They’re for a good cause. “What about yesterday, when you said you couldn’t live without me?”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin hisses.

“And the day before that, when you said you wanted to get marr—”

“Point made,” Soobin growls, throwing himself back into his chair like he’s hoping it’ll break.

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun says, smiling widely. “Babycakes.”

And Yeonjun takes his seat.

“Well,” Mrs. Kwon says, her voice quavering. “If we think about what the mockingbird represents…”

A minute later, Yeonjun gets a text.

Soobin: You were enjoying that way too much.

Yeonjun: Can you blame me?

Soobin: Yes.

|||

Soobin hasn’t looked up in ten minutes.

He’s typing almost as far as he’s speaking, knees drawn up to his chest in the second plastic lawn chair Yeonjun donated to his living room. He still refuses to buy furniture. “The killer is someone from Kai’s comic book club.”

“Tell the police, not me.”

“Someone with a grudge against both Kai and I.”

“So go tell the police.”

“Someone physically stronger than Kai. Strong enough to hold him down, drown him and then carry him body into the gym. Likely a male.”

“Soobin,” Yeonjun says. “Tell the police.”

“The killer is clever. When one is trying to catch a mouse near his own hole, one does not leap for it in a blue uniform with hands outstretched. One sets a trap.”

“You are ridiculous. Here.” Yeonjun holds out his mug of tea, but Soobin’s still typing. Yeonjun starts to set it on the floor. His fingers slip and suddenly Bigelow’s Earl Grey is soaking into the carpet.

“The police would get in my way,” Soobin says.

Yeonjun tries to snatch the mug, but it’s too late. “Well, they’re performing their own investigation, aren’t they? Maybe they’ll figure it out before you do.”

Soobin laughs. “That joke was almost witty. I’m rubbing off on you.”

Yeonjun massages his forehead. “I’m going to go ahead and assume you haven’t bought paper towels.”

“There are five males in the comic book club and one girl who I believe would be strong enough to overpower Kai. But we’re also looking for the person who contacted Ares about seducing Taehyun and then made sure Kai saw your photo.”

“We are?”

“Told you should have let me keep looking into that.”

Yeonjun sets the mug upright and stands. “I’m realizing that pretty much everything you say could be paraphrased as I told you so.”

Soobin grins, completely ignoring the puddle of tea spreading near his feet. “It’s unlikely that multiple people would both choose to be in Kai’s comic book club and have a severe grudge against him. Severe enough to ruin his relationship, and severe enough to kill him.”

Yeonjun should run and find something to clean up this mess, but he’s fascinated despite himself. “Those are pretty different things.”

“They must have decided that the first one wasn’t enough.” Soobin stops typing and leans back. “Park Sunghoon, Lee Jiwon, Jay Park, Yang Doyoung, and Kim Seungwoo. One of them is the killer.”

Ten minutes on the computer and Soobin’s narrowed it down to five people, out of everyone in their school. “Which ones have grudges against you too?”

Soobin clears his throat. “All of them.”

“Really, Soob? Really?”

“I told Sunghoon his sister was sleeping with his girlfriend. Jiwon asked me out and I may have turned her down…ungracefully. I observed in class that Doyoung and Jay were trading answers on an exam.”

“And Seungwoo?”

“Seungwoo said something unpleasant about you and I said something unpleasant, albeit true, about his mother. That was one of the fights I won, by the way.”

“Maybe there are some paper towels upstairs?” Yeonjun mumbles to himself faintly.

“I need to observe them more closely.” Soobin uncrosses his legs and puts out his hand to stop him as Yeonjun starts to head in the direction of the stairs. “Five seconds in each of their presences and I’ll be able to tell which one is the killer, I guarantee it.”

Yeonjun shakes him off. “You’ll see them all tomorrow at school.”

“I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.” Soobin abandons his laptop and stands up, cracking his back and then his knuckles. “Let’s make some house calls.”

“I’m taking all this as a no on the paper towels. By the way, it’s also a no on the house calls.”

“Don’t tell me you’re more invested in paper towels than murderers,” Soobin says. Now that he’s up, Yeonjun has to tilt his head back to look at him. Soobin’s going to give him neck issues. “Don’t you want to catch him?”

“Of course I do,” Yeonjun says, more sharply than he means to. “But I don’t want you running around and knocking on the doors of people who think you’re the killer. You’re in danger, Soobin.”

“Oh, please. The killer won’t come after me. Whoever did it certainly has a grudge against me, or they wouldn’t have framed me, but if they wanted to kill me as much as they wanted to kill Kai, they would have done so. Somehow I’m doubting our murderer has any reservations about murdering.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Yeonjun pulls off his sweatshirt and uses it to mop up the spill. Sweatshirts can go in the washing machine. Carpets can’t. “There are people around here with shotguns.”

“So you think someone’s going to kill me because they think it was wrong I killed someone. There’s circular logic for you.”

“They don’t have to kill you,” Yeonjun says tightly. “But they could hurt you.”

“While my intellect far outstrips my physical strength, my physical strength is still above average. I happen to be used to people wanting to hurt me. And good at preventing it.”

Yeonjun wants to point out the one fight that Soobin had lost, but he doesn’t.

“I’m very hard to hurt,” Soobin says.

“Nobody’s hard to hurt.”

There’s a moment of silence broken by the buzz of the doorbell.

Soobin frowns. “Not Minhyuk. He always holds it for at least four seconds. He knows the noise irritates me.”

Yeonjun leaves his sweatshirt to soak up the puddle of tea and goes to answer the door. Standing on the front porch is a girl from the comic book club. One of Kai’s friends. Lia. She’s tiny and trying to make herself tinier, hunching and glancing up at him like a rabbit.

“Um,” Yeonjun says, keeping his hand on the knob in case she tries to push past him into the house. “Hi, Lia.”

“Hi, Yeonjun.” Her voice is wispy and nervous. It’s cold enough that it’s awkward for him not to invite her in, but he still doesn’t. The reason she’s here can’t be good. “This is Soobin’s address, right? Is he home?”

“I…” Yeonjun glances over his shoulder. Soobin has disappeared from the living room. “He’s kind of busy.”

Lia takes a deep, determined breath. “Okay, then will you tell him for me… that I don’t think he did it. I don’t think he killed Kai.” Her eyes fill with tears. “He wouldn’t have wanted people to believe something that wasn’t true.”

“Thanks,” Yeonjun answered, after hesitating. “I appreciate that. I mean, he’ll appreciate that. Why are you so convinced it isn’t him, though? It isn’t,” He adds hastily, “but you know what he’s like. I can’t really blame people for being convinced.”

“Everyone knows what he’s like.” She nods and looks shyly away, casting a puzzled expression at the blackened shoe in the driveway. “My cousin’s like that, too. Rude to people, but it’s just to hide the fact that he doesn’t know how to talk to them. Soobin always seemed that way to me. Actually, I was wondering if he might want to come over tonight. To my place.”

“That’s sweet of you, but Soobin’s not really into dating.” Yeonjun smiles gently.

A blush like fire flies over her face. “No! Not like that. You’d be invited too. And what do you mean, he’s not into dating? He’s dating you. And I know he’s dating you. I’m not trying to—I mean, I’ve already given up on—” She takes another deep breath. “What I’m saying is I invited a few of my friends over, just a few, who believe the stupid rumors about him, and I wanted…I was hoping maybe he and you could come over, and they could get to know you a little. Him, I mean. I’m sure they’d understand he’s not dangerous when they see him talk to you. It’s obvious when he talks to you.” She laughs sadly. “And then once they believed it, they might convince others at school. I don’t know. I’m sorry to ramble. I just feel bad about it. Anyway, it’s tonight at nine.”

“Thanks, but I think that might just make it worse.” Yeonjun flicks his bangs from his eyes and opens the door a little wider. “Soobin’s social skills are a disaster in three acts.”

“What are the acts?”

“One: he takes a breath. Two: he opens his mouth. Three: he talks.”

The corners of her mouth quirk up. “Will you at least try to convince him?”

“He really won’t want to go. Trust me.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lia.” He closes the door gingerly in the face of her protests.

Soobin saunters out of the kitchen, a roll of paper towels under his arm. Paper towels. Yeonjun hates him. “Who was that?” Soobin asks.

“Just a girl from school.” Yeonjun peeks out the window. Lia is walking back to her car.

“Not quite the lynch mob you’ve been imagining.”

“It was one of the comic book club girls.” Yeonjun snatches the roll of paper towels from him and heads back into the living room.” “She wanted you to come to a get-together thing at her house…”

“Excellent!” Soobin says it so loudly that Yeonjun nearly drops the paper towels. Soobin’s beaming at him, suddenly on fire. “Where?! When?!”

Yeonjun stares at him. “You know there’ll be people there.”

“Of course there will. Precisely the right kind of people. The comic book club people.”

“Oh, God—you want to go and X-ray them all. At this poor girl’s house where she’s trying to convince them all you’re innocent.”

“If you care about this poor girl so much, I’m sure you’d rather she know which of her friends is a murderer.” His eyes flash.

“We should leave it to the police,” Yeonjun says firmly. “And you could be wrong about the comic book club people.”

“I’m never wrong.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Come with me or don’t come with me. Either way, I’m going.” He pulls out his phone and starts ignoring Yeonjun.

Yeonjun groans. “Soobin, you know I’m going to go with you if you go.”

“You’re right. I do. See—never wrong.”

Yeah, Yeonjun definitely hates him.

|||

Five past nine, and it’s not a small gathering.

Lia’s house is huge. And people fill every inch of it. They spill out onto the manicured frown lawn, laughing and loosely gripping cans of beer. Someone vomits into the rosebushes lining the driveway. Music thick as blood pumps through the air.

“It’ll be a hassle to find them in this,” Soobin mutters, standing next to him on the sidewalk.

Yeonjun breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“I didn’t say we should go.” Soobin sidesteps a red solo cup that comes flying out of the air. It bounces off Yeonjun’s chest instead. “You’re not actually intimidated by this, are you? People constantly seem drunk to me. Think how I must feel.”

“I’m not intimidated,” Yeonjun snaps, kicking the cup out of the way. “There’s too many people from our school in there and they all hate you right now and I don’t want any of them seeing you when their inhibitions are lowered.”

A drunk guy with sideburns staggers past Soobin. He’s beefy, but in a flash Soobin seizes him, lifts him off the ground, and flips him on his back.

“Help,” the guy says faintly.

“No one in this house poses a threat to me, Yeonjun. Now come help me catch a murderer.”

And then Soobin’s off, striding into the mess of noise and people before Yeonjun can grab his sleeve. He swears and follows him, narrowly avoiding getting beaned by two guys having a swordfight with golf clubs.

Inside the house, people become shadowy figures, wobbling around in the dim light. The acrid tang of spilled booze is as thick as the music. In the living room, the couch and coffee table have been shoved to the side to make an impromptu dance floor. Someone shrieks as they step on a shard of broken picture frame.

“Park Sunghoon!”

Soobin’s voice slices through the pandemonium. Yeonjun shoves past two girls making out and spot him standing there. Unbelievably, he’s already found one of his suspects—Sunghoon, a lanky junior that Yeonjun took chemistry with last year.

He’s frozen under the swathe of Soobin’s stare, a hard cider in each hand. After a few seconds, Soobin makes a harsh sound of disgust and pushes him away. “Not you.”

Sunghoon flees.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun has to yell to make his voice heard.

“This won’t take much time. Just wait for me, Yeonjun.”

Someone rams into Yeonjun from behind, spinning him around. He tumbles against the stair rail. It’s Lia, stricken white, a vase in her arms. She nearly drops it, but Yeonjun steadies her.

“You said you were only inviting a few people!” Yeonjun shouts above the thumping bass.

“I did,” she wails. “But Doyoung asked if he could bring someone, and people heard that my parents are on a business trip, and then…that is not a basketball!”

Yeonjun winces as something smashes behind him. “Godspeed,” He says as Lia rushes past.

Soobin has completely disappeared. There’s no sight of his tall dark figure against the backdrop of everyone else. Yeonjun’s totally alone. The worst thing you can be at a party.

Before the awkward paralyses sets in, Chaeryeong materializes, grabbing his wrist and pulling him toward the wall, where a circle of her friends wait. “Yeonjun! I’m so glad you’re here. This, right now, is an intervention.”

“I’m not addicted to anything,” Yeonjun answers, shrinking back. He’s being scrutinized by five pairs of mascaraed eyes.

“Oh, yes you are,” Chaeryeong slurs, poking him in the chest so hard it hurts a little. Her hair is in a messy braid today. “You’re addicted to Choi Soobin.”

“Yeonjun, seriously,” another girl bursts out. Her name is Yeji or something. “Everyone knows what he did to Kai. You can’t keep dating him after that.”

“It’s a betrayal of your whole community,” says one of the other girls archly. Their faces are all in shadow, it’s so dark.

“Yeonjun.” Chaeryeong grasps his shoulders. Whether it’s to be dramatic or hold herself up, he can’t tell. “He’s a murderer. A murdering murderer. He killed poor sweet Huening Kai.”

“I lent him a pencil once,” Yeji whimpers, and the other girl pats her shoulder.

“We get it, Yeonjun, we do. The body is sexy. We understand.”

“I really don’t think his body is sexy,” Yeonjun says.

Two of the girls confer, and Yeji pushes a beer into his hand. “You need a drink.”

“I can’t drink. I drove here.”

“Your boyfriend’s a murderer, honey, you need this beer.”

“One beer won’t make you drunk. You’ll still be able to drive.”

“Science,” Chaeryeong notes.

His skin is crawling with discomfort and Soobin still isn’t anywhere in his line of sight. Maybe the beer will make him less anxious. Maybe if he drinks it, they’ll all stop looking at him like that. He grabs it and takes a swing. Yeji and the other girl high-five.

Five minutes and an argument about whether or not British accents are sexy later, everything is spinning. Yeonjun closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, he’s propped in the corner of the kitchen, mumbling, “He didn’t kill anyone,” for the second or maybe the third time.

Yeji is petting his hair. “It’s okay. Just be quiet.”

He yanks away. Where’s Soobin? He pushes himself to his feet and nearly knocks over a handle of whiskey on the counter. Someone swears at him. He barely hears it. Sound is filtering past something heavy and foggy in his ears.

He only had one beer.

Yeonjun stumbles through clumps of people. Everyone is in varied stages of stumbling, so nobody notices how hard he has to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other.

“Yeonjun?”

It’s Soobin. It’s Choi Soobin. Yeonjun’s eyes actually water, he’s so happy to see him. His weird amazing neighbor. Friend. His weird amazing friend.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun falls into him.

“Yeonjun.” Soobin kind of falls into him back. He’s not his usual rigid, en pointe self. He feels soft and loose. Or maybe it’s just Yeonjun who feels soft and loose.

“Don’t get it,” Yeonjun slurs. “Only had one beer.”

“Me too. Powerful…stuff.”

Yeonjun frowns, squinting so hard he can barely see. “You…drank?”

“Sipped. Camouflage. Apparently… apparently it’s…” Soobin sways.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun mumbles. Out loud. At least he thinks it’s out loud. “I like you. You and your deductions and…paper towels and…lips.”

Soobin leans against Yeonjun’s shoulder to steady himself. “You like my—lips?”

“All of you! Sorry. I like all of you.”

Soobin starts giggling. “What about my left pinky?” He holds out a lock of hair. “What about this piece of hair?”

Yeonjun tugs on it, accidentally pulling it toward him so their heads knock together. “That piece especially.”

“What about…” Soobin voice quiets. “The rude and the…arrogant pieces…?”

“Soobin. All of you.”

Soobin jolts upright. “I like you too. Very strange. Very, very strange. Don’t like people. People don’t like me. Fourth law…of thermodynamics.”

“I can’t believe you can say thermo…thermodynate…” Yeonjun giggles.

“Thermodynamics.”

“Yeah, that. I can’t believe you can—pronounce that right now.”

Soobin grins. “I’m even a prodigen at being drunk. Progeny. Prodingy.”

“You ruined it.” Yeonjun gasps with laughter.

Soobin rests his forehead against Yeonjun’s, for the briefest barest second. Even under the haze, he feels it. “No. You ruined it.”

“Ruined what?”

“My hypothesis,” Soobin murmurs.

This is a different Soobin. Yeonjun is almost afraid to breathe. Afraid he’ll break the spell. But it breaks without him. Soobin pulls away.

“I have—two more people to find. Be back in five minutes.”

“Don’t go,” Yeonjun says, but he doesn’t think he says it out loud this time. The colors swirl together and he closes his eyes again.

This time, when he opens them, he’s outside, the damp grass soaking into his shirt. The sky is endless, broken only by Chaeryeong, who’s gazing down at him with big worried eyes.

“I only had one beer,” Yeonjun manages.

“I know…maybe you’re allergic. Don’t worry, I’m looking after you.”

“What time is it?” It comes out whitimmizzit.

“Not sure. It’s been like two hours I think.”

Two hours? That’s…wrong. Why is it wrong? It’s supposed to have been five minutes. Soobin said he would be done in five minutes.

“Where’s… Soobin?”

“Soobin’s here?” Chaeryeong’s eyes get even bigger. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

Would he have left without him? Yeonjun twists his neck, the motion making him so sick that he thinks he’s going to barf, but he doesn’t. And he see what he wants to. His mother’s car. Still parked across the street. Duh—the keys are in his pocket.

Soobin’s still at the party.

He’s been at the party for two hours.

What could he have been doing for two hours?

“Maybe he passed out somewhere,” Chaeryeong says uneasily.

Yeonjun struggles upright. His legs work better now, by a fraction. He even manages to step over someone on his way back to the house without tripping.

The party’s still crashing with noise and people. Except now everyone is as drunk as him, or nearly. Come on, eyes. Focus. He pushes through the crowd and then he’s in the kitchen, alone with three people pouring various bottles of liquor into a punch bowl. No Soobin.

“Yeonjun.” It’s Yeji, reaching out for him. “You’re awake?”

“Course I’m awake,” Yeonjun mumbles. “Where’s Soobin?”

Is it the haze, or does she tense up? “Don’t worry about him. Hey, I’ll give you a ride home. It’ll wear off by tomorrow morning.”

“What will? The beer?”

She flushes, too drunk to catch herself. “Yeah—that.”

“Did you put something in my drink…” Yeonjun trails off in a whisper.

“No. Why would I—come on. Let’s go find Chaeryeong.”

Yeonjun jerks away, stumbling back until he hits the stair railing again. “I’m going to find my friend.”

He heads up the stairs before she or anyone else can stop him, gripping the railing to keep from sliding backwards. He checks the bathroom. Some guy taking a piss. He checks the first bedroom—a couple making out—and reaches for the second, but a boy slouched against the wall says, “Don’t go in there. They’re having a threesome.”

He doesn’t stop to ask who ‘they’ is. He hears a grunt and turns away.

Nobody downstairs has seen Soobin.

Nobody outside has seen Soobin.

Yeonjun is checking the back porch when Chaeryeong reappears, her face wan. She grips his arm. “Yeonjun, are you okay?”

“She drugged me,” Yeonjun says. There are people under the porch smoking a joint, and the smell is making him dizzy. “Your friend.”

For reasons he can’t fathom, Chaeryeong seems close to tears. “I didn’t know, Yeonjun. I swear I didn’t know what they were doing.”

A sick feeling grows in his stomach that has nothing to do with whatever drug is in his system. “Where’s Soobin, Chaeryeong?”

“They said they wanted to teach him a lesson. Since the cops wouldn’t.”

Yeonjun grabs her shirt. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she sobs.

He lets go of her. If they’d taken him somewhere else, it’s all over. Yeonjun has to pray he’s still here.

And the only place he hasn’t checked…

He forces himself up the stairs again, no matter how weak his knees are. The guy who’d been guarding the third bedroom is in line for the bathroom. He stammers something at him as he pass, but Yeonjun’s too fast. He reaches the door first.

He opens it and it’s bright. Brighter than downstairs. The light blinds him and for the first second time he stumbles into the room, he’s blind.

The next second, he’s not.

Two seniors whose names he doesn’t know are holding Soobin up. There’s another two standing by the window, smoking. Chiwoo. Chiwoo is here, his knuckles bleeding. He takes a step toward Yeonjun and says something he doesn’t care about enough to hear.

Soobin is unconscious, his head tilted forward so Yeonjun can’t see his face, but he can see the blood that streaks down his neck and onto his shirt.

Beomgyu’s hanging from his seatbelt, blood that should be inside him streaming down his face in trickles, rivers—

“Five on one,” Yeonjun croaks. How fast the room is spinning? “Five on one. And you had to drug him first.”

“Chill out, Yeonjun,” Chiwoo says “We’re almost done.”

All the colors that have been blurring suddenly solidify into one clean sheet of red. Yeonjun’s mind functions in pieces. One piece sees the large metal soccer trophy on the bedside table by the door. Another part of him grabs it.

“Get out,” He hears himself say.

“What’s he on?” one of the guys holding Soobin says, laughing. “I want some.”

The red crisscrosses with white lines. Yeonjun blinks—he’s holding the trophy out in front of him, freeze-frame—and he blinks again and then Chiwoo is on the ground, yelling at the top of his lungs and clutching his shoulder.

“Shit,” one of the guys by the window yelps and leaps backward.

Yeonjun hurls the trophy at him. It glances off his shoulder and shatters the window.

“Take me downstairs, my arm’s fucking broken,” Chiwoo is shouting.

“Let’s go find his friends and make them deal with it,” one of the guys who was holding Soobin is saying on his way out the door. Friends. He only has one of those. And he’s lying on the ground.

Chiwoo lurches after the others and then the room’s empty except for Soobin and him. Yeonjun locks the door, fumbling with the mechanism until it clicks, and drop to his knees in front of Soobin.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun whispers and touches his still face. His fingers come back wet with blood. “How long were they hitting you?”

He can’t panic. Definitely can’t panic. He’s reaching for his phone to call 911 when he realizes it’s already ringing.

“H-hello?”

“Choi Yeonjun,” comes a vaguely familiar drawl. “I’ve been trying to reach my brother, but he refuses to respond to me. Tell him I’m nearly home from my business trip. And that some greatly troubling information has reached my ears.”

“Minhyuk, I’m sorry, I have to hang up, I have to call 911.”

There’s a millisecond of quiet. “The music tells me you’re at a party. Your voice tells me you’re drunk. Are you with my brother?”

“Yeah.” Yeonjun stares at Soobin’s face. “He’s not awake.”

“Is he breathing?”

Yeonjun rests his hand on Soobin’s chest. It rises and falls, lightly. “He’s…yeah.”

“Address?”

“I don’t even know, can’t you track my location?”

“I’ll be right there. Don’t call the police.”

Click.

And then he’s alone with Choi Soobin.

Yeonjun whispers his name two more times. He smoothes Soobin’s hair back from his forehead. How many people had smoothed Soobin’s hair back from his forehead? It’s like a little gift, just for him. He thinks he’s crying a little.

“I told you this party was a bad idea. It’s my turn to say I told you so. Wake up so I can have my turn.”

Soobin doesn’t wake up. Yeonjun leans down, pressing his forehead to his like Soobin had done to him earlier. Everything is hazy and terrible. “Please don’t die, okay? You don’t understand what would happen to me if you died. You don’t understand what I was before you moved in next door. You changed everything, Soobin.”

Yeonjun’s not sure how much of this is coming out coherent, or coming out at all. The door handle jiggles and a drunken muffled curse comes from beyond the door.

Yeonjun takes his hand. “Don’t change it back,” He whispers.

“Yeonjun, please open the door,” comes Chaeryeong’s devastated voice.

Yeonjun ignores her and keeps talking in an endless stream, like Soobin will slip away if he stops. He’s glued in place by the spot of warmth connecting their foreheads. Eventually, someone figures out how to pick the lock. He can hear it happening, the tiny clicks. He grips Soobin’s hand more tightly. They’re not going to touch him. But it’s not Chiwoo or his friends.

Minhyuk steps into the bedroom, flicking something off the end of his shirt with disdain.

“Still alive?” His voice is rich and tinted, an older version of Soobin’s.

“Yes,” Yeonjun whispers.

“Good. Stand back.”

“No.”

“If you think you can carry him, be my guest.”

Yeonjun lifts his forehead from Soobin’s. Minhyuk kneels, places Soobin’s arm over his shoulder, and drags him up off the ground.

Yeonjun stumbles after him, through the hallway and down the stairs. The house is completely empty. The ragged proof of a party is everywhere—empty bottles, stains on the floor, broken glass.

“Are you hurt?” Minhyuk asks brusquely. His clothes look expensive. They’ll be ruined. “There’s blood on your forehead.”

“It’s Soobin’s.” Yeonjun trips over a torn throw pillow. “Where is everyone?”

“You’d be amazed how fast you can get a group of high schoolers to scatter when you’re in a suit and you shout FBI.”

Anger swells in Yeonjun’s chest. This man’s unconscious brother is slung over his shoulder and his tone is as cool and clinical as if he were ordering a prescription at the pharmacy. “They hurt him. We have to take him to the hospital.”

“If we take him to the hospital, there will be questions.” Minhyuk knocks aside a case of empty beer bottles with his foot and opens the door. The cool night air rushes in. “If Soobin and I share anything, it’s a hatred of stupid questions. He’s not badly hurt. He most likely passed out because they gave him a stronger dose of whatever they gave you.”

“How did you know—?”

“My brother doesn’t engage in drinking. If he had drunk anything, it would have been a small amount, which would only have done this to him if it had been drugged. Judging by recent information I’ve received, most people at your school are now convinced he’s a killer. I presume this was some childish form of revenge. And, of course, they would have needed to drug him. He is not easy to overpower.”

“You’re like…a second Soobin.” Yeonjun doesn’t mean to say it out loud, but everything’s still hazy enough that he can’t tell what comes out and what doesn’t.

Minhyuk smiles as they reach his car, the same sleek black one. He opens the door, lays Soobin in the back seat, and turns to Yeonjun.

“I’m a better Soobin.”

Chapter Text

(written on the back of a grocery list that ends with You NEED to go SHOPPING, Soobin. Yours truly, Yeonjun.)

Third hypothesis: he genuinely cares about me.

Evidence for: Stated that he likes me, all of me. (Though: only dimly remember this. Could be wrong.) Cleaned my locker. Refused to break up with me. Fell asleep next to my bed, apparently (woke up this morning and he was on the floor).

Evidence against: I am me.

Evidence against is compelling. Must seek further confirmation of third hypothesis before I hope before I take it as true.

Was drugged last night, clearly. Passed out at some point and woke up in own bed. Black eye. No idea what happened. Minhyuk’s car in driveway. Likely he brought me home. Tedious.

Will go downstairs and find out. First: cover up Yeonjun.

He looks cold.

|||

Yeonjun wakes up with his cheek pressed to a wooden floor.

He groans before he opens his eyes. He’s never felt so stiff. And hungover… dear sweet mother of God. He’s going to tell Soobin…

Soobin.

Yeonjun meant to stay up all night and keep an eye on him. He must have fallen asleep.

He leaps up, a blanket he doesn’t remember putting on sliding off his back. He’s in Soobin’s room. And his bed is empty. Nothing but a dried spot of blood on the pillow where Soobin’s temple had pressed into the fabric.

Ignoring his pounding headache and every part of him that’s aching, Yeonjun runs down the stairs. He hears Soobin before he sees him:

“No, Minhyuk, I’m afraid I refuse.”

Yeonjun rounds the corner. A freshly clothed Soobin is sitting on a couch that he’s never seen before, a shiny leather one. Minhyuk is seated at the other end of the couch like an overgrown spider, a cup of coffee in his hand.

But Yeonjun can’t take his eyes off Soobin.

“Morning, Yeonjun,” Soobin says. “You’re awake.”

“Are you…” Yeonjun’s throat feels like sandpaper. “Are you okay?”

“What? Yes, of course,” Soobin says distractedly. His face looks better than Yeonjun expected. There’s a small bandage just under his hairline, and bruises blacken his cheekbone and eye. But his eyes are as vivid as ever. Yeonjun’s so glad to see them open.

“Make yourself some tea,” Soobin says. “Your voice sounds like a hacksaw.”

“I’ve never known you to order someone to drink anything for their own health, baby brother.” Minhyuk takes a delicate sip of coffee, but his eyes are on Yeonjun like hypodermic needles.

Soobin is a block of ice. “You’ve never known me at all, Minhyuk.”

The tension between them is humming. Yeonjun ignores it and moves closer to Soobin. “You’re really okay.”

“Apart from the fact that my brother has ordered this piece of furniture that flagrantly fails to match my current décor, yes.”

“You don’t have any décor,” Minhyuk notes.

Soobin glowers. “Absence is my décor.”

Yeonjun’s head is still several steps behind the rest of him. “When I found you last night…”

“You found me?” Soobin’s voice sharpens. “Apparently, Minhyuk, you lie as easily as you annoy me.”

“I was the effective person who found you.”

“You can continue to be effective and walk effectively out my front door.”

“I paid for the house. Legally, it’s my front door.”

Soobin snorts.

“Should I go?” Yeonjun asks cautiously.

“Stay,” Soobin orders just as Minhyuk says, “Yes, I’m sure you know where my front door is.”

Yeonjun unfolds his lawn chair, which has been tossed disparagingly in a corner, and sits in it.

“I have some potentially unfortunate news for you, Yeonjun,” Minhyuk announces. “Unfortunate depending on whether or not you view my brother as a sane person should, which I don’t think you do. For everyone else in this town, it’s surely fortunate. We are moving.”

Everything slows and stills.

Moving.

“I have fortunate news for you, Yeonjun,” Soobin snarls. “I am, in fact, not moving.”

“I have unfortunate news for you, my brother.” Minhyuk looks around for a coffee table, sighs, and places his empty mug on the floor. “You are currently my dependent and if I move, you move.”

“Then you’re not moving either. Happy tidings all around.”

Yeonjun is still stuck on one word. Moving. Moving away. As in packing up and going somewhere distant. Where he might never see Soobin again. He catches Soobin’s eye and something in his expression must surprise Soobin, because his mouth tightens minutely in the way that it only does when he’s caught off guard. “I’m not going anywhere, Yeonjun.”

It takes Yeonjun a minute to realize that Minhyuk is turning his needle gaze to Yeonjun and to Soobin, and then back again. “I see,” he says softly.

Yeonjun takes a step forward, and then another, mostly to break Minhyuk’s stare. Then he’s next to Soobin and his hand sort of moves on its own—his thumb brushes the bruise on his cheekbone.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Yeonjun asks quietly.

Soobin stiffens, his eyes not leaving his face. Yeonjun takes his hand back quickly. He must have said something wrong.

“You’ve found yourself a pet, Soobin. How quaint.”

“Leave, Minhyuk,” Soobin says through gritted teeth. “Now.”

“Not your usual clever response. Though this isn’t your usual anything, is it?”

Yeonjun can’t quite follow what’s happening, but he can tell that something significant passes between the two brothers. Minhyuk’s eyes are narrowed, analyzing. Soobin is as cold as a gust of wind.

“We’re moving, Soobin.” The older brother leans back, tracing the pattern of the leather on the armrest with his forefinger. “Admittedly it’s impressive that you managed to turn the entire town against you this quickly, but I always swore to myself I would relocate you before someone tried to kill you. This time I appear to be too late.”

“Nobody tried to kill me,” Soobin’s voice is like a knife. “Someone hit me in the face. Hardly a murder attempt.”

Yeonjun makes a skeptical noise in the back of his throat. Soobin throws him a look that says not helping.

“Someone drugged you and then several people hit you in the face for a considerable amount of time.” Minhyuk smooths the front of his tie. “You could have died.”

“At the moment, I’m regretting that I didn’t.” Soobin picks savagely at the edge of the armrest. “I can’t go. I have a murder to solve.”

“Solve it quickly, then. Because I will be making the arrangements today.”

Yeonjun has never seen Soobin so angry. His entire body is taut with it, his eyes even scarier than they’d been when he’d confronted Chiwoo in the hallway. Soobin gets up, and for a second Yeonjun’s sure he’s going to punch Minhyuk, but instead he strides toward the stairs.

“Come on, Yeonjun.”

And then he’s gone. The door upstairs slams.

“So dramatic, my little brother.” Minhyuk uncrosses his arms. Where Soobin has always reminded Yeonjun of something intelligent and elegant, like a panther or a raven, Minhyuk moves like a snake or a centipede. “May I have a moment outside, Yeonjun?”

He’s not really asking. He’s telling. Yeonjun glances once towards the stairs before following him out.

On the front porch, Minhyuk lights a cigarette.

“You smoke?” Yeonjun asks, moving surreptitiously to block his view of the melted shoe on the ground.

“Where do you think Soobin picked it up?”

Yeonjun’s phone buzzes.

Soobin: I don’t know what possessed you to sleep on my floor.

Soobin: I have a perfectly good guest bedroom.

Minhyuk glances down at the screen. His dark hair is slicked back, highlighting his forehead. “You have disappointed me, Choi Yeonjun.”

“I have?” As much as he doesn’t want to care about the opinion of Soobin’s bizarre older brother, Minhyuk seems like a person who might be dangerous to disappoint.

Buzz.

Soobin: If Minhyuk says that it’s his room, tell him he has to sleep in it at least once first.

Minhyuk flicks ash onto the porch. “I thought I told you to call me if Soobin did anything extreme.”

“Everything Soobin does is extreme.” Yeonjun had genuinely forgotten his request.

“I more meant anything that could put him in danger.”

“Everything he does puts him in—”

“He really is rubbing off on you.” For a second, his voice loses its medicinal smoothness and crackles with anger. “You’re almost as irritating as he is.”

Yeonjun doesn’t reply. It’s a warmer day, and the sun bakes his shoulders. He’s itching to run back inside and follow Soobin upstairs. Anything to escape the helicopter beacon that is Minhyuk’s stare.

Soobin: If Minhyuk says that he’s worried I’ll kill him in his sleep, tell him his concerns are warranted.

“I have something important to discuss with you,” Minhyuk says. “Take a walk with me and show me the neighborhood.”

“You care about the neighborhood?”

“I care that my brother doesn’t eavesdrop.”

The upstairs window is slightly open. Yeonjun clears his throat. Going anywhere with Minhyuk feels like stepping into piranha-infested waters, but he wants to know what he has to say. Maybe he can convince him not to move. “Yeah, okay.”

They walk a short distance down the street. Their street is long empty stretch of road, with just his and Soobin’s houses at the end. There are always ugly development projects alongside it, which end up half-abandoned when the contractors run out of money. Yeonjun shoves his hands in his pockets. “There’s really not a lot of neighborhood.”

“As you previously guessed, I’m rather not interested in the neighborhood.”

“Then what are you interested in?” Yeonjun asks bravely. “I’m not very interesting.”

“I beg to differ,” Minhyuk says. “My brother only likes interesting things. Sit.”

He’s pointing at half-dilapidated bench under a streetlight, weeds tangling up from cracks in the pavement beneath it. Yeonjun sits. Minhyuk follows suit, pulling another cigarette from his breast pocket.

Soobin: If he’s taking you out to breakfast, don’t drink the coffee. He’s poisoned it.

Minhyuk smokes nearly half the cigarette before he speaks, the ash falling onto the ground where the breeze scatters it. “You’re in love with my brother.”

Did Yeonjun imagine that? He’s still a little woozy. The drugs must still be in his system—but then he looks at Soobin’s brother and he is looking back and he said it, he really said it. Yeonjun closes his eyes against a flash of dizziness. “No, I’m not.”

“Don’t lie if you’re not good at it.”

“I’m not in love with him.”

“You are.” Minhyuk taps his cigarette against the edge of the bench. “Or you’re nearly there. You said it yourself.”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Yeonjun whispers.

“Yes, you did. I heard you tell him just this morning, every time you asked if he was okay. It’s so glaringly obvious only my brother could miss it.”

Yeonjun stands up.

“Sit.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Sit down,” Minhyuk orders.

Yeonjun sits.

“Good boy.” Minhyuk stares out at the abandoned development projects, frozen in a half-crumpled state across the road. “It’s rather an ugly street, isn’t it?”

“What do you want from me?” Yeonjun’s chest is tight.

“I don’t want anything from you. I want something for you. Happiness, namely. And you’re not going to get it from my brother.”

Soobin: Did he see the shoe?

“Soobin is incapable of love,” Minhyuk says. “He’s not a human being. He looks like one, but he’s a machine. A computer. He calculates things but doesn’t feel them. He’ll keep you around as long as he finds you to be a suitable distraction, but he’ll inevitably break your heart—not because he doesn’t understand how they work, he knows how hearts work. But because he doesn’t have one himself.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Minhyuk gives a startled smile. “And you think you know him better than I do, having known him for a month and a half.”

“Yeah, I think I do.” Yeonjun grits his teeth to keep his voice from betraying his anger.

“Clearly not, if this is your response.”

“I mean, I know what he’s like. I know who he is. I know he’s not—the easiest. But I accept that. I’m not going to just—” Yeonjun stops. “I’m talking about friendship. We’re just friends.”

A cat walks across the road, glances back at them, and disappears into one of the development projects. Minhyuk’s eyes track its progress. “My brother doesn’t have just friends. It’s not possible to be friends with Soobin.”

“You’re wrong, then. Because he’s my friend.”

Soobin: Respond or I will send the Coast Guard out after you.

Minhyuk drops the butt of the cigarette, squashing it with the heel of his gleaming shoe. “So what you’re saying is that you won’t break off your relationship with my brother for selfish reasons. You won’t do it to stop yourself from getting hurt.”

“Congratulations,” Yeonjun says coldly. “You finally got something right.”

“Would you do it to stop him from getting hurt?”

“Well—yeah.”

“Good. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” Minhyuk stands, dusting himself off as if much dust could have accumulated on him in the time he’d been sitting.

“But I’m not going to hurt him,” Yeonjun says, bemused. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Would you agree with me that Soobin is not safe in this town anymore?” He’s looming above Yeonjun now.

“I—that’s what I’ve been telling him.”

“A scandal like this is not going to magically go away. Someone will hurt him again. And even if no one does so physically, if you’re so convinced he has a heart, what do you think it will do to that heart to live in a place where he is so universally reviled? Soobin is so certain that he could never be bothered with what people think of him that he won’t notice when it starts to break him down. He thinks he’s invincible. He’s not.”

“He has me,” Yeonjun says.

“And how much good has that done him so far?” Minhyuk takes out another cigarette. “You’re wrong for him, Yeonjun. You can’t help him. If you could help him, you would have stopped last night from happening.”

It’s like a blade lodges between Yeonjun’s ribs. “I tried to tell him—”

“You tried. And you failed. It’s a simple conclusion to draw.” Minhyuk blows smoke into the air. “I’m sure we both agree that the best solution is for Soobin to move. My job is too important for me to spend all my time looking after him. And I am the only one who can look after him. I have always kept Soobin safe by relocating every time he gets into this kind of mess. We have the finances and he has never minded before. Why do you think he minds this time?”

“He wants to solve the murder,” Yeonjun whispers.

“It will take him hardly any time to solve that silly murder and he knows it. No. There’s something else.”

“It’s not me.”

Minhyuk laughs.

“It’s not.” Yeonjun is so tired. “Soobin wouldn’t stay here because of me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because—” Yeonjun rubs his forehead. “He wouldn’t care that much. I’m not saying he can’t care. It’s just that it’s me. I’m not—a genius or someone fascinating or an exciting mystery or anything like that.”

Soobin: Coast Guard deployed. Navy on their way.

“I agree,” Minhyuk says. “He scarcely cares for you at all. But through some malfunction he has formed a minor attachment to you, and it’s making him want to stay. Probably he wants to analyze why you tolerate him when no one else will. Either way, my brother is extremely stubborn and I can’t force him to move if he refuses to, short of sedating him. And then he would hate me forever.”

“He already hates you.” Yeonjun’s throat is thick.

Minhyuk laughs again.

“So what do you want me to do,” Yeonjun says dully.

“Stop associating with my brother. Once he understands you’re just like everyone else, he will agree to the move. It’s for his own safety. You’re a moral person, Yeonjun. You wouldn’t keep someone in danger for the sake of your own feelings. I’m certain of it.”

He’s right. Yeonjun can’t believe how right he is. Or how selfish he has been. “So I should—I should tell him I want—that I want to stop being friends with him.”

“Nothing so dramatic. Simply stop.”

“And that’ll…that’ll keep him safe.”

“It will. It’s the best thing for him. The best thing for you as well.” Minhyuk tilts his head. “Don’t feel too badly about it, Yeonjun. It never would have worked out between you two anyway.”

A numbness has crept over him. His body’s heavy, unwieldy. He’s afraid to get up from the bench. It must be the remnants of the drug.

Minhyuk is smiling. He puts out his hand. Moisturized. Manicured nails. Things Soobin would notice. “Agreed?”

Yeonjun wants to extend his arm, but he can’t quite find the energy. Minhyuk reaches down, picks his hand up, and shakes it.

“That’s settled, then,” he says. “It’s been a pleasure.”

And with that, he walks off down the street, leaving Yeonjun alone on the bench.

Soobin: Yeonjun?

|||

Soobin texts Yeonjun nineteen times in the next week:

Soobin: Was wrong about the murder suspects. Have a few theories I want you to hear.

Soobin: Still not moving. Minhyuk’s gone. Says we’ll talk when he comes back. Pathetic.

Soobin: You haven’t been in school. According to the latest rumor, I’ve murdered you.

Soobin: Would like to see you to deny or confirm.

Soobin: Would like to see you in general.

Soobin: That was stupid. I retract it.

Soobin: Stopped by your house. Your mother says you have the flu.

Soobin: She asked if I was your boyfriend. Are we still keeping up that charade?

Soobin: You’re ruining your attendance record.

Soobin: If you make me do something so domestic as bring you chicken soup I will make that rumor about me murdering you a reality.

Soobin: What did Minhyuk say to you?

Soobin: Many local artists have been attending to my locker.

Soobin: Hopefully one of them becomes famous as an adult. Will sell it online for millions.

Soobin: Brought you soup. Your mother says you don’t want to see me.

Soobin: Maybe she could tell it was canned.

Soobin: Considering I brought it still in the can.

Soobin: Experimenting to see how many cigarettes I can smoke in four hours.

Soobin: Need someone to help keep count.

Soobin: You don’t have the flu.

And then the texts stop.

Two days after the texts stop, Yeonjun’s mother comes upstairs.

“That’s it,” she says, throwing the shades open so that light pours out across the floor. “You can’t still be sick. You’re going to school.”

“I am still sick,” Yeonjun says from beneath the blankets. The light hurts his eyes. “My throat is sore. And my head is sore. And—”

“The doctor says you’re fine.”

“The doctor doesn’t know anything.”

“The doctor went to medical school. All you have to do is go to normal school. You can’t stay out another week. At this rate they’ll keep you back. And you already have enough makeup work on your plate. Your grades will—”

“I don’t care.”

“The Choi Yeonjun I know cares very much about his grades,” His mother says sharply.

“The Choi Yeonjun you know is fake.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I’ll go to school.”

Yeonjun passes through the morning in a daze. His mother’s concern, her jabbering at him as she drives to school—it all floats over his head. He’s halfway up the school steps, the anxiety knots that went away when Soobin moved here reclaiming their spot in his stomach, when Chaeryeong jumps out at him. Today her hair’s in pigtails. He could track his life through the progression of her hair. She had a bow in it when Soobin refused to introduce himself in class for the first time.

Why? You’ve already said my name. At this point it’s a bit redundant, don’t you think?

Yeonjun shakes himself back into the present. Chaeryeong is chattering at him. “Yeonjun, you’re back! You were gone for so long.”

“Yeah. Flu,” He lies.

“Darn. Hope you didn’t catch it from me.” Chaeryeong shuffles. They’re an island on the steps, people flooding up toward the building on either side of them. “You don’t look so great.”

Yeonjun doesn’t reply. If only he was still in bed. He slept all night and nearly all day yesterday, and still he can barely keep his eyes open.

“I wanted to apologize,” Chaeryeong says determinedly. “About the party. I didn’t know they were planning to do that to Soobin and I didn’t know Yeji messed with your drink. I’m not speaking to her.”

“You can speak to her.”

“You’re not mad?”

Yeonjun shrugs.

“I’d be mad if I were you. It’s your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He’s not? You broke up?”

“I have to go to class, Chaeryeong.”

Yeonjun pushes past, phasing out the rest of her questions. In the hallway, he feels like a radar attuned to only one thing. But Soobin is nowhere in sight. A few people whisper when they see him, but most ignore him. Except Lia, surrounded by her friends by the science wing lockers, who smirks as he approaches.

Yeonjun stops in front of her. “Can I talk to you?”

She rolls her eyes over her shoulder at her friends. “About what?”

“Don’t do anything like that to Soobin again.”

“Oh, so you figured it out.” She steps away from her group and suddenly she’s looking shyly down at her feet, her voice shrinking and wavering. “I just—I don’t think he did it—I’ve always thought he was a good person.” She pauses and laughs. “I won all the awards last year from the drama department. Too bad your boyfriend didn’t know that.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, and leave him alone.”

“Yeah, I’ll leave him alone just like he left Kai alone. I heard Soobin said your name before he passed out. Bet it killed him when you dumped his ass. Too bad it literally didn’t.”

Yeonjun stares at his fingers. They’re trembling. He curls his hand into a fist wonderingly. Is he really going to punch a girl?

Lia leans in. “We’re going to make his life a living hell until he admits what he did to Kai. Someone like that should be put down. I’ve thought that from the minute I first talked to him and realized what a freak he is—”

Yeonjun bruises his knuckles on her jaw.

|||

“Let me get this straight,” Principal Lee says. “Yeonjun, you slapped Lia.”

“Punched,” Lia sobs. “He punched the crap out of my freaking face.”

“And Yeonjun, you admit to—” Principal Lee shuffles some papers on his desk. “Punching the crap out of her freaking face?”

Yeonjun just nods.

“All right. Lia, you may leave.”

Lia stands, angry tears still dripping from her chin, which is slightly swollen. “You better suspend him. Or expel him. Or send him to prison—”

“He’ll be punished, rest assured.”

Lia stalks out the door. Yeonjun looks around, dazed. Pictures of three little kids decorate the wall. There’s a frog bobblehead on top of the filing cabinet. It’s the first time he has been in the principal’s office. He has never been in trouble before.

Principal Lee places his elbows on his desk. His face is a normal color. When he’s not mad, he almost seems like a real human being. “I’m reluctant to suspend you, Yeonjun. You’ve just missed a considerable amount of class time and any more lost days could result in you repeating a grade.”

“You can suspend me if you want,” He says quietly.

“I just don’t understand this.” Principal Lee fingers the edge of his mustache. “You’ve always been one of our best and brightest. I’ve been telling my colleagues that we’ll have at least one student this year who goes to an Ivy. I’ve always heard nothing but praise from your teachers. Why this sudden outburst of aggression?”

Yeonjun shrugs.

“If you tell us what’s going on, we can help you.”

“Are you going to suspend me or not?”

Principal Lee sighs. “This is a hard time for students, I know. What with losing Huening Kai. And for you, I imagine it’s especially hard, after your brother.”

Yeonjun is granite. He is coal-hard.

“Detention for a week,” Principal Lee says.

“That’s all?”

“It’s your first offense. As well as your last.” His jaw tightens and Yeonjun can see the ex-wrestler in him. “It will be your last. Now get to class. You’re late.”

Soobin is in his first class. “You’re not going to at least send me home for the day?”

“If I wasn’t a smart man, Yeonjun, I’d say you were looking for punishment. I’m not sending you home. Get. To. Class.”

Yeonjun walks as slowly as he can to his classroom. His heart is pounding. The Choi Soobin tachycardia again. When he opens the door, he keeps his head down, fully intending to ignore the back of the classroom, but right before he sits, something overpowers him and he glances back.

There’s uncharacteristic shock on Soobin’s face.

“You’re late, Yeonjun,” Mr. Kim says lazily. “I’ll have to mark it down.”

Yeonjun turns around and breathes. A minute after the lecture resumes, his phone flashes.

Soobin: I see you’ve reclaimed your old seat.

“The Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1856—”

Soobin: Might have been wrong about you not being ill. You look terrible.

“Over six hundred thousand casualties—”

Soobin: Are you okay?

Yeonjun buries his phone at the bottom of his bag.

I heard you tell him just this morning, every time you asked if he was okay.

It doesn’t matter because Yeonjun doesn’t love him. What Minhyuk said was ridiculous. Yeonjun spent the past ten days repeating that to himself.

When the bell rings, he’s ready for it. He bolts. He’s out the door before the bell has even finished ringing, before Mr. Kim has finished speaking. But Soobin catches up to him anyway.

“Yeonjun!”

He’s about to break into a run when Soobin’s hand closes on his wrist. Yeonjun stops but doesn’t look at him. All he has to do is breathe.

“Was it the soup?”

It surprises him so much that he looks up. He wishes he hadn’t. He has been imagining Soobin’s face for days but right there, so close to his, it’s too real. Exactly the same as it was, apart from the traces of nearly-gone bruises and slight shadows under his eyes. High cheekbones. Sharp jawline. Hair nearly in his eyes.

“The internet said to bring homemade soup, but as the idea of it was to make you better, I elected to save you from my cooking. I would have heated it up at my house, but there was still some shoe leftover in the microwave. Also a distinct lack of bowls.”

Soobin wears a slightly nervous smile. Very un-Soobin-like. Now the hallway is beginning to fill with people. Yeonjun doesn’t miss the sideways glares they cast at him, but Soobin doesn’t take his eyes from his.

“I’m trying to deduce what I could have done to upset you,” Soobin mutters.

Why is this so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard. “You didn’t. Upset me. I have to go.”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin says. “I don’t understand.”

People are staring at both of them now. He’s reminded sickeningly of their staged breakup from before.

“There’s nothing to understand.”

“If you tell me what I’ve done, I’ll stop doing it.”

It doesn’t matter because Yeonjun doesn’t love him. He pulls away. His wrist slides through Soobin’s hand. His head feels so hollow he can almost hear his heartbeat echoing inside it. “I’m going to lunch.”

“Did Minhyuk say something to you?” Soobin’s face changes like a whiplash—one second the hurt is exposed, and the next second he looks like a weapon.

“No.”

“Then it must be something I’ve done. I thought you liked—”

“You?” Yeonjun finishes for him. He’s emptied out. Automatic. Like someone pre-recorded his words and now they’re just playing through his mouth with no input from himself. “You didn’t do anything specific. You’re just not that likable.”

Soobin actually takes a step back. The look on his face makes Yeonjun feels like he’s floating. In a bad way. A drifting underwater, seconds from drowning away.

“Bye,” Yeonjun says mechanically.

Soobin doesn’t respond.

It doesn’t matter because Yeonjun doesn’t love him.

|||

After school, Yeonjun visits Beomgyu.

He hasn’t been inside the graveyard in months. Not since the funeral. There’s a few flowers, but they’re old. Wilted. He kneels and brushes one with his forefinger. All the petals fall off at once.

Choi Beomgyu. 1999 – 2020. Loved by all who knew him.

“That’s nice. I don’t remember who picked that out,” Yeonjun says aloud. “I wonder what they’ll put on Soobin’s gravestone. Hated by all who knew him. Except Choi Yeonjun.”

He rubs a dry petal between his fingers, destroying it.

“This is dumb,” Yeonjun says.

No comment from the gravestone.

“I wish I hated him.”

A breeze rustles the grass at its base.

“I really, really don’t hate him.”

Yeonjun sits cross-legged on the ground and traces the engraved B. “I hope I’m wrong about him. I hope he doesn’t have a heart, like everyone else believes. Because I saw his face today after I told him he wasn’t that likable, and if he has a heart, I think I broke it.”

Yeonjun touches the headstone. It has nothing of Beomgyu on it, except his name. Not his laugh, or the headband he always wore, or the way he’d slam his door when Yeonjun annoyed him. “I’m not crying. I’m sorry. I’m bad at graves. I was bad at it after your funeral. I didn’t know what to do. They’re not people.”

It’s so quiet. It might be nice to lie down, right here, and sleep under the sky.

“Who even thinks that,” Yeonjun whispers. “I’m such a mess.”

“Yeonjun?”

Yeonjun jerks back, twisting around, and scrubs hard at his eyes. Of all the people in the world, Kang Taehyun is walking towards him, picking his way over a few flat headstones set into the ground.

“Taehyun?”

“Hey,” he says, wide-eyed. He wasn’t expecting to see Yeonjun either. His sweatshirt is zipped up to his neck. “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you’d be here—are you crying?”

“Flower allergy.”

“Oh.”

There’s a long stretch of silence in which Yeonjun realizes pretty much everything bad has happened because he pretended he was going to sleep with Taehyun. “Why are you here?” Yeonjun asks.

Taehyun crouches, wrapping his arms around his knees. A few clouds have rolled in over the sun, darkening the both of them. “I, uh. I was friends with your brother. I come here sometimes.”

“You were friends with him?” Yeonjun asks, startled. “I never knew.”

“We didn’t exactly hang out with the same groups.” Taehyun kind of smiles. He has a nice smile. Not ironic or vampirish or pure sunlight the way Soobin’s smiles are, but just—a smile. “We connected somehow. I come here when I need to think, you know? He’s easy to talk to.”

Yeonjun wavers between deciding if this is creepy or touching, finally settling on the latter.

“But I don’t see you here very often,” Taehyun adds.

“I don’t come here very often.” Yeonjun sits back on the ground, probably getting dirt on his pants. “I guess that makes me a bad brother.”

“No, no.” And then they were both quiet for a while as Taehyun obviously struggles for something to say. Normally Yeonjun’d be doing the same thing, but he’s just too tired. “Hey, uh…I feel like I should tell you…Kai was my ex.”

Yeonjun can’t say I know, so he just nods.

“But he wasn’t my ex when we almost hooked up.”

“I’m not mad, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Yeonjun doesn’t think he’ll ever be mad ever again. It’s too much of a color. “It must have been hard for you when he died.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it still is.” Taehyun’s eyes are fixed at the base of his brother’s gravestone. “We broke up just before then, and I was so relieved. I was relieved at the thought that I’d never talk to him again. And then suddenly I really wouldn’t ever be able to talk to him again. It was like—like I’d killed him by feeling that way.”

“You didn’t kill him, Taehyun. Some really terrible person did that.”

“You’re right,” he mumbles at the ground. Then he jolts. “I don’t mean it’s Soobin. I’m not one of the people who think Soobin did it. If the police let him go, he must be innocent.”

His name. Just his name ruins Yeonjun. “I don’t want to talk about Soobin.”

“Why not? I thought you were dating.”

Yeonjun puts his head on his knees. He’s in a graveyard and he’s sitting six feet above his brother’s body with a boy he almost slept with and who even cares for what he has to say. “Taehyun, if you—if you cared about someone, and you knew they could never feel the same way about you, and all you wanted to do was be near them but you knew that couldn’t happen—what would you do?”

“I guess I’d try to help them from a distance,” he says quietly. “If I couldn’t do it from up close.”

“I hate it.” Suddenly vehemence pours out of Yeonjun. “I hate caring about people. It’d be better if I’d never met him. It’d be easier if he was gone. If everyone was gone. If everyone at school would just—disappear.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Sorry.” Yeonjun rubs his face with the back of his hand. “I’ve had kind of a depressing week.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re just as easy to talk to as your brother.”

“Except I’m not dead. Even if it feels that way.”

Gingerly, Taehyun puts his hand on Yeonjun’s shoulder. Yeonjun let it happen. “I think—I think you’ll be okay. You know? It sounds like this Soobin guy is hurting you, even if he doesn’t mean to, and maybe it’s for the best if you can’t be with him anymore.”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun echoes. “Maybe.”

A drop of liquid hits his cheek. He looks up. It’s raining. Just barely.

“Don’t worry.” Taehyun holds his hands over him like a joke umbrella. “It’s supposed to stop before it gets dark, Beomgyu—oh. Oh no. Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you—you look like him, that’s all.”

No one’s ever said that to him before. Yeonjun smiles at him. “You’re a good guy, Taehyun.”

He smiles back. “And you’re a good brother.”

|||

When Yeonjun gets home, there are boxes stacked outside Soobin’s door.

Good, he thinks.

Chapter Text

(written on a receipt for canned chicken soup)

Third hypothesis disproven.

|||

That night, Yeonjun dreams about Soobin.

He’s standing alone by the ocean. It’s wide and empty, no wind, the water like glass except for the tiniest of waves rippling at his feet. It’s nearly night, but there’s no sunset. The sky is the almost-dark brown that signals the coming stars.

It’s a stupid place to be, so close to night. He has no idea how to get home.

“I can take you home,” says a deep, familiar voice.

He turns. Soobin’s standing behind him. And he realizes why the sky is the color it is—it’s the exact shade of Soobin’s eyes.

“I’m not supposed to talk to you anymore,” Yeonjun says thickly.

Soobin just stands there, waiting.

“It’s better this way.” Yeonjun closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see dream Soobin anymore. “Even besides all of what Minhyuk said. I was right when I told him everything you do is dangerous. I’m sick of caring about people who only do dangerous things. They die.”

There’s a warmth against Yeonjun’s body. Soobin stepped forward and he’s holding him, and somewhere in his mind he knows this would never happen, because it’s Soobin, but that doesn’t stop him from pretending it’s real.

“I won’t die,” Soobin says.

“I’m not good at death. I think I should be careful to make sure I won’t care about anyone else ever again who is going to die.”

“I told you,” Soobin murmurs into his ear. “I’m invincible.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m never wrong. You have to trust me, Yeonjun.” 

“I don’t want to trust you,” Yeonjun whispers.

“You do,” Soobin whispers back. “You want to trust me so badly I can feel it on your skin.”

Maybe. Maybe, maybe.

“If you trust me,” Soobin says, “you can have me.”

Yeonjun wants him. He just wants to stay here forever with his arms around Soobin.

“Okay,” Yeonjun says. “I’ll trust you.”

Soobin’s arms tighten, and just for a moment, Yeonjun’s exactly where he wants to be. Then Soobin steps back. Yeonjun opens his eyes.

A blossom of red has appeared on Soobin’s white shirt. It darkens and spreads and starts running down his chest. He smiles with bloody teeth, half in the ocean.

“Never trust anyone, Yeonjun.”

|||

Yeonjun wakes up tangled in his blankets, sweat soaking his back and stinging his eyes. When he realizes he’s gasping, he fights to control his breath. It’s dark and he’s half on the floor and he shuts his eyes and grinds his teeth. Not this again.

He stays in the horribly uncomfortable position for a minute, unwilling to put himself back in bed just to lay there unsleeping for the rest of the night, until he smells smoke.

It makes him furious. Soobin is smoking just to make Yeonjun furious, the night before he leaves. He probably has a fan set up next to the window, pointed at his house.

Yeonjun struggles upright, limbs as weak as if he had run a million miles, and squints. There’s an orange light creeping around the edge of his curtains. Is it really morning already? Which means—he did it. He’s slept through the night for the first time since he talked to Minhyuk.

But the light is flickering. Sunlight doesn’t flicker.

Yeonjun suddenly becomes aware of the heat in the room. He hadn’t just been sweating because of the nightmare. A sick feeling begins in the pit of his stomach and spreads to the very tips of his fingers. He stumbles to the window and throws open the shades.

Soobin’s house is on fire.

He’s dreaming. Still dreaming. Has to be. Never trust anyone. But he’s not. He’s awake. The flames engulf the house, blazing orange like a miniature sun. Shooting out of the upper window. Where Soobin sleeps. Where Soobin, the strange and incredible person who’d seen straight through his heart, seen how broken it was and liked him anyway, sleeps.

Yeonjun is halfway down the stairs by the time he finishes dialing 911.

“What is your emergency?” says the bored girl on the phone.

“House fire at the end of Panadero Street.” Yeonjun’s running but he keeps his voice clean, so every word is distinguishable.

“Okay. Help is coming. Is it your house? Are you and your family members—?”

But his phone slips from his fingers on his way out the door. He doesn’t stop to get it.

Outside, the heat rolls over him in a wave. The rain is gone. It’s windy. The wind strokes the flames higher and higher. Only on his street could the fire have gotten this bad before someone called 911. His house is the only one in sight of Soobin’s, and his mother takes so many sleeping pills that nothing short of a nuclear bomb could wake her up.

But it was fine. Soobin had definitely gotten out.

Even if he hadn’t called 911.

Soobin had probably left his phone inside.

Yeonjun is sprinting across the road, the gravel stinging his bare feet. Maybe Soobin had passed out from the smoke and that’s why he hadn’t called 911. Or knocked on Yeonjun’s door. But there’s no dark shape on the lawn.

“Soobin?” Yeonjun calls but the name doesn’t come out, so he coughs and tries again. “Soobin?”

Soobin couldn’t still be inside.

He couldn’t.

“Soobin!”

No response. Just the angry crackling of the house he’d lived next to his whole life, being eaten alive. He’d been to a bonfire once. This was different. This was a fire doing exactly what it wants to, without anyone to stop it.

Yeonjun told him not to smoke inside. He told him so many times.

The air simmers and Soobin is nowhere. This is wrong. He can’t die tonight. He’s supposed to move away and be safe. Yeonjun can live with that. He can’t live with this.

How long would the fire truck take to arrive?

Too long.

Yeonjun is not an idiot, he knows he’s supposed to keep something wet over his mouth, but there’s no water and no time. He yanks his T-shirt over his nose. Approaching the house is like pushing against an invisible balloon of heat. He opens the door, burning his hand on the knob, just like he burned it on the casserole he made for Soobin before he even knew him, and runs inside.

The smoke is as thick as butter. Worse than all of Soobin’s smoking sprees put together. Worse than anything. His eyes hurt immediately. He squints.

“Soobin!”

The fire is like a thousand snakes, crawling over the walls and ceiling. Bright oranges, reds, yellows. Glowing. Yeonjun’s lawn chair is melted, twisted. The couch is a ball of flame. A mug left on the counter has cracked in half. Minhyuk’s coffee mug that Soobin never put away. It’s Soobin’s house, but then if his house was hell.

What does Yeonjun know about fire? Heat rises. Smoke inhalation usually kills you first. And now he knows why—it’s impossible to breathe, the smoke heavy with anything but oxygen. With every gulp of it, his lungs starve and burn.

He just has to find Soobin and get out. That’s all. How long could it take? Minutes. People go minutes without breathing all the time. He pulls his shirt higher on his face and dashes up the stairs, careful not to touch the rails, because the fire is eating them.

Upstairs, the flames aren’t as bad. The smoke, however, is worse. He’s swept with a wave of dizziness so heavy it nearly knocks him over. But he can’t fall. Not yet.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun chokes out, kicking open his bedroom door.

It’s empty. Just the haze of smoke and the glow of flames beneath the floorboards. Yeonjun staggers inside and checks on the other side of the bed, just in case, but there’s no one there.

Soobin is not in the house.

The relief is deadly, it’s so intense. The smoke and the relief work together to make his legs so weak they won’t support him and he trips on his way back into the hallway.

The fire has spread. The stairs are nearly consumed. He’s on the ground. How did he get here? He shouldn’t be on the ground. He should go down the stairs. His head is swirling. It’s like being back at the party, but more painful. He never knew that suffocating was so painful.

He tries to get up but can’t. His body is not working. That’s fine. There’s probably less smoke near the floor. In fact, he should stay down, just to get out of the worst of it, just for a little while.

And then his blood turns to lead and he can’t—

His chest is exploding. There’s no air. No air. No anything.

Maybe he’ll just go to sleep.

It’s dark, anyway.

“Yeonjun!”

Go away.

“Yeonjun, wake up. Come with me.”

He’s dreaming again. Soobin is here, kneeling over him, his face blurry. Not bleeding, this time. That’s nice. But the sky isn’t that familiar shade of dark brown. The sky is red. It’s fire.

And then he’s being lifted, which hurts his chest. “You told me not to trust you,” Yeonjun blabbers.

“Stay awake, Yeonjun,” comes a voice very near to him. “I know how you hate smoke, but you need to stay awake.”

“The stairs—”

Are on fire.

The flames are dancing over them, tall orange licks of light that wave and ripple so wildly that it makes him nauseous. Yeonjun doesn’t understand why Soobin is here. He was happy about him not being here. He isn’t supposed to be here.

He isn’t supposed to be carrying him out.

Yeonjun is sliding in and out of sleep. Things flicker and slide in front of his eyes, like pictures on an old projector. Soobin has found a blanket. Yeonjun is on his back. His mouth is next to Soobin’s neck. That’s nice. He throws the blanket over Yeonjun.

Yeonjun should tell him not to go down the stairs.

Instead, he falls asleep again and dreams that he’s inside the center of the sun and the sun is dying. It’s burning, expanding—

Soobin is telling him not to trust him.

“I won’t,” Yeonjun mumbles.

No. That’s not what he’s telling him.

His hand is on Yeonjun’s cheek. “Yeonjun. Can you hear me?”

He’s back at the party, outside Lia’s house on the lawn. Soobin. He has to find him. It was a trap. But no. He’s right here. He’s kneeling above him.

“I thought you weren’t home.” Yeonjun’s murmuring.

“I wasn’t.” Soobin’s face slides into focus above him, deadly pale in the reflected light of the fire. “Went out for a cigarette. You were always threatening me about smoking in the house.”

Yeonjun laughs, but it turns into a cough. And then he can’t stop coughing.

“You’re all right,” Soobin says. He says it again. Red lights suddenly slip over his face as the wail of sirens become too obvious to ignore. Yeonjun works on breathing, on sitting up. Soobin’s arm is warm and steady across his back.

Everything is noise and fire trucks and men in yellow and black erupt from big fire trucks. A firefighter stoops next to them, but before Yeonjun can say anything, Soobin demands, “Oxygen. Now.”

Yeonjun wants to tell him not to speak so sharply, they’re here to make his house stop burning down, but a mask is pressed over his face. His lungs flood with cool, sweet air. It’s delicious. The best thing he has ever had. Someone’s hand tightens on his wrist, taking his pulse, but it’s not the firefighter. It’s Soobin.

He’s here with him.

And suddenly everything is a little bit okay.

|||

Soobin sleeps in Beomgyu’s room.

After the sirens finally wake up his mother, she insists on having Soobin spend the night. Everyone but Yeonjun wants him to go to the hospital, but after the ambulance people confirm his lungs aren’t burned, any surface burns are minor, and he’s not suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning or shock, they give in to his refusals. He has been around Soobin long enough to know how to be stubborn.

After they talk to the police, after they leave a message for Minhyuk, after everything, Yeonjun stands in the doorway of his dead brother’s room to talk to the boy who saved him from a fire.

“I’m sorry your house burned down,” Yeonjun says awkwardly. This doesn’t change anything. This doesn’t change anything, no matter how much he wants to grab him and hold on. He has to stay distant.

“Minhyuk’s house,” Soobin states coldly. Yeonjun can’t figure out anything of what he’s feeling from Soobin’s expression. The concern and fear that had ruled his face when he found Yeonjun in his house are gone. His eyes are flat.

“Right.”

A silence stretches between them. Yeonjun wants to tell him that he hasn’t been in this room since the day after the funeral. He wants to tell him that everything is exactly as it was in here, except for Soobin’s presence. He wants to tell him that his presence makes all the difference.

“You broke your promise,” Soobin says finally.

“What promise?”

“That you wouldn’t put yourself into any more situations where you could die.” And Soobin closes the door.

He thinks Yeonjun went inside the burning house on some self-destructive impulse.

“I went in for you,” Yeonjun says to the door, so quietly that even he can’t hear it.

But that night, after his mother has finally stopped fussing over him and the lights are turned off, he sleeps more easily than he has for days. Soobin’s so close. Good.

|||

That morning, Yeonjun gets a call.

At first, he thinks it’s his phone alarm, but it’s Saturday. It’s also six in the morning. He fumbles for his phone, worming free of his blankets, his burned hand stinging.

“Hello?”

“Yeonjun,” comes Minhyuk’s voice. “Good to hear from you.”

Immediately, Yeonjun is very awake. “I can’t say it’s so good to hear from you.”

“Then I apologize, as I must request that you listen to my voice for a little while longer. Come outside.”

Yeonjun climbs out of bed and walks to the window. The dawning sun is spraying the sky with cotton-candy pinks and blues. The blackened husk of Soobin’s house sits, utterly destroyed, across the road. And Minhyuk’s sleek car is in his driveway.

“It’s about Soobin,” Minhyuk says.

Yeonjun sighs and hangs up. His lungs and throat feel like they’ve been scrubbed with nail polish remover. It’s worse than that time he had a strep throat. He takes a Tylenol, washes it down with the glass of water his mother had left on his bedside table, and gets dressed. He wears his nice pants. Talking to Minhyuk sort of feels like going out to a fancy restaurant where everyone hates him.

He creeps through the house on his tiptoes. Past his mother’s bedroom. Down the stairs. Past the bedroom currently occupied by Soobin. He has never seen him sleeping. Was that the only time the cold, hard mask slipped? Then, and when Yeonjun told him he wasn’t that likable.

Yeonjun stuffs his feet into his shoes and ducks outside.

“Get in.” Minhyuk is leaning against his car, in a freshly pressed suit. Yeonjun is once again struck by how much he doesn’t, but does look like Soobin.

“It’s six in the morning.”

“I was hoping my brother wouldn’t be awake.”

The air is still dank with the scent of smoke. Here, Yeonjun has a better view of Soobin’s house. Part of its charred wooden skeleton still stands. The rest is crushed to the ground, sprawled in dark ashy heaps like silhouettes.

“Unfortunate, isn’t it,” Minhyuk says without looking. “Now get in.”

Yeonjun should have remembered his jacket. Minhyuk’s voice is Arctic. “Are you kidnapping me again?”

“After a fashion.”

The inside of the car is just as fancy as it was the first time he saw it—gleaming leather, a mahogany dashboard. He tries not to touch anything as Minhyuk pulls out into the road.

“Sorry you can’t sell resell your house,” Yeonjun says.

“Money is not a concern for me.” Minhyuk drives idly, one hand on the wheel. “You sound like gravel being shoveled. You really did run in after him.”

“How do you know that?”

“I spoke to the firefighters. And deduced a few things on my own.”

Yeonjun’s quiet for a little while. They turn down one back road, and then another. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular. I wanted a peaceful place to chat. The inside of a car is far more private than a café.”

“To chat about what?” The dull feeling climbs back into his chest. “I’ve been doing what you said. I haven’t—I haven’t been talking to him. For almost two weeks now.”

“Most people would consider it a blessing to not have to speak with Choi Soobin.” Minhyuk pulls into a random driveway. A small house painted lavender.

“Who lives here?”

“Whoever it is, they’re on vacation. The newspaper hasn’t been collected in four days and they’ve left their key semi-hidden behind the potted plant on the porch for the neighbor to come water the plants. They won’t mind if we use their driveway.”

“I don’t know how you and him do that.” Yeonjun moves his foot. He has tracked soot into the car. “Notice everything like that.”

“If you know that I notice everything, I’m surprised you believed me before. You can’t be as intelligent as my brother seems to be convinced that you are.”

“Believed you before? What do you mean?”

“About my brother not really caring about you. As if I wouldn’t have noticed it.” He reaches for a cigarette but seems to change his mind, pushing it back into the pack. “He loves you.”

“Fuck you.”

Minhyuk laughs. “This hidden aggressive streak of yours really is amusing, when it does come out.”

Yeonjun is shaking. He balls his hands into fists, imagining he can splinter the anger between his fingers. “Stop.”

“I believe you are the only person that my brother has ever loved.”

“Stop.” Yeonjun’s voice cracks and he hates it. “I know you’re lying. I just don’t know why.”

“My brother apologizes to you when he has never apologized to anyone else. He pushed you out of the way of an oncoming car when he has never shown a thought for anyone else’s safety. He pretended to date you to distract from a certain photograph. He sought revenge against the person he believed was behind that photograph. He attempted to sever your fake relationship to further protect your reputation when he has always been personally offended by people who care about reputations. He entered a burning house because he deduced you were inside. Do you know the one word I would have used to describe my brother before he met you, Yeonjun?”

Yeonjun stares out the windshield, his jaw tight. There’s not a speck of dirt on the glass. Minhyuk must have it cleaned every day.

“Selfish,” Minhyuk says. “For as long as I’ve known him, Soobin has never displayed the slightest regard for anyone else. You wouldn’t believe the number of psychologists he has terrified. But when it comes to you, he is selfless to a fault.”

“How did you even know all that stuff he did,” Yeonjun whispers.

“I have my sources.” Minhyuk rolls down the window an inch so that fresh air works its way in. “I saw the way he felt about you the moment I saw you two together, but I had hoped…it’s dangerous to care. Soobin has always been blessed with the ability not to. It’s been the one thing that has protected him. You ought to feel guilty for stripping down his only defense.”

“I don’t,” Yeonjun says. “Because I didn’t.”

“I believed that once Soobin was removed from your presence, things would go back to the way they were,” Minhyuk continues. “I was wrong. It’s the final proof.”

“The what?”

“He hasn’t been eating. He hasn’t been sleeping. The amount of money he’s spent on cigarettes over the last several days is truly astounding. He’s lashed out at me every time I’ve spoken to him.”

“He’s just bored. He does all that when he’s bored.”

“He’s not bored. He’s working tirelessly to unravel that murder.” Minhyuk drums his fingers on the dashboard until Yeonjun thinks the rhythm of it will drive him insane. “He’s heartbroken. Because it turns out that the only person he’s ever cared about hates him, just like everyone else.”

“I don’t hate him.” Yeonjun’s chest is burning in a way that has nothing to do with smoke. “Why…why are you telling me this? This was all your plan. You wanted him to agree to move.”

“And he has agreed.”

“So why are you talking to me right now?”

“Because I have realized, over the past few days, that taking him away from you may be more dangerous than leaving him in a town full of people who loathe him. He could undoubtedly do more damage to himself than any of them could.”

“You think he should stay,” Yeonjun concludes, hope grabbing him by the throat.

“I have a proposition for you.”      

“Oh, another proposition.” Yeonjun hardly dares to breathe.

“I have told you I am far too busy to stay around here and watch him every second of every day. What’s more, if I did so, he would probably put himself in reckless situations merely to infuriate me. No. Someone else needs to look after him.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t protect him.”

“That was before you ran into a burning building on his behalf. At the very least, I know you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for him. You’ll have a minimum of one use as a human shield.”

“You don’t care about me at all, do you?” Yeonjun asks.

“Not at all,” Minhyuk says easily.

“But you care about Soobin.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m okay with you.” Yeonjun extends his hand. “I’ll protect him if you let him stay.”

Minhyuk’s closes his fingers on Yeonjun’s wrist, instead of shaking his hand. “If anything happens to him, it’s your fault. It will be your burden to bear.”

“I won’t let anything happen.”

Minhyuk nods, just once, and pulls out of the driveway. They don’t speak again until Yeonjun’s house is in sight.

“One more thing,” Minhyuk says, gradually coming to a stop by his front door. “Don’t tell Soobin I ordered you not to speak to him. He dislikes me enough as it is.”

“Okay.” Yeonjun is waiting for Minhyuk to laugh and tell him it was all a joke, that Soobin is still going away. The waiting kills him until he finally wrenches open the handle and steps out into the sunlight. Then something occurs to him. He bends down to peer in through the window. “Where’s he going to live?”

“Your house, of course. I said you would be keeping an eye on him.”

And then Minhyuk drives away.

|||

Yeonjun opens Beomgyu’s door—Soobin’s door—just as he’s getting dressed.

He’s standing by the window, pants on but no shirt, gazing out at what Yeonjun assumes is Minhyuk’s car driving away. Yeonjun loves the way he looks there, half-bathed in light, that thoughtful expression. Someone should paint him. Then Soobin turns to him and he nearly breaks at the way his face changes, just slightly—becoming cooler, more guarded, the way he looked when Yeonjun met him for the first time. “What was Minhyuk—”

But Yeonjun doesn’t let him finish his sentence. He crosses the room and hugs him, tightly.

“Yeonjun—what—” He’s frozen, his voice hoarse. The muscles in his chest and stomach are rigid. Yeonjun can feel them. He can feel Soobin’s chest rising and falling with breath. He can feel his heartbeat.

He can feel everything.

“I didn’t go into your house to put myself in danger, or because I wanted an adrenaline rush,” Yeonjun says. “I did it because I thought you were in there.”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin starts. But he doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you.” Yeonjun thought about what he was going to say, and it’s not even a lie. “I was scared. You’re a dangerous person and you do dangerous things and I was scared of what would happen to me if something happened to you. After my brother died, I turned into—I don’t know what I turned into. I was different. There was no color in anything.”

Soobin is completely motionless.

“But the colors came back when I met you, Soobin. I woke up. I don’t think I can ever repay you for that. And I decided it’s stupid to try not to care about you because I’m scared about losing you. Anyway, I don’t think I can. Not care about you, I mean.”

“You care,” Soobin says.

“Yeah.”

“About me.”

“That’s what I said, yeah.”

“And…you weren’t talking to me…because you cared.”

“Pretty much.” Yeonjun looks up and Soobin’s eyes are slightly glassy. He gives his head a little shake and then squints down at Yeonjun.

“Perhaps I should take you to the hospital. It’s possible you hit your head when you passed out.”

“I didn’t hit my head.”

“Or that the smoke inhalation is interfering with your mental capacities.”

“No, Soobin, I’m pretty sure I’m fine.”

“Then it’s possible that you have some sort of latent mental disability and I recommend a psychiatric evaluation.”

“You’re recommending a psychiatric evaluation because I said I cared about you.”

“Correct.”

“I think you’re the most conceited person I ever met who also has bad self-esteem.”

“Self-esteem is a construct based on—”

“You know, you’re kind of ruining the moment.”

“Sorry.”

My brother apologizes to you when he has never apologized to anyone else.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Yeonjun?” Soobin asks, the sunlight still turning him into this kind of—angelic being. “The ambulance driver said for you to come to the hospital if anything seemed wrong in the morning.”

I heard you tell him just this morning. Every time you asked if he was okay.

“I’m fine.” Yeonjun pulls back and smiles. “Let’s go tell my mom you’re moving in with us.”

Chapter Text

(written on a breakfast napkin)

Things I must do:

1. Fewer dangerous things. At least life-threatening things. At least blatantly life-threatening things. Yeonjun deals badly with death.

1. Stop being irrational. This is irrational. Yeonjun is being irrational.

1. If we were being rational, Yeonjun would isolate himself from others (example.: me) so as not to experience the pain when I inevitably die. (Mortal coil always shuffles off.)

1. If we were being rational, I would isolate myself from others (example.: Yeonjun) for approx.. five hundred reasons, including: distractions, self-preservation.

1. Should stop being selfish. Being selfish not distancing myself from him. Minhyuk  has always called me selfish. Hate when he’s right.

1. Likely will not do any of these things. Will prioritize the first.

|||

“Soobin, what are you writing?” Yeonjun asks.

Soobin stuffs the scribbled-upon napkin in his pocket. “A list of possible ingredients used in this French toast. It’s is a paragon of perfection by comparison against which all other French toast is doomed to fail.”

Soobin smiles winningly at Yeonjun’s mother. Yeonjun has never heard him trying to be charming before. He tries to hide his laughter by drinking orange juice but ends up choking on it.

“I can just give you the recipe,” Yeonjun’s mother says faintly. She hasn’t touched her breakfast, even though she broke out the bacon-French-toast-eggs combo this morning. She cooks when she’s nervous.

“I like to figure things out on my own.”

“Okay,” she says, mostly to herself. “Okay. So you need a place to stay.”

Soobin makes a tragic face. Yeonjun kicks him under the table.

“What?” Soobin whispers. “I’m appealing to her motherly instinct by widening my eyes to evoke the aesthetic of an infant and projecting an aura of vulnerability so that she’ll feel obligated to take me in.”

“It’s mostly just creepy,” Yeonjun whispers back.

“I can hear you both, you know,” His mother says.

They freeze.

She takes a numb sip of coffee. Yeonjun’s rather proud. She’s handling her first Soobin experience better than most people. “So you need a place to stay and you want to stay here.”

“It was my idea,” Yeonjun says quickly.

“I just didn’t know you two had become such good friends.”

“It was sort of an accident,” Yeonjun mentions.

“Yes, entirely arbitrary.”

He kicks Soobin again.

“And by arbitrary, Mrs. Choi, I mean I was drawn to your son by a mixture of his intelligence and fine character.”

“Oh…thank you.”

“He must have inherited those traits from you, as well as his large ears.”

Yeonjun whips out his phone. She’s self-conscious about the ears.

Soobin glances down at the phone screen and looks up again. “And by large I mean absolutely miniscule. I would need a microscope to see those. Truly tiny.”

“Yeonjun?” His mother says.

“Yes?” He replies sweetly.

“May I speak with you for a moment in the living room?”

He gets up at once, resting a reassuring hand briefly on Soobin’s shoulder.

Soobin twists his head to look at his shoulder, frowning. “Are you trying to get a bug off me?”

“…Just stay here.”

In the living room, Yeonjun’s mother rubs her hands together anxiously. Yeonjun feels sort of bad that he’d sprung this on her, but not bad enough to take it back. “He can’t stay with his brother?”

“His brother has some sort of big job. He’s always off on business trips.” Yeonjun chews his bottom lip. “His house just burned down, Mom. Come on. I’ll always do the dishes. I’ll clean the basement.”

“We don’t have anywhere for him to stay.”

“There’s Beomgyu’s room.”

The subject hangs between them like something suspended on a spiderweb.

“He slept in there last night and it was fine. And,” He adds firmly, “we can’t leave his room exactly as it was forever. It’s not healthy. It needs a change.”

She nods slowly. He’s been wanting to say that to her for so long. “Maybe…how long will he need to stay?”

“His brother’s looking for a place, but you know how the housing market is. And I think Soobin was really shaken up by the fire,” Yeonjun lies. “He doesn’t have any parents and his brother’s never around and I’m sure it would be good for him to be with people.”

“He’s just…a little odd.”

“You get used to him. Trust me.”

She laughs nervously. “He’s not going to murder us in our sleep, is he?”      

Yeonjun places both of his hands on her shoulders. “Mom, listen to me. Choi Soobin is a very, very, very good person.”

“Well…” she says hesitantly.

“And his brother will pay us.”

“He will?”

“Yeah, he’ll give us extra money for the extra groceries and stuff. Soobin doesn’t eat that much, though.”

“We’ll have to fix that, I suppose.”

Yeonjun smiles.

“Thanks, Mom.”

|||

A few hours later, Yeonjun’s holding up a little yellow card. “What about this color?”

“Is it paint?” Soobin isn’t even looking.

“Yes, of course it’s paint.”

“Then I’m satisfied with it.”

They’re at the home goods store. The walls of Beomgyu’s old room are filthy, the paint chipped and faded, and Yeonjun had decided it needed a new coat. But it’s not Beomgyu’s room anymore, he has to remind himself. It’s Soobin’s room now.

“Okay, but it can’t just be paint.” Yeonjun flicks through a few shades of purple. Purple seems like a Soobin color. Elegant and dark. “It has to be a color you like. You’ll be staring at it all the time.”

“I have no particular feelings for one color over another.” Soobin raises an eyebrow at a display of doorknobs, like he can’t believe people would need so many different kinds of doorknobs. “The space in my brain where ordinary people choose to store color preferences, I have put quantum mechanics.”

“Fine.” Yeonjun grabs sample card of a shade of pink lurid enough to make someone’s eyes bleed. “This color then.”

“…Maybe not that one.”

“Careful, your dislike of pink is pushing the quantum mechanics out of your brain.”

They settle on a shade of almost-dark blue and lug the cans to the car. Yeonjun starts it up and Soobin starts complaining that they never put classical music on the radio. It’s like the space between them, the space Yeonjun had initially created, is almost gone. He hated that space so much.

On the way back, he says, “So I need to lay down some ground rules.”

“Rules for the use of the ground?” Soobin’s gazing out the window. “Am I still allowed to step on it?”

“Stop being a smartass for two seconds and listen.” Yeonjun stops at a red light and pokes Soobin’s shoulder until he faces him. “Rules about the house. Number one: no smoking inside.”

“Shocker, that one. Never saw it coming.”

“Number two: no experiments in the microwave. In fact, let’s just put a blanket ban on all experiments requiring kitchen appliances.”

Soobin smirks. “What about experiments requiring garden tools?”

“I’ll bring it to the board. Number three: you have to eat normally so my mom doesn’t think you’re anorexic or something.”

“When I agreed to move into your house, you neglected to mention it’s virtually indistinguishable from prison.”

The light turns green and a car behind them honks. Yeonjun gives them a thumbs up in the rearview mirror before stepping on the gas. One of the paint cans in the back falls over. “It’s very distinguishable from prison, thanks. We’re not making you wear an orange jumpsuit.”

“Yet,” Soobin says ominously. “To be fair, I suppose it’s better than living with Minhyuk. Though having all my fingernails pulled out with pliers would be better than living with Minhyuk.”

“Well, we won’t do that to you either. And don’t say ‘yet.”

Soobin closes his mouth, which had been forming around a Y.

When they get back to the house, they pack up all of Beomgyu’s things.

His old soccer trophies. His CDs. His books. His posters. Every time Yeonjun puts something into a box, it’s like cauterizing a wound—painful, but necessary. Having everything in this room exactly as Beomgyu left it has kept Yeonjun bleeding.

Soobin picks up a patched old sweatshirt, holding it away from his body like it’s about to poison him. “You didn’t tell me he was in the drama department.”

“He wasn’t.”

“Oh. I thought he must have played a hobo and this was part of his costume.”

“Yeah, it was his favorite sweatshirt. And maybe don’t make fun of my dead brother’s fashion choices.”

“Sorry.”

When Yeonjun’s almost done and the boxes are stacked high and sweat is dripping off his nose, he turns around to see Soobin staring at him in that way he does sometimes—eyes intense, brow slightly furrowed, like he’s working out the most difficult puzzle he’s ever been presented with. Yeonjun doesn’t get it. Someone like him couldn’t possibly be confusing to Soobin. He balances a box full of books on top of the pile.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Soobin mutters.

“No, what’s wrong?”

“Me.”

“You’re wrong?”

“No, I’m never wrong. Something’s wrong with me.”

It’s such an uncharacteristic thing for Soobin to admit that Yeonjun puts down the stack of folded clothes he just picked up. “What do you mean?”

“I keep seeing you,” Soobin says. Eyes still narrowed, contemplative. He’s sitting on her bed. Somehow, just him sitting there has turned Beomgyu’s bed from a ghost back into just a bed.

“That’s not something wrong with you, Soobin, that’s the fact that I’m standing in front of you.”

“No. Not here.” Soobin absently plucks a loose string on the quilt. “When I close my eyes. I see you. In my house. During the fire. The way you were when I found you. I have no idea why.”

Yeonjun blinks.

“When I came back and realized that you’d gone into the house after seeing that both your front door and mine was left open, I had a physical reaction. I’ve researched it and they were somewhat similar to heart attack symptoms. Shortness of breath. Chest pain. Never had a physical reaction to a piece of information before. Perhaps I should see a doctor.”

“You don’t need to see a doctor.” Yeonjun smiles at him. His slightly puzzled expression is downright cute, but he’s pretty sure if he told him that, he’d kill him. “Thanks.”

The puzzled expression on Soobin’s face deepens. “Why are you thanking me?”

“You cared, that’s all. That’s what you’re talking about.”

“Like I said.” Soobin stands up and sweeps several picture frames off the dresser, tossing them into an almost-full box. “Something’s wrong with me.”

They’re interrupted by a loud knocking downstairs.

“That’s weird.” Yeonjun straightens and wipe some of the dirt off his knees. Beomgyu wasn’t a big fan of vacuum cleaners. “Mom’s not getting home until five.”

They go downstairs together, trailing dust. Soobin has a big clot of it stuck in his hair. Yeonjun picks it out before reaching the door first, pulling it open. A burly policeman is standing there.

“Is Choi Soobin here?” he asks, his arms crossed over his uniform. “We were told this was his new place of residence.”

“Minhyuk in my business again,” Soobin says in a low voice.

Yeonjun points at Soobin over his shoulder. “Yeah, that’s Soobin. Sorry, he hates introductions. What’s wrong? Did he do something? He probably did something.”

“Your faith in me is truly touching, Yeonjun.”

Yeonjun jabs him in the ribs with his elbow.

“Ouch. Officer, I think you might want to arrest him for assault.”

“I’m not here to arrest anyone,”  the policeman says, eyeing them warily. “We’re just here with some follow-up questions about the fire. I was hoping you could provide us with the names of anyone who might have a grudge against you.”

“Certainly. Let me get you a list.” Soobin disappears back into the house.

Yeonjun frowns. People with grudges? “But I thought it was an accident.”

The policeman checks his watch. It’s almost lunch time. “Evidence points to arson, as a matter of fact.”

Soobin reappears holding the school directory. “Here you are.”

The policeman takes it and thumbs through the first few pages. “Is this a joke?”

“It’s really not,” Yeonjun says. The word arson is cycling through his mind.

When the policeman has given up on them and left, Yeonjun slams the door and whirls on Soobin, who is picking disinterestedly at the dust on the hem of his shirt. Like he actually couldn’t care less about the revelation that someone tried to burn his house down. “That fire wasn’t an accident. Someone did that.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously? You knew?”

“I always know. The smell of gasoline, the unfamiliar footprints on my lawn, the broken window downstairs. They might as well have spray-painted arson on the driveway.”

“You’re telling me,” Yeonjun pauses, taking a heavy breath, “that you knew someone set your house on fire and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t think to mention it.”

“I thought you knew. Like I said—obvious.”

“Well, it wasn’t obvious to me.”

“What are you so upset about?”

“What am I—Soobin, someone tried to kill you! For the second time!” It’s a good thing his mother’s at work because he’s yelling at the top of his lungs.

A fact which doesn’t seem to bother Soobin. “No one’s tried to kill me since I set foot in this town. Apart from Minhyuk attempting to annoy me to death.”

Yeonjun is completely still. He wants to strangle him. Whoever’s trying to kill him would love that.

“The party incident wasn’t a murder attempt. It was petty revenge,” Soobin says. “As was the fire. There was no car outside my house when they came. They must have thought I was out.”

“At three in the morning?” The smartest person Yeonjun has ever met is also the stupidest person he has ever met. “We have to talk to the police. Tell them someone’s got it out for you. You can’t just not acknowledge murder attempts as murder attempts.”

“True. I can, however, acknowledge things that aren’t murder attempts as things that aren’t murder attempts. Which is exactly what I’m doing.” Soobin’s voice is calm. Almost amused.

Yeonjun shoves him so hard Soobin’s back hits the wall, knocking a picture frame askew. Soobin’s strong enough to stop him, but he doesn’t. “You need to take this seriously. Please? I’m—”

And out of nowhere, for no reason, Yeonjun’s throat is burning and his eyes feel wet. He steps back quickly. What the hell is his problem?

Soobin’s eyes widen minutely. And then he’s lightly touching the side of Yeonjun’s face, for such a brief second he almost misses it happening. “I won’t let anyone kill me, Choi Yeonjun.”

Yeonjun’s so embarrassed. He wants to run upstairs and hide. At the same time, he wants to grab Soobin’s hand and hold it tightly. But he can’t. Because it’s Choi Soobin, and he’d probably ask if he was trying to cut off his circulation or something. “It would be nice if you were saying that for your sake too, and not just mine.”

“As a matter of fact, I have a vested interest in me not dying.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” Yeonjun says, borrowing one of Soobin’s pet phrases.

“Let’s make an agreement, then.” Soobin pushes himself off the wall, catching Yeonjun’s eye. “A new agreement. I’ll agree not to die if you agree not to put yourself in danger to try and stop me from dying. An example, say, would be you not running into a burning building after me. Just assume I’m not in the burning building.”

“You can’t always not be in the burning building.” Yeonjun mutters to the floor. He should just become friends with the floor. Nobody’s ever tried to kill the floor. “Sometimes you might not have a choice.”

“Here and now, I agree never to be in any burning buildings again. Or whatever you’re using the burning building as a metaphor for. Will you agree to that?”

“I don’t—”

“Please, Yeonjun.” Soobin tips his chin up with his finger so Yeonjun has to meet his eyes. Yeonjun always hated seeing that in romance movies, but when Soobin does it, it’s not condescending. It’s vulnerable.

“Okay,” Yeonjun lies.

“Excellent,” Soobin says, snapping back to his usual self in an instant. “Then let’s go waste an afternoon splashing paint on the wall.”

Yeonjun follows him up the stairs slowly. He’s the reason Soobin’s staying. And now someone here is trying to kill him.

If that person succeeds, it really will be Yeonjun’s fault.

Chapter Text

(written on the back of an old report card belonging to Choi Beomgyu)

There are over a hundred thousand diseases that affect humans. Over twenty-five pressure points on the human body that cause death if appropriately struck. Five vital organs that can withstand very little damage before they fail. Human skin is paper. Nearly every object that one could bother to name can be used to take a life.

It is distinctly irrational to entrust one’s heart to something so fragile.

The turritopsis dohrnii, a species of jellyfish native to the Mediterranean, is effectively immortal. It is capable, through the process of transdifferentiation, to revert to its younger colonial stage after exhausting its body at the solitary stage. It regenerates.

It is far more rational to care about a turritopsis dohrnii than a human being.

Though it is doubtful that there is a turritopsis dohrnii who would buy coffee for me when everyone else thought I was a murderer, who would knock on my door to wake me up in the morning because he knows I hate the sound of the alarm, who would be so irrational as to care about someone belonging to such a breakable species as humanity.

Conclusion: This would be really be much easier if he were a jellyfish.

|||

Living with Choi Soobin is easier than Yeonjun anticipated.

Which isn’t to say it’s easy. There’s the time he tries to impress his mother by guessing how long ago she’d gotten her hair colored, based on the extent of the grayness around her roots. And the time he decides to use the bathtub to observe the growth of mold on a steak in a bright but damp environment, after which Yeonjun extends the ban on kitchen experiments to bathroom experiments. And the time he falls out of the window and nearly breaks his neck because he’d been trying to evade the smoke detector by sticking himself as far out the window as possible.

There was definitely all that.

But the things he likes outweigh the things he doesn’t. He likes sprawling on the couch with Soobin after school, their legs touching, Yeonjun reading the assigned book for English and Soobin reading something about the ability of light to escape black holes. He likes forcing Soobin to watch every classic movie he hasn’t seen—which is pretty much every single one, like The Matrix and Mission Impossible and The Breakfast Club, and hitting him with a pillow to make him quit vocally unraveling every plot hole. He likes it when he helps his mother make dinner, correcting her with a chemist’s precision on the exact amount of cayenne pepper she should use. Turns out Soobin’s a good cook when he doesn’t turn it into an experiment.

He likes falling asleep knowing that he’s breathing somewhere nearby. He likes the fact that the room downstairs is no longer a room he’s scared to enter. He likes seeing him in bed. Soobin’s kind of amazing when he’s in bed, lounging, his shirt rumpled to expose an inch of skin.

School is not the best. School is mostly ignoring the comments as they pass. School is trying not to get angry. Soobin never gets angry. But some people are on their side—like Chaeryeong—and the fact that Yeonjun gets to sit next to him in class, reading texts about the hilarious things he deduces about their teachers, makes it worth it.

It’s all very worth it.

And it’s okay if sometimes he dreams things about Soobin that leave him flushed to his core. It’s okay if sometimes he can’t stop staring at that sliver of hip bone, or those cheekbones, or the way the dark hair meets pale skin at the nape of his neck. It’s okay, because he knows what Soobin is. This is enough for Yeonjun. To be able to look at him and smile.

Until one Sunday night.

“We’re going on a date,” Soobin declares, throwing open Yeonjun’s door.

“You could knock.” Yeonjun pushes his biology homework aside and rolls upright on his bed. Then the full force of what Soobin has said hits him like a blowtorch. “What?”

“A date. We’re going on one. Maybe you should get your hearing checked, Yeonjun. You seem to say ‘what’ rather a lot.”

“Notice I only say it when you’re talking? It’s because you’re the only person I know who says such ridiculous things.” Yeonjun swings his legs over the side of the bed and then they’re facing each other. He can’t quite bear to ask Soobin why all of the sudden. But he’s up now, so he has to do something. He pretends to search through his drawers.

Soobin leans against the wall. He’s always leaning on things, like it’s too boring to hold himself upright. “If you’re looking for your diary, I confiscated it.”

Yeonjun closes his eyes and counts to ten, silently thanking the gods of every religion that he’d had the common sense to not write anything about Choi Soobin. “And why did you confiscate my diary?”

“Today I had an algebra test and I think I did well. Next week I have to remember to study my notes for Mr. Kim because he always has more pop quizzes when it gets colder. Something that boring should be illegal.”

“And yet you memorized it.” Yeonjun yanks his dictionary from the bottom shelf, pages to the P’s, tears out an entry and slaps it against Soobin’s chest.

“Privacy: confidentiality, discretion, secrecy,” he reads. “Are you trying to make the point that next time I should keep it secret when I steal your things? At any rate it will save your books from being desecrated.”

“Privacy is what I want, Soobin. As in you stop reading my diary. And my email, and my Facebook messages just because you’re bored. And no more coming into the bathroom when I’m taking a shower because you’re too impatient to wait ten more minutes to get whatever you wanted to get—”

“I needed my lighter. I left it in there.”

“—And no more smoking in the bathroom just because it’s on the opposite side of the house as the smoke detector.”

This happens so often with them now—they start to talk about something important and accidentally fall into that pattern of half-bickering, half-bantering that has become more familiar to Yeonjun than anything else in the world. And more comforting.

Yeonjun abandons the dictionary. “Anyway, what about a date?”

“Be ready by eight. Wear something that wouldn’t look out of place in a fancy restaurant.”

And with that, Soobin disappears, leaving him wondering if he dreamed everything between the door opening and the door closing.

|||

What does one wear on a date with Choi Soobin?

The real question is what does he even have in his closet? The oversized black jacket he’d rescued from the bargain bin in the men’s section from the thrift store is out of the question. So are the pair of jeans he wears so often that the fabric is wisp-thin in the thigh. He doesn’t own a lot of things that wouldn’t look out of place in a fancy restaurant.

What Yeonjun should do is go downstairs and demand to know what Soobin’s really up to.

But he doesn’t.

What he should do is go downstairs and tell Soobin that they will not be going on a date, now or ever.

But he doesn’t.

He sits on the bed, inspecting the ends of his black, still chopped at different lengths from that time a few months ago, when he’d realized he needed a haircut and had been too depressed to go pay for one. For the first time, he’s understanding what he must look like next to Soobin.

Soobin: tall, graceful, sleek, dark-haired, well-dressed.

Him: depressed, dressed generally like a cross between a hobo and an alcoholic.

He stuffs his face into pillow for a minute before deciding there has to be an easier way to suffocate himself. He doesn’t know how to be the type of person who goes well with Choi Soobin.

Does that type of person even exist?

Eventually, he settles on the only elegant thing he owns—a black blazer, a few tiny fake pearls sewn into the front pocket. Beomgyu gave it to him when he didn’t want it anymore. “Wear it somewhere fun,” he’d said. “You’re always studying. You need some fun in your life.”

Yeonjun only wore it once, to his funeral.

It’d been a little too big for him then, but he has gained some weight since he met Soobin, and now it fits perfectly. He brushes his comb through his hair, letting the blob that is his hair fall over his forehead.

His reflection in the mirror doesn’t look like him. He looks like Beomgyu.

“Are you ready yet?”

It’s Soobin, opening his door for the millionth time without knocking. Yeonjun immediately feels like an idiot in his hand-me-down suit. Soobin’s wearing a suit that fits him perfectly, gliding across his chest and dipping in at the waist. It’s the same dark shade as his hair.

“You look…” Yeonjun starts, but doesn’t finish.

For once, Soobin doesn’t try to complete his sentence. He scans Yeonjun once. A slight frown tugs at his mouth and he looks away too quickly. “Come on, then.” And he disappears down the stairs.

Well. Nice to know early on that he disapproves. Yeonjun takes one last look at himself in the mirror, a weight settling into his stomach. He’ll never be someone who doesn’t look out of place next to Soobin.

“Yeonjun, hurry up! We’re going to miss the movie.”

“Movie?” Yeonjun abandons his reflection, running down the stairs after him.

“Yes, movie. Cinema, film, look it up in your precious dictionary if you’re confused. It starts at eight fifteen sharp, meaning that if we leave within the next four minutes and thirty seconds and drive at a minimum of forty miles an hour—”

“Since when do you go to movies?” Yeonjun interrupts as they walk outside, the clouds above threatening rain and blocking the stars. Luckily, his mother carpooled to work today, so he has her car. “You fell asleep on purpose last time I made you watch one.”

“Call it a coma induced by prolonged exposure to stupidity.”

“You’re kind of proving my point about the movie thing.”

“I would go to a movie if I had an interesting reason to,” Soobin says, glancing at him—but looking away again, too quickly, like he’d done before.

“Hey, Soobin…”

But before Yeonjun can ask what’s going on, Soobin’s gotten into the car and turned on the radio, blasting Bach.

“You’re the only person in the world who would blast Bach,” Yeonjun says, climbing into the drivers’ seat, but Soobin doesn’t respond. Yeonjun pulls out of the driveway feeling utterly confused.

When they get to the theater, Soobin takes off ahead of him.

“I thought we were going to dinner?” Yeonjun locks the car and jogs to catch up. The lights of the theater illuminate him.

“Dinner and a movie. Isn’t that traditional? People love tradition. Distracts them from the overwhelming fact of their own mortality.”

“…Right.”

Yeonjun’s going ask what movie they’re seeing, but the question is answered for him when Soobin approaches the front desk.

“Two tickets for the inane comedy of errors about the grad student and his professor who fall in Hollywood’s idea of love, despite the ludicrousness of the situation considering the general code of conduct regarding teacher-student relationships in most universities.”

The clerk stares at him, mouth frozen open mid-chew of gum. Soobin heaves a dramatic sigh. “Otherwise known as Getting an A. You should really familiarize yourself with plots of the garbage-heap media you overcharge people for.”

“That’ll be eighteen ninety-five,” the clerk manages. Yeonjun gives her his best apology face, but he’s pretty sure all he’s capable of right now is shock.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun says. “That’s a chick flick.”

“Correct.”

“You hate chick flicks.”

“I hate both the genre and the misogyny inherent in the term, yes.”

Yeonjun reaches up and rests his hand on Soobin’s forehead. “Are you okay? You don’t feel like you have a fever.”

Soobin bats his hand away, diverting his eyes for the third time. Bizarre. Usually he holds eye contact easily and alarmingly. It bothers most people. “I’m not ill. Let’s go.” He smiles strangely. “I want a seat in the back.”

Still in a daze, Yeonjun buys a large popcorn and then settles with Soobin at the far end of the theater. The movie’s been showing for a couple weeks already, and there aren’t many heads in front of them. The previews start and Yeonjun’s overwhelmingly aware of how different various types of closeness can be—how different it is to sit so close next to him in the dark movie theater than it is to sprawl on the couch with him, their legs tangled, while he does his homework and Soobin ignores his.

Soobin’s not paying any attention to the booming trailers. He’s scanning the heads in front of them. “Aha,” he says.

“What?” Yeonjun follows his gaze. The trailer playing flashes white, lighting up a figure in almost the front row. A familiar figure. “Oh, hey, isn’t that Taehyun?”

“Keep your voice down.” Soobin’s eyes are glued to the back of Taehyun’s head. “We don’t want him to know that we know he’s here.”

And the ball drops.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun whispers. “Are we here because Kang Taehyun is here?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ask me on a date so you would be less conspicuous stalking Taehyun for—why, exactly?”

“Not at all.” Soobin’s profile is illuminated as the movie starts to a scene full of sunshine. Meanwhile Yeonjun feels like he has been trapped in a horror movie. “I asked you on a date so we would be very conspicuous to Taehyun.”

“Why do you want to be anything to him?” At least now he knows why they’re on a date.

“Because I believe he may have murdered Huening Kai.”

The shock sews Yeonjun’s mouth shut for half a minute. Onscreen, the couple meets when the girl forgets a pencil in class. Soobin rolls his eyes. “Who forgets their pencil in college?”

Yeonjun jostles Soobin’s shoulder for attention. “I thought you gave up on the murder.”

“I’d give up on that as easily as I’d give up on breathing. There are certain things someone like me needs to survive. A good mystery is one of them.” Soobin’s leaning in, whispering in Yeonjun’s ear. The warmth and closeness of it makes him shiver. He’d almost forgotten about his lips. “Anyway, I’ve been compiling a list of suspects and eliminating them one by one. Taehyun is next on the list.”

“Taehyun couldn’t have done it,” Yeonjun whispers back. “He doesn’t have a grudge against you.”

“Of course he does.” Soobin drums his fingers on the seat in front of him, drawing an annoyed glance from the woman sitting in it. “He’s in love with you. Half the school still thinks you and I are dating. The entire school certainly thought that at the time of Kai’s murder.”

Why are the Choi brothers always telling Yeonjun people are in love with him when they’re not? “That’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’ve been observing the way he looks at you for some time now. His pupils tend to dilate when he’s in your presence. He often watches you in class when he thinks nobody is paying attention. He’s doodled your name in the margins of his notebook on at least one occasion. And you told me he asked you out.”

“I took off my clothes in front of him, Soobin! Of course he asked me out!”

“Shhh,” hisses the woman in front of them.

“It’s possible that he somehow realized you were Ares and submitted that request in the hopes that you’d try to seduce him. He could have sent that photo to Kai in order to break off their relationship, unaware that he would forward it to the rest of the school, at which point he killed him to get revenge on your behalf and pinned it on me, hoping that you’d believe I was the killer and break up with me.”

Yeonjun inhales and exhales. “That is a very long shot.”

“I know,” Soobin admits. “But I’m running out of suspects. And I wanted to see this movie.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Yeonjun groans and rubs his forehead. Taehyun, who was friends with his brother, who’d been so nice to him at Beomgyu’s grave. He couldn’t have done it. He’d been so sad about Huening Kai. “So why do you need me again?”

The woman in front of them turns and glowers. Soobin lowers his voice so that Yeonjun has to lean in even closer to hear him. Their heads brush together. “I need to measure the level of jealousy that Taehyun expresses upon seeing the two of us on a date. My hypothesis about him hinges on the level of his obsession with you. He wouldn’t kill for a crush. It has to run deep.”

Yeonjun swallows. “So what you’re saying, if you’re right, is that Huening Kai getting killed was my fault.”

“What? No. No.” For the first time that evening, Soobin turns to fully look at Yeonjun, putting a hand on his shoulder and drawing him around to face him. “Even if it’s true, which it’s likely not, it wouldn’t be your fault.”

Yeonjun stares back at his face, at his skin changing in tones as the light on the movie screen switches from day to night.

“Yeonjun,” Soobin says. “Believe me.”

The woman in front of them finally whips around, her huge bobble earrings swinging as she does. “I’m going to call the usher, young man.”

“Are you?” Soobin asks savagely. “I can see that you’re very invested in this film. Could it be that you’re concerned your husband, who is a university professor, is currently sleeping with one of his young students? I’ll save you some time—you’re right.”

The woman reaches over, slaps him in the face, and stalks to the front of the theater.

“People are always doing that,” Soobin grumbles, holding his hand to his cheek.

“Yeah, I wonder why.”

The movie’s short, and Yeonjun can’t really tell what happens, because the dialogue is regularly drowned out by Soobin noting every logical fallacy and cliché. And Yeonjun’s distracted by the whole reason they’re here. Taehyun wasn’t the killer. He just couldn’t be.

When the credits roll and the lights come on, Taehyun and his date stand up before they do. Yeonjun just has enough time to recognize his date as Sunoo, a glasses-wearing freshman from the dance team, before Soobin slips his arm around him.

“Soobin—”

“Lean into me,” he whispers.

Yeonjun tilts his body into the warm nook between Soobin’s shoulder and neck. He closes his eyes and pretends it’s real for three delicious seconds.

“Oh, hi, Yeonjun. Soobin.”

Yeonjun open his eyes. Taheyun is standing by their row, his hand in Sunoo’s, who looks nervous but happy. Taehyun is smiling. His hair is carefully combed. He dressed up for this. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for this movie,” he says to Soobin.

Soobin draws Yeonjun in a little closer. “Yes, well, we do crazy things for the people we love.”

Oh God, he can’t laugh. He can’t laugh.

“Are you feeling sick?” Taehyun offers Yeonjun a concerned frown. “You’re covering your mouth.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Yeonjun manages and keeps his eyes on Taehyun’s face, waiting for a flicker, a frown as he takes in how closely Soobin is holding him. But there’s nothing. He just shrugs and nudges Sunoo, who blushes. “I kind of liked the movie, actually.”

Soobin smiles sarcastically. “Yes, the platitudes were numerous.”

“The what…? Never mind. We’ve got a dinner reservation. See you guys later.” Taehyun waves and walks off with Sunoo, arm in arm down the aisle.

Soobin scowls, picking unconsciously at Yeonjun’s sleeve with his fingers. “Damn.”

“Sort of seems like he wasn’t that jealous.” Yeonjun quietly extracts himself from Soobin’s chest.

Soobin doesn’t seem to notice. “Yes, well, I hardly did anything.”

The theater’s empty except for them and the usher, who’s sweeping up old kernels of popcorn. Yeonjun crumples his empty bag. “Soobin? Let’s go home.”

“Can’t yet.” He pushes himself to his feet and gazes distractedly after Taehyun and Sunoo. “We’ve got a dinner reservation.”

“Are you serious?” Yeonjun hisses. Soobin doesn’t reply, he just gets up and leaves the theater so fast that Yeonjun has to chase after him. They’re halfway to the car when Yeonjun’s close enough to grab his wrist. “How the hell did you find out what restaurant they’re going to? Actually, how did you even know what movie?”

“Taehyun’s immediate family isn’t wealthy, but his uncle owns Adolfo’s. That’s the restaurant, by the way. Clear choice for a date. And as for the film, Sunoo has tweeted about wanting to see it three separate times. Earlier today at school, I overheard him mention to a friend that he would be missing a club meeting, as he was busy at eight. Simple deduction.”

“You know, you’re missing something obvious.” Yeonjun moves to get into the driver’s seat but Soobin beats him to it, dangling the keys he apparently pickpocketed from his bag. Right. Yeonjun has no idea where the restaurant is.

“If I’m missing it, it’s not obvious,” Soobin points out.

“Taehyun’s on a date. With someone else.” Yeonjun buckles into the passenger seat. “Doesn’t that kind of blow a hole in your he’s-in-love-with-me theory?”

“People come up with all kinds of distractions to push away feelings they think are unrequited.” Soobin starts the car and pulls into the road.

“If they exist, they’re definitely unrequited,” Yeonjun says.

Soobin tosses him a tiny surprised glance but in milliseconds, his eyes are back on the road. “I know they’re unrequited.”

“Good. Just saying.” Yeonjun’s definitely not imagining things. Soobin doesn’t want to look at him.

Why doesn’t he want to look at him?

Yeonjun momentarily forgets about it when they reach Adolfo’s. It’s seriously fancy. The restaurant is next to the water, the glittering light from the windows refracting on the dark waves. Soobin parks and gets out, holding the door open for him.

Yeonjun hops out onto the pavement. “Really playing the part, aren’t you?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“You’re being positively gallant.”

“You’re being positively irritating,” Soobin says, holding the door of the restaurant open for him anyway. The man by the door greets them with a nod and Soobin says, “Reservation under the name Choi Soobin.”

“Certainly.” The man flicks through his list to confirm before gesturing them onward into the room filled with light and glass and people and clinking. “One table coming up for the lovely couple.”

Yeonjun waits for Soobin to correct him, but he doesn’t. Yeonjun opens his mouth to pick up the slack, but it’s too late. The man is leading them between tables populated by people in expensive clothes, purses under their chairs.

“Actually, this one will be perfect,” Soobin says, indicating a small candlelit table by the window, where they can see the water.

“Oh—certainly,” The man says, backtracking. He lays two menus on the white tablecloth and smiles. “Your server will be with you shortly.”

“Why this table?” Yeonjun asks Soobin, sliding into a chair as the man disappears.

“Taehyun and Sunoo are to our left.”

Yeonjun glances over. The two of them are seated a couple tables down, with a clear view of Yeonjun and Soobin. Taehyun spots them first, his napkin sliding off his lap as he gives a slightly perplexed wave. Yeonjun waves back before facing Soobin. “I really don’t think he did it.”

Soobin’s still resolutely not looking at him, picking up a menu instead. “They have an excellent Pinot grigio here.”

Yeonjun pulls down the top of his menu a little. “I’m not twenty-one and neither are you.”

“I’ll take care of that.”

When the waiter comes, a young guy with a tattoo just barely peeking out from under his sleeve, Yeonjun orders the shrimp scampi. Soobin lays down his menu. “The carbonara. And two glasses of the Pinot grigio.”

“Certainly. Could I see your I.Ds?” he asks.

Soobin leans toward him. “Let’s do each other a favor. I won’t tell your boss that you just stole a ring left by one of your customers and you’ll bring us wine without bothering about the I.Ds.”

The waiter turns so pale that Yeonjun worries he might faint. “Y-yes, sir.”

“That was mean,” Yeonjun says once he’s scuttled away.

“I am not mean. I am honest, and in this society that happens to be constituted as mean.”

“You can be honest without being mean.” Yeonjun takes a sip of ice water, watching Soobin over the rim of the glass. “You just kind of have to be selectively honest.”

“I have enough things to be exhausted by without being exhausted by that. Hold my hand.”

“What?”

“Taehyun’s looking.”

Hesitantly, Yeonjun lays his hand on the table, next to the candle. Soobin takes it. Yeonjun never noticed how beautiful his hands are. Sculpted and strong.

“I don’t understand it,” Soobin says after a minute of Yeonjun silently contemplating hands.

“What don’t you understand?” Yeonjun has to raise his voice as a loud couple takes the table beside them.

“He’s not gritting his teeth, he’s not glaring at me, he’s chatting easily. He just waved again.”

“I told you he’s not in love with me.”      

“I don’t understand that either.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t see how anyone could not be in love with you.”

Yeonjun freezes, but Soobin doesn’t seem to understand what he’s said. He’s still staring at Taehyun’s table, a slight preoccupied frown on his face, as if he hasn’t just blown Yeonjun to pieces.

“What did you say?” Yeonjun whispers.

“Did I say something?”

“…Never mind.”

The food comes, huge steaming bowls of pasta. Yeonjun’s suddenly starving. He digs in—it’s delicious. The wine is delicious too, light and sweet, totally unlike the boxed stuff he and Beomgyu got drunk off once or twice. Soobin picks at his dinner. He hasn’t looked at Yeonjun once since they entered the restaurant. His eyes move from Taehyun’s table, to the ceiling, to the window and back again.

Yeonjun lays down his fork. “Okay, is there something on my face?”

“Just the usual,” Soobin says to his wine glass. “Eyes, mouth, nose, confusion.”

“No, I mean it. Why aren’t you looking at me?”

“You look…nice.” Soobin spins his wine glass between his fingers before taking a sip. Only he could do that without spilling it everywhere. “It’s…distracting.”

Yeonjun smiles.

“This is a good date, Soobin.” Yeonjun shakes hot pepper on his pasta. “Even if you did steal it from Taehyun. When you finally take an actual person out, they’ll be delighted.”

Now he’s looking at Yeonjun. “And you’re not an actual person?”

“I’m an actual person, but it’s a fake date.” Yeonjun spears a shrimp.

“Doesn’t seem like much of a difference to me. Taehyun and Sunoo are on a real date and we’ve been doing the exact same things.”

“There’s a difference,” Yeonjun says.

They eat in silence for another few minutes. Yeonjun’s used to silence when it comes to Soobin and his allergy to small talk. Silence never means that he’s uncomfortable or angry. It just means he’s thinking about something else. Yeonjun’s used to him thinking about things that aren’t him. And besides, the silence is nice. It comes when they’re reading together, or when he’s drinking tea, listening to Soobin play the violin. There’s a togetherness in it.

They finish before Taehyun and Sunoo. It’s so abrupt. Soobin pays, they put on their coats and then the date is over. Yeonjun wishes it wasn’t, no matter how fake it is.

Outside, it’s started to rain, heavy drops splattering across the driveway and noisily drumming on the roof. Yeonjun’s about to step out from the shelter of the overhang and run for the car when Soobin pulls him back.

“Wait, Yeonjun. Not yet.”

Yeonjun pulls his hood on. “What are we waiting for?”

“For Taehyun and Sunoo to leave. I just want to make sure that—”

“Soobin, I’m gonna go ahead and say that you were wrong about him.”

Soobin scowls. It’s kind of adorable. Yeonjun prods his chest. “So I guess you’re done saying you’re never wrong—”

“I acknowledged the possibility that this hypothesis wouldn’t be proven from the start. Since I didn’t assert that I was right, I’m not technically wrong.”

Why is it so fun to annoy him? Yeonjun sees why Minhyuk does it. “Nah, I’m pretty sure that counts as being wrong.”

“I disagree.” Soobin glowers at the rain and Yeonjun’s surprised it doesn’t suck itself back up into the sky.

Yeonjun starts chanting, “Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong—” until Soobin reaches his arm up and pulls down the flap of the overhang, depositing a large amount of water on Yeonjun’s head.

“Hey!” Yeonjun splutters, liquid running down his face and hair.

Soobin just smirks. It’s so infuriating that Yeonjun shoves him, catching him off-guard so that he stumbles out from the safety of the overhang into the rain. The downpour is so relentless that he’s soaked almost immediately.

“You do seem to like getting me wet.” Soobin stays, standing in the rain and starts ticking things off on his fingers. “You dump a glass of water on me at Kai’s house. You convince me to jump in the ocean in October.”

“And there was that time you walked in on me in the shower, so I sprayed you with the shower head.” Yeonjun says, stepping out into the rain after him. He’s already so wet that it doesn’t matter.

“There was that time,” Soobin agrees, paying no attention to the fact that his suit is going to need dry-cleaning.

“Hey, Soobin?”

They’re both standing in the rain now. Neither of them points out how stupid that is.

Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe Yeonjun’s still in chick flick mode. Maybe it’s because Soobin just looks so…so human, water dripping from the ends of his hair, his suit plastered to his chest. But Yeonjun says it anyway. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for getting you wet?” The corner of Soobins mouth twitches up. If Yeonjun wasn’t so determined to get this out, he’d accuse him of flirting.

“For…” Yeonjun winces at how stupid it sounds in his head, but it’s too late now. “For being my friend.”

And then Soobin’s got that look—the analyzing, calculating stare. It’s when Yeonjun says the simplest things that Soobin tries his hardest to figure him out. Yeonjun wonders when he’ll realize that there’s nothing to deduce. It’s all face value.

“I can’t say you’re welcome because I can’t say that you’re particularly fortunate to have me as a friend,” Soobin says.

“No, I am. You’ve done a lot for me, and I just wanted you to know that.” Yeonjun fixes his eyes on the ground, on the raindrops forming puddles under his feet, mixing with the gasoline and the dirt.

Yeonjun hears Soobin take a step forward and then he feels him, the closeness of him. Too close for the rain to make its way between them.

“Soobin…”

His eyes have that scalding intensity that scares most people, but that Yeonjun learned to love. There’s so many things about Soobin that Yeonjun learned to love. His frowns, his smiles, the notes he constantly writes to himself that he always refuses to show him, the way he says his name, just on its own, like he’s so interesting of a topic that he doesn’t need to be connected to anything—Yeonjun’s getting lost in all these things when Soobin cups his face with one hand, gently, and kisses him.

It’s different from the kiss in the gym. No one’s watching. He’s not doing it to protect him, or to manipulate someone, or to make sure anyone sees. He’s doing it because he wants to.

The rain and the taste of him mix together. Coldness and warmth. The taste of all Yeonjun has wanted for days and days and days. The taste of salvation. Because that’s exactly what Soobin is. He picked him up out of the darkest place and put him in the light.

That’s what it tastes like.

Light.

Soobin breaks away and then, in the reflection of all the water around them, Yeonjun sees that Taehyun has stepped outside.

“Jeez, guys,” he says, smiling. “You’re making me look bad.”

“Get a room,” Sunoo concurs.

Then they walk past and disappear into the parking lot.

Soobin swears. “I thought that would do it. Congratulations, Yeonjun. I anticipate you rubbing it in for the next three days at a minimum.”

Yeonjun is motionless. He can’t even blink the rain from his eyes. His entire being is centered around the feeling on his lips.

“Yeonjun? Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” He says, slowly becoming awake. No. Falling asleep again. Yeonjun was awake when Soobin was kissing him. Now he’s only awake to the reason why he did it. Not because he wanted too. “Let’s go home.”

Oh the way back, Soobin seems to sense that something is wrong. He tries to chat, a momentous task for him, making comments about everything from the street lamps to what he observed about Taehyun’s family history.

But Yeonjun doesn’t make one remark back.

|||

At home, Yeonjun tries to do homework. He can’t concentrate. He tries to watch Parks and Recreation. It’s not making him laugh. He opens three different books and tosses them on the floor in quick succession. Eventually he sticks his head under his pillow, making a little cave with just enough room to breathe.

“It doesn’t matter because I don’t love him,” He whispers to himself, not caring how much he’s lying. “It doesn’t matter. I’m living with him. I get to see him every day. That’s enough.”

Yeonjun rolls onto his back, pressing the pillow against his mouth. “He doesn’t need to love me. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.”

Soobin’s his best friend. That’s more precious to Yeonjun than anything. He shouldn’t be greedy. He shouldn’t want more than that. It doesn’t matter how starved that kiss made him for something real.

It’s nearly midnight and he should have gone to bed ages ago when Soobin knocks on his door. He never knocks.

“Come in, what’s up?” Yeonjun says. No matter what weird feelings are in him, what strange hungers he has, they don’t make him uncomfortable around Soobin. Nothing can do that.

But Soobin looks somewhat uncomfortable as he enters—Soobin, who spits out every uncomfortable truth without flinching.

Yeonjun sits up, closing the geometry textbook he hadn’t been reading. There’s something off about him. “Hey. You bored? Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No. Not bored.” Soobin hangs near the door like he’s not sure where in the room he should be.

“If you came to try and argue with me about smoking in the house again, it’s not going to…”

Yeonjun trails off. Soobin’s come close to him. He sits down next to him on the bed, making it creak slightly. Something is happening.

“May I conduct an experiment?” Soobin asks softly.

“Depends. Does it involve the microwave—”

And then Yeonjun stops talking, because Soobin leans over and kisses him for the second time that night.

It’s not like either of the ones before, it’s truly for real this time. It’s not dramatic. It’s gentle, so gentle Yeonjun melts into the warmth. He could live a thousand years inside that kiss. It feels like a gift.

And when Soobin pulls back, his expression is absolutely unreadable.

“I understand now,” he says, mostly to himself.

And he leaves the room without looking back at Yeonjun.

|||

That night, Yeonjun has the same dream.

It’s the one he has had a million times before. Every time, Soobin stands under that almost-dark brown sky, next to the sea, and asks him to trust him. Every time, Yeonjun says yes. And every time…

Yeonjun wakes up sweating, tangled in his blankets. The darkness in his room is overwhelming. Suffocating. The green flash of the alarm clock is the only thing to break it. Three a.m. And the date—

The date.

How could he have forgotten the date?

He has been trying so hard to forget, that’s how. Soobin’s the perfect distraction from all the dark things, so bright he breaks them into little shadowy pieces. But now Yeonjun can’t forget. He can’t be alone in his room with the fact of what day it is.

Yeonjun disentangles himself from his bed and gets up, nearly tripping. He can’t go to his mother’s room. It’s true that Soobin’s presence had begun to disintegrate the ice between them, but he still can’t go to her tonight, of all nights.

Yeonjun goes downstairs carefully, treading on the edge of each stair to stop them from creaking. Everything is silent. Soobin’s asleep when he opens the door to his room.

Yeonjun has seen him asleep before—lying on the couch, or on his bed after a movie. But in his own bed, it’s different. More private. He sleeps as elegantly as he lives. Yeonjun suddenly feels like crying, even though he doesn’t know why. He wouldn’t do this on any other night. Wouldn’t be so weak. But tonight—and with the kiss…

He folds himself into bed beside Soobin, slipping under the covers like a ghost. Soobin’s breath is sweet and warm. For a minute, Yeonjun thinks he won’t wake up, but then he hears him call out his name ever so quietly.

“Yeonjun.”

Soobin never makes anything a question if he can avoid it. To him, it’s always an observation.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” Yeonjun whispers. “I had a dream about you.”

“A bad dream, judging by the way you’re sweating.” Soobin’s voice is heavy with sleep.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.”

Yeonjun almost asks what the kiss was about. What experiment he’d meant. He comes so close. But lying there with Soobin is the most peaceful thing, and he doesn’t want to disturb it.

Soobin adjusts himself so that their foreheads are almost touching, so that all Yeonjun can see are his eyes. “I died in the dream, clearly.”

“You always do,” Yeonjun murmurs. There’s no sound but the clock ticking and their hushed voices. “You ask me to trust you and then you die. And then you tell me I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

“Your dream me sounds almost as unpleasant as the real me.”

Yeonjun smiles.

“But I told you I wasn’t going to die.” And then Soobin slides his arm over Yeonjun’s back, drawing him close. “Only stupid people die.”

Yeonjun almost tells him then. But he doesn’t. A calm as deep as the ocean, as warm as the bed they’re in, settles over him as he realizes that he will tell him, though—tomorrow. On the worst day ever. He’ll tell him something luminous and important on the worst day ever, and maybe the light of it will drive his demons away.

They fall asleep like that.

Chapter Text

(written on the back of a sheet of unfinished algebra homework)

Conducted an experiment.

Obtained a result.

Final mystery solved. (i.e. how I feel about him.)

I’ll tell him when the sun comes up.

|||

“Pass the milk, Soobin.”

“You pass the milk.”

“I would, if I were anywhere near the milk.” Eventually Yeonjun gives up and gets up, rounding the table, and grabbing the milk from beside Soobin’s arm, giving him an irritated jostle. “And finish your toast.”

“You finish your toast,” Soobin says, idly flipping a page in his book.

“Your sass is really inspired this morning.”

“Look at you two,” Yeonjun’s mother says, sliding another two eggs onto Yeonjun’s plate before taking her seat at the breakfast table. Soobin’s in the place Beomgyu always used to be, closest to the cabinets. “Just like brothers.”

Soobin’s eyes slide up over his book a fraction to meet his. Yeonjun’s sure both of them are remembering the kiss. Not so much like brothers, then.

He’s going to tell Soobin. He’s going to tell him today.

He’s not scared. Nothing can change this. Eating breakfast together, walking to school together, arguing about nothing, teasing him about being wrong—it’s as permanent as the sky. As puzzle pieces, they fit together and they won’t come undone. They’re Yeonjun and Soobin. Soobin and Yeonjun. Nothing Yeonjun would say could break that. Not even the thing he’s going to say today.

At worst, Soobin will laugh.

At best…

After a minute, his mother disappears into the living room, probably to get her purse. She hasn’t said anything about what day it is yet. Keeping her promise, then. Yeonjun wants to get what day it is out of his head so badly that he leans forward, his heart electrified. There’s no point in waiting. “Listen, Soobin, there’s something I want to say…”

He looks up, but it’s too late—Mom’s already back. Without her purse.

And she’s holding a cake.

“Happy birthday, Yeonjun!” she squeals.

The words on his tongue disintegrate into ash. “I said I didn’t want to celebrate it.”

Soobin drops his book. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.”

His mother pats his shoulder. Her eyes are sad. The cake has no candles, at least. “I know you didn’t want me to do anything, but I just felt… he would have wanted you to celebrate.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?” Soobin asks sharply.

Yeonjun sighs. he should have known it was too much to hope for, that she would agree not to make a big deal out of it. “It’s been a year,” Yeonjun says to Soobin.

“Since your last birthday, yes.”

“Since Beomgyu…” And then his throat closes up, even though it’s been a year, even though his throat should have stopped doing that by now.

Something passes across Soobin’s face. “He died on your birthday.”

“Yeah, he—we were—he was taking me out to dinner.”

“Let’s cut the cake.” Mom hastily wipes her eyes and slices them pieces laden with chocolate frosting and little white roses. “It’s been a full year since you were old enough to buy cigarettes, Yeonjun! Although you better not have bought any, or I’ll ground you.”

He glances at Soobin—Yeonjun knows for a fact that he currently has two packs hidden in his bag, and he's expecting a smirk, but nothing comes. Soobin’s expression is odd. Yeonjun can’t quite pinpoint it. Without eating his cake, Soobin stands up.

“Wait for me!” Yeonjun reaches for his shoes.

“Can’t. I have something to take care of.”

“Like what? You’ll be late.”

“Well, I have to go get you a stupid birthday present, don’t I?” Soobin snaps, grabbing his coat and bag, and then he’s out the door before Yeonjun can protest or tell him he doesn’t want a present.

“It’s so cute when he’s irritated.” His mother eats her cake thoughtfully. “Wish he hadn’t dashed away. I took today off, I was going to give you both a ride to school.”

Yeonjun slumps in his chair. “You can still take me.”

“Oh, I know.” She pushes aside her cake, wrinkling her nose at it. “You were right about him. He’s a nice boy. I think I approve.”

“Approve of what?” Yeonjun didn’t eat his toast.

“When are you going to tell him?” His mother rests her chin on her hands playfully in a way that reminds Yeonjun of Beomgyu. “That you’re in lo—”

Yeonjun shoves the rest of his breakfast at her so quickly that a sausage flies off the plate. “Eat this. I’m not hungry.”

“You suit each other. You really do. I’m honestly quite glad he moved here.” She looks so…relieved. “He was just the thing you needed.”

Yeonjun pushes his chair back and leaps up. “I think I’ll walk to school after all.”

“Tell him soon,” she calls as he races out the door. “Nobody lives forever.”

|||

Soobin misses first period.

Yeonjun doesn’t see him until second period, when he walks in mid-lecture. He pays no attention to Mr. Kim’s complaints, sauntering to the back of the room to take his seat next to Yeonjun.

Yeonjun: For my birthday I want you to stop missing classes.

Soobin: There is such a thing as asking too much.

Soobin: Your present’s at home, by the way. I’ll give it to you after school.

Yeonjun: I told you I didn’t want anything.

Soobin: It’s tradition. You know how I feel about traditions.

Yeonjun: You hate traditions.

Soobin: Exactly. I have made it a tradition to break all traditions.

Soobin: So I’m breaking tradition by giving you a present.

Yeonjun: You just gave me a headache.

Soobin: The headache isn’t your present.

Yeonjun hesitates and starts to type out the words: By the way, there was something I wanted to tell you toda

The bell screeches, breaking his concentration. Everyone gets up and mobs the hallway at once. Yeonjun stuffs his phone back in his bag as Mr. Kim calls out next week’s homework assignment and nobody pays attention.

Soobin is silent until they step into the cafeteria, which is as crowded as it always is, people fighting for the best tables by the window. Then he says abruptly, “After school, let’s go to the graveyard. Pay our respects. Leave flowers. All that.”

“That’s another one of those tradition things you don’t like.” Yeonjun gets in line, pulling a tray off the stack for each of them. “Soobin, you don’t have to come. I was going to go by myself anyway. It’s pretty sentimental stuff, leaving flowers and whatever. Doesn’t seem like your thing.”

“I’m not going for him,” he says irritably. “I’m going for you.”

Yeonjun smiles down at his tray.

“And afterwards,” he mutters, “maybe we can go on one of those real dates you were mentioning. For your birthday.”

Yeonjun looks up at him. After a moment, Soobin grins uncertainly at him. A warmth starts in his chest and moves all the way to his forehead.

Midway through an attempt to choke down a particularly horrifying lasagna, Yeonjun gives up, setting down his fork and leaning forward. They’re sitting at their own table, their little oasis in the melee, and there’s no one close enough to hear but him. It’s time. “Listen, Soobin…”

“One moment, Yeonjun.”

And Soobin stands up.

“Soobin? What are you…”

“Attention, everyone!” he calls, his deep voice billowing out. No one else could get the attention of the jungle that is the school’s cafeteria just by shouting. Within five seconds, everyone’s fallen silent, all eyes riveted to him.

“I know most of you hate me,” he says, speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Actually, the amount of you that don’t hate me are likely statistically insignificant, so I’ll just say all of you hate me. Many of you also hate Choi Yeonjun, an attitude resulting from his connection to me, so I urge you, for this moment, to remember your opinion of him prior to said connection.”

Yeonjun has shrunk so far into his cafeteria seat that he might as well be part of the plastic. He will live out his days as a cafeteria table, graced by the butts of high schoolers.

“I consider most birthdays ludicrous because most people have not made such great contributions to the world that their entrance into it should be celebrated, but this is not the case with Choi Yeonjun. Yeonjun has helped many of you, whether you know it or not, and so I hope you will all join me in doing that stupid little singing thing people do on birthdays.”

“Soobin, no,” Yeonjun whispers, mortified. “No no no no no—”

Soobin inhales deeply. “Happy birthday to you—”

Yeonjun expects his voice to ring out into cold silence, but miraculously, almost everyone joins in. Training since toddlerhood to participate when someone sings the birthday song, he supposes. Either way, he wants to die.

“Happy birthday, Choi Yeonjun—”

He's going to murder Soobin. He’s going to buy a castle just so he can erect Soobin’s head on the battlements.

“Happy birthday to youuuu.” The last note draws out, there’s a few laughs, and within a minute, everyone is back to their regularly scheduled gossip.

“Intriguing.” Soobin sits back down. “I should do a study on the mass conditioning of people to harmonize with the birthday song. Essentially, it’s brainwashing. Yeonjun, do you think—Yeonjun?”

“I am going to kill you,” Yeonjun hisses.

“But that would ruin your birthday.” Soobin smirks.

“Really? Because I think it would make my birthday.” Yeonjun gets up, dumps the remnants of his food in the overflowing trash, and stalks out of the cafeteria. Soobin follows him.

Yeonjun is steaming. “I’m going to do something even worse for your birthday, you wait. When is it?”

“Five and a half weeks ago.”

Yeonjun stops in front of the English department. “You didn’t tell me.”

“It was when you weren’t speaking to me.”

“Oh.” His heart does a funny twist. “I’ll have to do something for you then. Hey, I know—if you’re serious about this date thing, we’ll make it for both our birthdays.”

“If you’re meaning we do things each of us wants to do, I’ve been fancying a trip to the morgue to collect data on—”

“No.”

“Just dinner, then.” Soobin clears his throat. “I know a better place than Adolfo’s. Parisian-style. You’ll like it.”

Yeonjun pauses. The hallways are still empty. The only other human being in sight is the freshman biology teacher, sleeping at his desk in the office across the hall. Now. He can do it now. “Soobin? There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you all day, and I just want to get it out—“

The bell shrieks again, interrupting Yeonjun and scattering his concentration.

“What?” Soobin’s watching him closely as people begin to trickle out of the cafeteria, complaining about the classes they have next. “What did you want to tell me?”

Yeonjun loses his courage. It slips through his fingers.

“I’ll tell you during our date.” He smiles and casts around for some way to change the subject. “So what was the contribution I made?”

“Hm?” Soobin steps to the side to avoid the flow of traffic.

Yeonjun does the same. “You said that most birthdays weren’t worth celebrating because most people hadn’t made important contributions to the world. So what’s my contribution?

“I have a genius IQ,” Soobin says. “That’s a fairly rare occurrence and my impact on the world will undoubtedly be large, whether it be negative or positive. I’ve always thought I would make a fairly efficient criminal.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“But I won’t be. You’ve made me different, Yeonjun. You’ve made me…” He furrows his brow as if he is still confused by the concept. “Human.”

“No, Soobin.” Yeonjun can’t help it. He reaches up and touches Soobin’s face. And for a brief second, it’s like everyone else fades out and they’re alone. “You were always human.”

Then the people fade back in, so many of them rushing to class, and they have to break apart. Late. He’ll be late. It’s Thursday. He doesn’t have third period with Soobin on Thursdays.

Yeonjun smiles. “I’ll see you after school.”

Soobin smiles back. “Happy birthday, Yeonjun.”

|||

Third period today is unbearably boring. Yeonjun spends most of it staring out the window but not seeing anything. He’s going on a real date. With Choi Soobin. He has to thank his mother for telling him about his birthday.

He also has to think of something exciting to do with him after the date. Just dinner won’t be thrilling enough for Soobin. Yeonjun wants him to remember tonight. Maybe they can break into the pool at the gym. Or see if there are any more notes for Ares. Although the notes for Ares had essentially stopped. Murder makes people a little more nervous about getting a stranger involved in their personal lives.

The light filtering in through the glass is so warm. Yeonjun lays his head down on the desk. Maybe he’ll just sleep for the rest of the period. Doze off. When he wakes up, he’ll be with Soobin.

It’s been a year, Beomgyu. And things are finally okay.

Yeonjun’s almost asleep when a noise blasts him awake.

At first he thinks Mr. Lee, the third period teacher, has slammed a book on his desk to wake him up. But when he opens his eyes, Mr. Lee is still at the front of the classroom, behind his desk. Holding his pointer frozen in the air. He looks—terrified.

Yeonjun sits up. What was that noise? It sounded like a car backfiring.

“What the hell was that?” Someone in the front row asks.

“That sounded like…”

BLAM. The noise, again. Closer. It’s so loud that he flinches.

In another part of the school, someone screams.

Then someone else.

And then he realizes what the noise is.

“Everyone remain calm.” Mr. Lee’s voice is shaking furiously. His whole body is shaking. Yeonjun wanted to grab him and make him stop. “There’s protocol for this. All of you, get to the back of the classroom as far away from the door you can, sit on the ground, remain still. Silence your cell phones.”

And he crosses to the door and locks it.

“Mr. Lee,” a girl is stammering, her voice alone in the silence. “What’s going on?”

A guy in the center of the classroom stands up. “That was a gunshot. Those were gunshots.”

Someone bursts into tears and the word gunshots reverberates around the room. Reverberates through Yeonjun. It gets inside his muscles and numbs them. One other word joins it: Soobin.

And then someone says the one thing everyone is thinking.

“It’s a school shooting—”

Pandemonium.

“Stay calm, everyone, stay calm,” Mr. Lee is chanting over the avalanche of panic. A school shooting. Yeonjun knows about school shootings. But they aren’t supposed to happen here. Not in his town.

The gunshots had come from the left side of the school.

Soobin’s in Science.

The Science classroom is in the left side of the school.

Yeonjun types as fast as he can, making so many typos it takes forever to come out right. Where are you? Are you okay?

Mr. Lee is closing the shades one by one, dialing 911 with his free hand.

Yeonjun: Soobin?

“Everyone stay very quiet,” Mr. Lee is saying, guiding his terrified, whispering, panicking classmates toward the wall. “We don’t want to draw attention.”

Yeonjun: Soobin, I’m coming to find you.

This is stupid. This is very, very stupid. It doesn’t matter. He promised Minhyuk.

“Choi Yeonjun! Stop!” Mr. Lee suddenly shout-whispers, but it’s too late, Yeonjun’s halfway across the room. He unlocks the door and he’s out into the hall before anyone can stop him.

They still have to go on their date.

The hallway is silent and empty. Like a crypt. All the doors closed. Only the faint sound of someone crying hangs in the air. It gets inside Yeonjun and turns his blood to water. He should hide. He should get back inside the classroom. He should—

He can’t.

His phone screen flashes.

Soobin: YEONJUN

Yeonjun: Soobin? Where are you?

Soobin: STAY WHERE YOU ARE

Soobin never uses caps.

Yeonjun: Are you okay? I left class, I’m looking for you.

Soobin: TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE

But Yeonjun doesn’t type anything back, because there are footsteps behind him.

He doesn’t turn around. He runs. The right side of the school. He has to lead the shooter toward the right side of the school. Away from Soobin.

The footsteps behind him quicken. He glances behind him but he doesn’t see a face, doesn’t see a body. Just a hand. Holding a gun.

He runs.

He can’t die. He’s going on a date with Soobin.

Neither of them can die. That’s not allowed.

Yeonjun’s faster than whoever it is. They’re not running. Just walking quickly. Yeonjun has left them behind. He turns a corner—the janitor’s closet is left half-open—he ducks into it, closing the door behind him. Be silent. Be still. His breathing is so ragged. He looks through the slats in the door. The shooter rounds the corner. It’s a guy. He walks straight past.

Yeonjun still can’t see his face.

Just the gun.

His heart is going to fall apart. It’s beating too fast. It’ll stop if it keeps beating that fast. School shooting, one fatality: student dies of a heart attack in the janitor’s closet. It’s dark in here, a mop handle resting on his shoulder, a bucket digging into his ankle. His hands are ice-cold and trembling so hard he can barely pull out his phone.

Soobin: YEONJUN, I’M COMING TO FIND YOU.

Yeonjun: No, stay hiddne.

Soobin: You’re typing badly. Are you hurt?

Yeonjun: Just scared

Soobin: Don’t be scared. I’m coming to find you.

Don’t, he’s in the halls Yeonjun types and then clutches the phone to his chest, trying to breathe. Soobin is fine. He hasn’t been shot. Everything is still fine as long as he hasn’t been shot.

How long has it been? Two minutes? Three? Are the police already outside?

Yesterday, he would have had third period with Soobin.

But he can’t stay where he is, hidden, safe. He has to find Soobin. Everything will be okay as long as Yeonjun’s with him. That’s been true ever since he moved here. He just has to find him. He opens the door a crack. Breathe. Breathe. He can’t see the shooter. He pushes the door open wider and escapes.

He’s going to find Soobin, and they’re going to hide together until the police comes, and then they’ll visit Beomgyu’s grave, and then they’ll go on a date.

Yeonjun retraces his steps, heading back toward the science wing. Every classroom door is still shut and locked, the shades pulled down. The silence is deadly. Poisonous. There hasn’t been a gunshot since the second one. Maybe the shooter is out of bullets. Maybe this is all a nightmare.

Footsteps again, and then someone is rounding the corner in front of him and he doesn’t have time to hide—

But it’s him.

“Yeonjun.” Soobin strides forward and Yeonjun has just enough time to see how pale he is before he grabs him, squeezing Soobin so tightly it chokes all the fear out of him. But just for a second. Because Soobin lets go and seizes Yeonjun’s hand instead. “We need to hide.”

“I t-told you n-not to come out.” Yeonjun’s teeth are chattering. Like they were after they jumped into the ocean.

“Don’t talk. He’ll hear us.”

Soobin pulls him to the nearest classroom, holding his arm around him like a shield, and knocks twice, quietly but sharply. “It’s not the shooter. It’s Choi Soobin and Choi Yeonjun. The shooter is currently on the other side of the school. If you’ll lift up the shade you’ll see we don’t have weapons. Let us in.”

The corner of the shade lifts and the terrified face of Ms. Kwon, the sub they had the day Soobin tried to break up with him, appears. The doorknob twists. “Get in, quickly,” she manages, eyes rolling wildly toward each end of the hallway.

They dart inside. It’s a sophomore class. The students are clumped against the back wall, some crying, some covering their faces. Four girls are sitting in a circle, holding hands with their eyes closed.

“H-hey.” A round-faced boy points at Soobin. “Isn’t that—the guy who’s supposed to have killed—you let him in—!”

“You idiot,” his friend, a girl, hisses. “The shooter’s probably the one who killed that senior! Shut up!”

Soobin guides Yeonjun to the far corner of the classroom and sits down, pulling him after him. He puts his hands on either side of his face, gently. The sense of warmth kills his shiver.

“Are we going to die?” someone moans.

“Listen to me, all of you,” Soobin says, raising his voice enough for everyone in the classroom to hear but not enough for the sound to leak into the hallway. He doesn’t move his hands. “The door is locked. No one’s getting in. It’s a matter of minutes until the police assess whether or not it’s a hostage situation and neutralize the shooter.”

Some of the weakness trickles out of Yeonjun’s knees.

“What if he does have hostages—” Ms. Kwon stammers.

“He doesn’t. If he wanted hostages, he’d have picked a classroom and stayed in one place. He’s on the move.” Soobin glances toward the door. “He’s looking for someone.”

“Soobin.” Yeonjun forces down the lump in his throat and wraps his fingers around Soobin’s wrist. “I saw him. He was right behind me.”

“Did you see who it was?” Soobin’s very close to him. Their knees are touching. He’s still cradling Yeonjun’s face. Yeonjun doesn’t think Soobin realizes how tenderly he’s doing it.

“I didn’t. It’s a guy, though. I think. What if the person he’s looking for—”

And then Soobin presses his forehead to his, creating a small warm space just between the two of them. “I am going to be fine. You are going to be fine. Do you know why?”

“No,” Yeonjun whispers.

Soobin half-smiles. Yeonjun can see every line that it makes on his skin. “Because it’s your birthday.”

“That’s not very rational.”

“Being rational is boring, sometimes.”

Yeonjun’s phone buzzes and he sits back, severing their connection—he doesn’t usually get texts from anyone but Soobin, what if it’s important? What if it’s his mother? But it’s Kang Taehyun.

Taehyun: are you okay??? I’m texting all my friends. where are you??

Yeonjun: I’m fine, I’m in the biology room.

Taehyun: are you with Soobin?

Yeonjun starts to type back yes, but he stops.

Why does Taehyun care where Soobin is?

The coldness seeps back into Yeonjun’s blood.

“Soobin…”

Three loud pounding noises split the silence. Someone’s knocking on the door, not quietly like Soobin had done, but desperately. “Please, someone let me in! Someone, quick!”

At first Yeonjun doesn’t recognize the voice, it’s so loud and panicked. But then he does.

And all the breath sinks out of him as he understands everything.

“Wait!”

But Ms. Kwon has already opened the door.

Kang Taehyun walks in, holding his gun in front of him as casually as if he were offering it to them.

“Did I tell you Taehyun asked me out?”

“He did what?”

They’re in the cafeteria. Yeonjun looks up. Soobin is roundly ignoring his pizza. Yeonjun didn’t expect the level of interest in his voice. No, not just interest. Something else is there, too. “The other day, right before you stopped Chiwoo being a dick to me. I guess Taehyun’s not judging me over the photo thing.”

“Did you say yes?” There’s still something in his voice. Something Yeonjun can’t quite name.

“No,” Yeonjun says. “Taehyun’s an okay guy. But I’m not interested.”

“I wasn’t certain, since you agreed to that request for Ares…”

“Nope. Definitely not interested.”

“Good,” Soobin says absently, toying with his phone.

“Why good?”

But he doesn’t reply.

Taehyun is smiling.

The same way he smiled at Yeonjun at the graveyard.

“I thought subs were supposed to read the entire safety pamphlet. You’re really not supposed to unlock your door during a school shooting, Ms. Kwon.”

The wave of terror in the classroom is like something Yeonjun could reach out and touch. It’s like another creature in the room with them. The sensation of so many people realizing how fragile they are, how easily their hearts could stop pumping, how little it would take for the blood to spill out.

A horror is growing inside him.

Yeonjun told him where they were.

Soobin is staring at Taehyun now. “Ah,” he says.

“Is that all you have to say?” Taehyun cocks the gun in Soobin’s direction. Soobin doesn’t flinch. But Yeonjun flinches so hard it hurts and Soobin presses his hand against the small of his back. Taehyun notices. His jaw twitches. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner. All your investigating.”

“I did figure it out.” Soobin’s eyes are steady. So steady. “I was right after all, wasn’t I, Yeonjun? Told you I’m never wrong.”

The horror inside Yeonjun is crystalizing, splintering, breaking through every part of him. He has to find a way to freeze this. Freeze time.

You’re a good brother, Taehyun had said.

And Yeonjun had said to him—

It’d be easier if he was gone. If everyone was gone.

“I see.” Taehyun leans against the whiteboard, tapping the gun lightly on his knee. “When did you figure it out? This morning? Must have been pretty recently.”

“Yesterday,” Soobin says. “Although I wasn’t sure. You convinced me I was wrong. No one’s ever done that before. You’re quite a good actor.”

“Thank you.”

Yeonjun is a millisecond away from cracking open and screaming. What is Soobin doing, chatting with him like that?

Then he gets it.

He’s buying time.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun says.

“Hm?” Soobin’s sprawled on the floor, reading something that, for the millionth time, isn’t homework.

“Do your homework.”

“Boring.”

“You need to get good grades.”

“Why?”

Yeonjun is very tempted to dump his glass of juice on Soobin’s head. “Because you need to get into a good college so you can have a good career.”

“Boring.” Soobin turns a page.

“You need to get a good career so you can make money for your retirement and move to the countryside or something. Take up beekeeping. Whatever.”

“Retirement?” Soobin’s mouth twists up into a lazy smile. “Yeonjun, do you really think I’ll last that long?”

“What?”

“I prefer not to languish to my end with my mind gradually diminished by age. I choose to live efficiently. Die young while I’m still me.”

Yeonjun tosses his homework folder aside, shaken. “You’ll still be you when you’re old, Soobin.”

Soobin catches Yeonjun’s homework folder. “I’m not me without my mind.”

“You’re more than your mind,” Yeonjun says angrily. “You can’t just decide to die once you stop being as smart. You have to think about the people who love you.”

“And who’s that?” Soobin rolls on his back, propping his head up with his elbow, eyes following Yeonjun with mild curiosity.

“Do your homework,” is all Yeonjun says.

“Let me make sure I have it all straight,” Soobin starts. “You were in love with Yeonjun’s brother, Beomgyu. Obsessed, in fact. When we were cleaning out his room, I discovered several crumpled love letters. Crumpled, meaning he didn’t return your affections. They weren’t signed, but I’m certain they were from you.”

Taehyun’s face hardens. “You cleaned out his room?”

Soobin smiles. “Yes. Re-painted it. In fact, I moved in.”

Yeonjun moves slightly closer to Soobin, his hand hovering over his wrist. On the surface, Taehyun hasn’t changed. But something underneath his skin has shifted. There’s a rage emanating from him that reminds Yeonjun of when he had approached Soobin’s burning house and felt an almost physical resistance from the heat.

“When Beomgyu died, you were heartbroken,” Soobin continues conversationally, but his fingers slip into Yeonjun’s and then they’re tightly holding hands. “You couldn’t just brush away your feelings for him. They were too powerful. Nor could you accept his death. So you transferred your emotions to Yeonjun, turning him into a Beomgyu-substitute.”

There’s a very slight tremor in Taehyun’s hand now. The hand holding the gun. “You don’t know how similar they are. They act different, but deep down they’re the same.”

“No,” Soobin shakes his head. “Yeonjun is unique.”

“Careful.” And Taehyun levels the gun at Soobin’s head.

Someone in the range of students lets out a choked sob. Yeonjun is thinking so fast he’s almost nauseous. Soobin always solves everything by thinking. Yeonjun has to stop this—but how? Could he tackle Taehyun? Would there be enough time?

“I’m always careful,” Soobin says.

“I have a question for you, Soobin.” Yeonjun starts.

They’re walking to school. It’s a cold day, and Yeonjun wrapped a scarf around his face. He tugs it down to talk. It’s something he’s been thinking about for weeks now.

“I have an answer for you, Yeonjun.”

“Why me?”

Soobin doesn’t stop walking. “Why you what?”

“I mean—” Yeonjun does his best to keep his voice casual, like he’s not asking anything important at all, when in reality it’s one of the most important things he’s ever said out loud. “Why did you pick me? To be your friend, I mean.”

“If you’re assuming I had a range of choices, you’re rather unobservant.”

“But before me, you didn’t have friends, right? That’s what you said. And you didn’t mind it. You liked it, even. You don’t like people, you don’t like talking to them or anything. But you talk to me.”

“True,” Soobin says.

“Well, why?” Yeonjun is starting to get annoyed. “You only like fascinating things. You hate boring things. I’m boring, I’m not interesting at all, I’m basically ordinary. So why is it different with me?”

Soobin speaks straight ahead to the road. “You’re the most unique person I’ve ever met, Choi Yeonjun.”

Yeonjun laughs.

“Because you like me,” Soobin says. “You care about me. You said so. You’re the first person I’ve ever met with that unusual condition. So of course I found you interesting. You were an excellent experiment.”

“Experiment.” Yeonjun tries not to show how badly that hurts. “So I’m just an experiment.”

“You were,” Soobin says.

“Were?”

“Not anymore.”

“You realized Yeonjun was Ares, of course.” Soobin is still gripping his hand. “You’ve been stalking him, for months. You saw him, repeatedly taking notes from that locker. And you thought you’d try a little trick. Your relationship with Huening Kai, one of your lucid attempts to distract yourself from your obsession, wasn’t working and you wanted to break it off. He was reluctant to allow his first relationship to be severed, however. You also couldn’t bear to be separated from Yeonjun any longer. So you tried to kill two birds with one stone—the note to Ares.”

“It worked.” Suddenly Taehyun’s eyes are bright and faraway. Bile rises in Yeonjun’s throat and Soobin moves his hand from his back to his shoulder. “He came to me.”

“Yes, and you had that picture sent to Kai’s club’s twitter account so he’d break it off with you. He probably gave you the password one night so you could take over his tweeting duties when he was busy. It was a perfect way to make it seem like someone else had sent him the photo. Except it backfired. Kai noticed who was in the photo. And when you realized how badly Kai had hurt Yeonjun with his attempt at revenge, you killed him in a moment of rage.”

Taehyun’s teeth are gritted. “That fucking…he wasn’t supposed to send out the photo. He was never supposed to do that.”

“I was angry myself,” Soobin says.

Taehyun’s eyes meet Yeonjun’s for the first time. It makes him feel unclean. Taehyun takes a step toward him. “I’m sorry. When I saw the way people were treating you, I…I took care of him. I had to get revenge for you. Help you.”

Yeonjun can’t move. Soobin draws him into him, like he’d done in the movie theater, but this time it’s real. His hand covers Yeonjun’s collarbone.

Yeonjun had wanted so badly for it to be real.

“But by then you’d heard that Yeonjun and I were supposedly dating,” Soobin continues. “And you couldn’t have that either. So you left me a note and set it up so that I would be found with Kai’s body and blamed for his death. You were counting on Yeonjun believing it, like everyone else. Another example of how you don’t know Choi Yeonjun at all.”

“I know him.” The rage is back, the rage that Taehyun had kept hidden so well every time he ever talked to Yeonjun before this. “I know him better than anyone else.”

“Not better than me.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Another sob breaks free of someone in the back of the room. Yeonjun’s mind is stuttering. Stuttering to a halt. He doesn’t know what to do. There has to be some way. Some way.

Soobin smiles.

“We’ll see about that.”

Minhyuk calls one night, a week after Soobin had moved into Beomgyu’s old room.

“How’s he doing?” the drawling voice asks.

“I don’t know.” It’s late, and Yeonjun is pretty sure everyone in the house is asleep, but he keeps his voice low just in case. “He’s Soobin. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

“Is he eating?”

“Yeah.”

“Sleeping?”

“Well—yeah.”

“Shooting up?”

Yeonjun splutters. “What?”

“He does, on occasion.”

“He asked me for drugs once, but I thought he was kidding.”

“My brother rarely kids. There have been periods of time where he was more of a catastrophe than you, Choi Yeonjun. When he was sixteen, for example. He’ll crash and burn again. I’m just waiting on the sidelines for it to happen.”

“I told you I won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Yes, I remember. Just what a good little human shield should say.”

Yeonjun laughs nervously. “When you say that, it sounds like I’m supposed to take a bullet for him or something.”

“Would you?”

Yeonjun doesn’t reply.

“Soobin,” Yeonjun breathes. He has to tell him. He has to tell him that they need to make a plan. But all Yeonjun does is hold his fingers lightly against Soobin’s skin. Like he’s making sure he’s still here.

“Then you burned down my house, obviously. Hoping I was inside. Again, Choi Yeonjun was the variable you hadn’t anticipated. He’d bothered me so much about smoking in the house that I’d gone out for a walk to have a cigarette. And your plans backfired for the second time. It only brought us closer. I moved in with him.”

“Stop looking so smug.” A fleck of spittle leaves Taehyun’s lips. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how close you are to him, get it? I’m going to shoot you in the head.”

Every word is a wire cutting into Yeonjun’s throat. Where are the police? The police must be here by now. Soobin is out of revelations. They don’t have any more time.

“I’m going to kill all of you,” Taehyun whispers. “Everyone in this whole school, for how you treated Yeonjun. He’s better than all of you. All of you.”

“I agree,” Soobin says.

Taehyun moves forward. The gun held out. “You’re first.”

No. No. Each pore of Yeonjun screams that word. He stands up, cutting himself off from every part of Soobin that he was touching. His body is liquid, but somehow he forces it to work. He can’t be scared. Can’t look scared. “Wait. Wait, Taehyun.”

“This is for your own good,” Taehyun says, still looking only at Soobin. With dead shark eyes. “He’s bad for you. He’s evil. Listen to the way he talks to people. He’s a monster.”

“We’re similar in that respect,” Soobin says. “Monsters who only care about Choi Yeonjun.”

Taehyun’s finger twitches on the trigger. “Then I guess the world doesn’t need two of us.”

“Wait.” The word rips out of Yeonjun in a ragged sob. But no. He has to force all the terror and desperation out of his voice. Cool and calm. Ice. Like Soobin. He takes a step forward.

“Thank you, Taehyun,” Yeonjun says shakily. “Thank you for this. I never realized how much you cared about me. Now I know.”

Taehyun’s eyes flicker. His finger remains motionless on the trigger.

“If I’d known,” Yeonjun says, his mind churning, “I would have felt differently. I do feel differently, now. I wouldn’t have dated Soobin if I’d known.”

“You never should have dated him at all.”

“You’re right. You’re right. But now it’s okay. Because you’re so much better than he is, Taehyun. I don’t want him at all. I don’t care about him anymore.” Yeonjun hides his hands behind his back so Taehyun can’t see how badly they’re trembling. “So you don’t need to kill him.”

It had been the worst day ever.

Two people had made jokes about the photo to Yeonjun in the hallway. He’d had to scribble over CHOI SOOBIN = MURDERER graffiti in the bathroom, and then it was rewritten when he went back again later. He got a bad grade on a test he’d studied well for. Before Soobin had moved here, he would have gotten home after a day like this and gone to bed. At three p.m.

Now he goes straight to Soobin’s room.

Yeonjun opens the door and he’s struck by the most beautiful music he has ever heard. Soobin’s lounging on the bed, playing his violin. All the anger and frustration dissipates from Yeonjun like smoke.

Soobin stops playing. “Was wondering when you’d get home.”

“This is when normal people get home from school. When they don’t skip.” But there’s no irritation in hm anymore. He sits on the edge of Soobin’s bed. “Don’t stop playing.”

After ten more minutes of the music, Yeonjun feels like he has been wiped clean.

“Who was that by?” Yeonjun asks as Soobin puts the violin away.

“Me.”

“You wrote that?”

“Yes, I wrote it about—” But Soobin doesn’t complete his sentence.

Yeonjun can feel Soobin’s eyes on him. But he doesn’t look back at him. He doesn’t dare to. If he does, he’ll break.

He won’t break.

“I really want to be alone with you, Taehyun.” He can’t stop his voice from trembling, but he turns it into a different kind of tremble. One of longing. “Here. In this room.”

“I’m not stupid,” Taehyun says. But his eyes are locked on Yeonjun’s. And no matter how much they make him feel like he’s about to vomit, he doesn’t look away from Taehyun’s stare.

“I know. I know you’re not stupid. You’re smart, that’s how you know the real me. And the real me just wants to be alone with you in this room.”

“I’ll kill them, then we’ll be alone. It’s like you wanted. They’ll be gone.”

Yeonjun bites his tongue until it bleeds, and the pain sharpens him. “No, that’ll—that’ll take too long. Send them out in the hall. We’ll deal with them later. First I have things I want to talk to you about. We can stay in here as long as you want. You can do anything you want to me.”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin says.

“Shut up.” Yeonjun’s voice cracks.

“You know what I think?” Taehyun asks, his tone totally even.

“What?”

“I think you’re trying to make it so they have time to get away.” Taehyun smiles at him warmly. “That’s very admirable of you, Yeonjun. That’s why I love you so much. You’re selfless. But they hurt you, and I can’t let them get away with that.”

He points the gun at Soobin’s forehead.

“I especially can’t let him get away with it.”

“No—no. No. He won’t.” Yeonjun’s chest is aching. He can’t breathe. “He won’t. Listen, Taehyun. Listen. Beomgyu told me something about you before he died. A secret.”

Something sinks in his face and lights up at the same time. For a second, the monster inside him is gone and he’s a child. “He did?”

“Yeah,” Yeonjun chokes. “Yeah. Something really important. And I’ll tell you what he said, but only if you send Soobin and everyone else out into the hallway right now without hurting them.”

Taehyun keeps the gun trained on Soobin, but his arm wavers. Finally, he inches backward and gestures at the door. “Everyone get out. Ms. Kwon, take everyone out into the hall.”

A shudder escapes Yeonjun. His vision blurs and for a second he thinks he’s going to pass out. There’s a flurry of hushed activity as Ms. Kwon begins shepherding the sophomores out the door.

“Except Soobin,” Taehyun says.

They’d woken up together that morning.

No nightmares. The first night in ages that Yeonjun hadn’t been jolted awake by the sight of Soobin bleeding in front him. He’s not used to what it feels like to open his eyes after a good night’s sleep.

And then he sees him.

Still asleep, the sunlight softening his face, wearing an expression of deep peace instead of his usual smirk or irritated frown or concentration.

He’s beautiful.

He is so very beautiful.

“I love you,” Yeonjun says. He just barely mouths the words. He knows Soobin doesn’t hear them. He’s sleeping. Yeonjun will tell him for real, later, after he wakes up, at the right time.

But for now, they can just be together in the morning sunlight from the window.

Everyone is gone except for the three of them.

“Well?” Taehyun is breathing heavily, waving the gun for emphasis. “What did Beomgyu say about me?”

“Soobin has to go too, Taehyun.” Yeonjun is stone. He is a prison for what’s inside him. He won’t let any of it escape.

Just like Taehyun won’t let Soobin escape.

“He’s different, Yeonjun.” Taehyun’s voice is wheedling now, almost pleading. “I can’t let him go. You understand, don’t you? He’s got this hold on you. I have to break it.”

Soobin stands up. Yeonjun hears it happen behind him.

No. Don’t.

Don’t move.

Don’t be here.

You said you would never be in the burning building again.

“Stay exactly where you are.” Taehyun’s words ice over in a millisecond.

He is by the door. Soobin and Yeonjun are against the wall. Too far for Yeonjun to reach Taehyun before he could fire. Too close for a shot to be anything but fatal.

“Taehyun,” Yeonjun whispers. The prison’s crumbling. “Please, don’t. Please, please don’t.”

“I thought you said you didn’t care about him.” Taehyun’s so cold.

“I don’t. Listen to me. I don’t.” Yeonjun is crying now. He’s shaking apart, the tears dripping down his cheeks. “Please, don’t do this. Just—just…wait…”

“I can be your Soobin,” Taehyun says. “And you can be my Beomgyu.”

“Yeonjun,” Soobin says quietly. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

Yeonjun looks at him. There’s no fear in Soobin’s expression. Only acceptance. Only kindness. There’s so much kindness in him as he smiles at Yeonjun. It burns apart the memory of every scowl, every smirk.

He’s beautiful.

“Hey, Taehyun,” Yeonjun manages through the tears. “It’s my birthday.”

“I know.” Taehyun cocks the gun. “And this is my present.”

“You think he should stay,” Yeonjun says, hope grabbing him by the throat.

“I have a proposition for you.”      

“Oh, another proposition.” Yeonjun hardly dares to breathe.

“I have told you I am far too busy to stay around here and watch him every second of every day. What’s more, if I did so, he would probably put himself in reckless situations merely to infuriate me. No. Someone else needs to look after him.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t protect him.”

“That was before you ran into a burning building on his behalf. At the very least, I know you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for him. You’ll have a minimum of one use as a human shield.”

“You don’t care about me at all, do you?” Yeonjun asks.

“Not at all,” Minhyuk says easily.

“But you care about Soobin.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m okay with you.” Yeonjun puts out his hand for Minhyuk to shake. “I’ll protect him if you let him stay.”

Minhyuk fingers close, viselike, on Yeonjun’s wrist. “If anything happens to him, it’s your fault. It will be your burden to bear.”

“I won’t let anything happen.”

He won’t.

Yeonjun moves just as the noise explodes out of thin air.

It’s so loud.

It shatters everything.

Yeonjun closes his eyes against it, but he feels it as if it had cut straight into him.

And then he opens his eyes and sees the horror on Taehyun’s face.

Yeonjun sort of falls. He doesn’t know why. He just does.

“Yeonjun. No. No. No.”

It’s Soobin’s voice, but not like his voice has ever been before. It’s torn open and bleeding. Vulnerable.

“Why did you do that?!” Taehyun screams.

Yeonjun can’t quite breathe right. But it’s not the fear. It’s different. There’s something in his head, pushing everything out, the tears and the terror. A dark fog.

Soobin is holding him. Yeonjun doesn’t know when that happened. Soobin’s face is above him, but it’s wrong. Blurry. And he’d never wear an expression like that.

Like someone had shot him through the heart.

“Soobin? Are you okay?” Yeonjun tries to say, but his lips won’t move. He looks down. There’s redness spreading across his chest. Blooming. It’s kind of pretty. Yeonjun smiles. Or maybe he doesn’t smile. He’s not sure.

“Yeonjun, Yeonjun! You’re going into shock. I have pressure on the wound and undoubtedly there’s an ambulance outside, they’ll be here in minutes. Minutes. All you need to do is stay alive for a few minutes. You can do that. You’ve done it all your life.”

There’s pain, but it’s distant, a storm on a faraway shore. Yeonjun is somewhere else. Dreaming, maybe. Dreaming of Soobin. Not the real one. The real Soobin wouldn’t cry like that, tears spilling down his face and turning his eyes into crystal chandeliers.

“You’re all right, Yeonjun.” Soobin’s voice is breaking. Breaking into a thousand pieces. “You’re all right. I told you you’re going to be all right because it’s your birthday. Remember? I’m never wrong.”

Yeonjun wants to put his voice back together, but he doesn’t know how. There’s so much blood. Is it really all just coming from him?

“We’re going on a date tonight. You can get angry at me when I go outside to smoke.”

Maybe he could just go to sleep for a little while. He’s so tired. But Soobin won’t leave him alone. He’s pressing his forehead to Yeonjun’s, cradling his face again.

“If you die, I’ll do every experiment I can think of in your microwave. I’ll smoke three hundred cigarettes a day. I’ll never go back to class. Please. You changed things for me, Yeonjun. Things I didn’t even know needed to be changed.”

Yeonjun slides in and out sleep. His cheek is wet. He’s outside the restaurant, it’s raining, Soobin’s kissing him. But—it’s not raining. It’s Soobin, crying. The tears are falling onto Yeonjun’s face. Soobin is still kissing him, though. At least he hopes he is. It’s hard to tell what’s real.

“Listen to this,” Soobin whispers. “I love you. Can you hear me? I was going to tell you tonight. I love you. Stay here and I’ll keep telling you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Yeonjun wonders drowsily if Beomgyu will make fun of him for falling for a guy who cries.

“Yeonjun? No. Open your eyes—”

Sorry, Soobin.

You can’t keep me awake anymore.

Chapter Text

The sky is an almost-dark brown.

“Trust me,” Soobin’s saying.

“No, I know how this goes,” Yeonjun says fiercely. “But not this time. Because I won, Soobin. I saved you. I did it.”

Soobin’s face is cool and expressionless against the backdrop of the sky, the endless still ocean. “Then you have nothing to fear.”

“Exactly.” Yeonjun steps into his arms and for one quiet moment, nothing is wrong with anything.

“What did you get me for my birthday?” He asks into Soobin’s shirt.

He doesn’t say anything.

“Soobin?”

Yeonjun steps back. And his heart breaks. Because there’s blood spreading over Soobin’s chest.

“Sorry, Yeonjun,” Soobin says. “You were so close.”

|||

Yeonjun wakes up by degrees. Another nightmare.

Fuzzy whiteness instead of darkness. That’s the first thing. Oh. His eyes are open. For a second, these two things are all he understands in the world—that there’s light and that his eyes are open.

Someone had told him to open his eyes.

“I opened them,” Yeonjun tries to say, but all that comes out is a dry croaking sound.

A voice floats into the blur. “There’s a buzzer next to your bed if you want the nurses to come.”

Yeonjun thinks it’s Soobin’s voice. Only he would sound that bored. Good. He’s here. That’s four things he knows now—there’s light, his eyes are open, there’s a buzzer, and Soobin is here.

And Yeonjun has arms. That’s important, too, because he needs to use one to hit the buzzer. Except someone’s replaced his muscles with cement sludge. Why doesn’t Soobin just hit the stupid buzzer? Yeonjun can see it now, the haze shifting and fading just enough for him to make out the red button attached the side of his bed. In front of a bunch of beeping equipment. Why is there beeping equipment? He doesn’t have any of that in his room.

And his sheets aren’t white, either.

Yeonjun hits the buzzer.

After a minute in which he blinks repeatedly, trying to clear his eyes of all the fog, someone flies into the room. A nurse. A nurse?

“Hello, sir. Glad to see you awake.” She smiles at him. She’s pretty, even with his vision swimming, young with a pixie cut. “Open your mouth.”

Yeonjun obeys, and she pats moisture onto his tongue with a little sponge on a stick and water from a Styrofoam cup.

“My eyes are weird,” Yeonjun says thickly.

“They’re dry.” She takes out a little bottle and administers drops of liquid to his eyes. He blinks it away. “They’ve been closed for most of a week.”

“A week?” That’s wrong. Yeonjun sleeps a lot, but he has never slept that long.

“Yes.” The smile fractures and falls from her face. “Do you remember your name?”

“Choi Yeonjun.” Another thing he knows.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“We were going to go on a date,” Yeonjun says slowly. “And then…”

Yeonjun wakes up a little more, to the echo of a gunshot.

And then.

“Oh my God.” Taehyun. Soobin. School. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Before the panic can finish closing over him like a mouthful of teeth, someone else hurries into the white room. His mother, pale and in disarray. Mom is here. “Oh, baby,” she says, through tears. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah—” Yeonjun pulls up as much as he can and tries to look around. The room is cut in half by a heavy curtain. “Where’d Soobin go?”

The nurse takes a step back to let his mother get closer to his bed. She smooths back his hair, a hundred new lines on her face. “He’s not here, sweetheart.”

“I heard him,” Yeonjun says. “He told me where the buzzer was.”

“Must have been Siyoung,” the nurse says, glancing past the heavy curtain. “Funny. He hasn’t been speaking much.”

The teeth hover over his heart. “Where’s Soobin, then? Is he okay? He was talking to me after it happened, I think—I don’t remember what he said—”

“He’s fine. Don’t worry about him.” His mother keeps smoothing his hair back, over and over again. “It’s after hours, so they’re only allowing visitors who are immediate family. He’d come if he could.”

He’s fine. Those words are the cleanest breath Yeonjun has ever taken. The oxygen after the fire. Yeonjun closes his eyes and lets those words stay with him. Soobin’s fine. And he wasn’t wrong about how they’d both be all right. They can still go on a date. He can still tell him.

Then a second fear grips him. “Did anyone—was anyone else—?”

“Just—just the shooter. He shot himself.” His mother sounds like something is caught in her lungs. “They…they often do, I guess. You and he were…were the only ones. He fired a couple warning shots at the beginning to scare everyone, that was all.”

“Oh, good,” Yeonjun whispers. “No one else. That’s good.”

“Excuse me,” the nurse says gently, “but I need to take his vitals.”

His mother steps back but doesn’t look away from Yeonjun, her hands twisted tightly together.

“You’re a lucky one, Yeonjun.” The nurse shines a small light into his eyes. “Shot very low in the shoulder, almost the chest. The bullet took the cleanest path it could straight through you, and out the other side. Missed your lung by centimeters. Without the bullet inside, the surgery was much less complicated.”

“Why have I been out for a week, then?” Yeonjun tries to sit up higher, but it’s hard.

“You haven’t been, hon. You’ve been popping in every now and then. I doubt you remember it, though—the painkillers.”

“Oh.” His head still feels thick and heavy. There’s a needle in his skin, attached to a plastic bag. Things dripping into him, keeping him heavy. He glances down. Beneath the hospital gown, there’s a white bandage. Underneath that, he aches.

“Immediate blood transfusion,” the nurse says, taking his pulse. “Saved your life. You’re lucky you’re type AB negative. Universal receiver. Very rare.”

“Maybe we can save all the medical talk for later,” His mother says, her expression still taut.

“Certainly.” The nurse backs toward the door. “I’ll go get Dr. Han. I’m sure he’d like to take a more thorough look at you.”

His mother sits close to him again as soon as the nurse is gone. There are still tears in her eyes. This must have been so hard for her, after Beomgyu. “The people in that classroom, they told me how you saved their lives. How you talked the shooter into letting them go. It was very brave. They’ve been bringing things by.”

His bedside table is bursting with flowers and cards and chocolate. Yeonjun turns back to his mother. “So Soobin is definitely okay?”

“Definitely.”

Something relaxes inside him, but then the echo of the gunshot rears up and some of the terror filters back into his chest. Taehyun’s eyes. “I was so scared, Mom.”

“I know. I know.” She takes his hand. “But everything’s okay now.”

“Can you tell Soobin to come see me when he can?” Yeonjun smiles. “I have something to tell him.”

Soobin has saved his life so many times. Yeonjun had wanted so badly to pay him back for that. For everything. And this is his start.

Because Minhyuk was wrong.

Yeonjun will have a minimum of two uses as a human shield.

|||

They make him stay for another week.

In that time, he sends Soobin fourteen texts:

Yeonjun: So you still haven’t come to see me. Wondering why that is.

Yeonjun: I know they’re letting non family in now.

Yeonjun: Chaeryeong came and left this horrible giant teddy bear.

Yeonjun: I’ll let you put it in the microwave, if it’ll fit. We could chop it up.

Yeonjun: Mom thinks your phone must have broken in all the panic. Get a new phone, idiot.

Yeonjun: I know you have the same number, I’m not getting a send failure alert.

Yeonjun: Seriously, are you mad at me?

Yeonjun: Because I don’t want to play the ‘saved your life’ card, BUT…

Yeonjun: I’m totally playing the ‘saved your life’ card. Get over here.

Yeonjun: Are you avoiding me because you feel guilty? Don’t feel guilty.

Yeonjun: You figured it out before anyone else. I was the one who convinced you it wasn’t him.

Yeonjun: Pleaaaase come. I don’t even have one of those little hospital TVs.

Yeonjun: Now I know why you’re always complaining about dying from boredom.

Yeonjun: Soobin, come on, I have something important to tell you.

“I think you’re probably right about him feeling guilty,” His mother says one day after Yeonjun vents for nearly an hour. “He probably feels like he could have stopped all this.”

“Well, he’s at home, isn’t he?” Yeonjun demands, angrily eating chocolates. “Drag him here if you have to. Tie him up and throw him in the trunk. I want to see him.”

“Oh, damn, I’m going to be late for work. I’ll come by later, Yeonjun.”

The days stretch into meaningless blank nothings. Yeonjun ends up talking a lot to the person on the other side of the curtain. He only knows his first name—Siyoung. He doesn’t even know what he looks like, because the curtain’s always pulled. But his voice reminds him a little of Soobin’s, and apparently he’s recovering from a surgery. Siyoung hasn’t said anything since he told him where the buzzer was, though.

Yeonjun spends most of his time complaining about Soobin.

“He’s an idiot. He’s a total, total idiot. Also an ass. I jump in front of a bullet for him and what does he do? Ignore me. I’m going to punch him in the face. And the balls. Both at once.”

No comment from the curtain.

“Where does he get off? He hasn’t even given me my birthday present yet. Like I said. Ass.”

Yeonjun grabs his phone and checks it for the umpteenth time that day. Still nothing.

“Okay, I’m sure he feels guilty. He’s probably mad at himself for not proving Taehyun killed Kai when he figured it out in the first place. And—oh. Maybe he feels bad that I got shot trying to protect him. That makes sense. Wait, what am I saying? No it doesn’t. It was my choice and now he’s punishing me for it by never speaking to me again? I’m going to smack him right in the stupid cheekbones.”

There’s a rustle and Yeonjun waits hopefully, but no response comes.

“He’s actually kind of a genius, though. It’s amazing. He can look at a person and figure out everything about them just from their clothes, and yet he doesn’t understand emotions. At all. Or he didn’t. I think he might now. A little, anyway. He’s complicated. Basically he’s rude and obnoxious and blunt to pretty much everyone, and when he’s bored he’s the worst, but when he’s excited it’s like…he’s this force of nature. Unstoppable, and he sweeps everyone up with him. And he smokes. And he plays the violin.”

Nothing.

“I sort of miss him, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Yeonjun rolls over. He really misses him. He had been planning on icing him out for at least twenty minutes when he finally does come to see him, but now he doesn’t know if he’ll be strong enough to keep from hugging him right away. At any rate, they’re going to release him tomorrow, and Soobin won’t be able to avoid him then.

And suddenly he’s smiling like an idiot. He’s going to tell Soobin. He can’t wait to tell him.

The door opens. It’s a nurse, but not his usual nurse—this one is red-haired and tall. She carries a tray with a wrapped sandwich and a cup of Jell-O. Yeonjun sits up, pushing the hospital sheets back. “Where’s Yujin?”

“Yujin’s out sick today. I’m covering her patients.” The redheaded nurse sets the tray on his bedside table and winks at him. “Oh, look, you don’t have a TV in here. The football game is on today. Want me to wheel you in a portable one?”

She backs out pretty quickly after he howls “YES” at her.

A few minutes later, there’s a tiny square television at the foot of Yeonjun’s bed. He spends a little while figuring out how to use the remote. He hates remotes. He watches most of his shows on Netflix. “Hope you don’t mind if I watch some TV,” Yeonjun calls to the other side of the curtain.

Yeonjun pages through channels. A k-drama. A reality show. A commercial for the DVD release of Getting an A. Maybe he’ll buy that for Soobin as a belated birthday gift. It’ll make him laugh. His laugh is rare, but it lights up the room.

“—the shooting at Danwon High earlier this month—”

Yeonjun freezes. It’s a news channel, showing a picture of his school.

“—a single student was wounded and two were killed, one of which was the shooter, who passed away due to a self-inflicted—”

Wait.

That’s not right.

Two were killed?

Only Taehyun had been killed.

They’re talking about Taehyun now, analyzing his life story. That’s not what Yeonun wants to hear. He flips through channels faster, his hand clammy on the remote, until he lands on another news station. It’s a girl being interviewed. Lia. Lia is being interviewed. She’s crying.

“So you knew the victims personally?” The interviewer asks, learning forward.

“Yeah. There were three victims, really. My friend Kai was the first. It’s…we were wrong. We all thought…” She scrubs at red-rimmed eyes. “We were wrong.”

“Right. The shooter was connected to the earlier death of a student.” The interviewer nods.

“We all thought…he did it. We treated him so badly. If I’d known what was going to happen—”

Yeonjun changes the channel so hard he hurt his thumb. He doesn’t want to watch Lia and her fake tears. And why is she talking about Soobin, anyway? She hates him. They all hate him. Yeonjun is the only one who doesn’t.

Yeonjun texts him: Turn to channel 9. Lia is sobbing about you on the news for some reason. You’ll laugh.

Soobin’s laugh that lights up any room.

Why is Yeonjun’s chest so constricted? He probably needs more painkillers.

He switches back to the other news station.

“—Choi Yeojun, nineteen, has been identified as the wounded student. The fatality besides the shooter has been identified as Choi Soobin, also nineteen—”

A shockwave runs through Yeonjun from the top of his head to his knees.

He jams the off button. It doesn’t work. He hates remotes so much. The TV is still saying Choi Soobin, Choi Soobin and Yeonjun can’t. He just can’t. He takes his lunch tray and hurls it at the television, knocking it over backward. It hits the ground and shuts up. Good.

“That’s kind of a big mistake for them to make, isn’t it?” Yeonjun says to the curtain shakily. “Saying someone is…you know…when they’re not. I hope someone calls in and tells them.”

Yeonjun imagines Soobin sitting back and raising his eyebrow. Morons can’t even tell when someone’s alive and not—

The redheaded replacement nurse sticks her head in. She sees the TV and her jaw drops.

“It was bothering me.” Yeonjun’s voice is weak.

“I…see. Are you all right? You look pale.” She takes an uncertain step toward him. “Do you need a sedative?”

“No. I just heard something that surprised me, that’s all.” Yeonjun forces his tone to become easy. “But it was a mistake. On the news. They made a mistake.”

“I see,” she says warily. “Well, you know what they say. Never trust the media.”

Never trust anyone, Yeonjun.

“I’ll just…take the TV away, then, shall I...”

Yeonjun tilts his head back and closes his eyes. He just has to breathe. Even knowing it’s not true, hearing them say it is like an earthquake. Anger enters him. How hard is it to get the facts straight on the fucking news?

His mother comes in just as the nurse is leaving.

“What’s that about?” she asks, staring at the broken TV.

Yeonjun sits up. Thank God. Now this can be cleared up. “They brought in a TV for me and it—fell over. Hey, can you do me a favor?”

His mother is still staring faintly out the door, after the nurse and the TV.

“Can you call the local news station?” Yeonjun asks. “I was watching it and they just said Soobin di—they said he was a fatality. Someone should let them know that’s wrong, because someone could see it…and…believe it…”

His mother has started to cry.

“And we wouldn’t want…anyone to believe that…since it’s not true…” Yeonjun trails off.

His mother is still crying. Why is she crying? She won’t stop. Something extreme is building inside Yeonjun, something hot, the nucleus of a star, but he keeps forcing the words out. Each one feels like a step up the tallest mountain in the world.

“Hey, Mom…call the news station.”

“Yeonjun,” she sobs. “Yeonjun, I’m sorry.”

Yeonjun is an iceberg. He’s alone in the sea and everything else is floating away from him.

“I couldn’t tell you. I just couldn’t.”

He can barely see land now.

“You were recovering, you needed…you needed your strength.”

“Mom,” Yeonjun whispers.

She grabs his hand hard. “It’s okay. It’s okay, honey. We will get through this together.”

Yeonjun stares at her.

He doesn’t know this person.

He doesn’t know anything except that his eyes are open and he has to get out.

“Yeonjun, wait!”

He runs. So fast. Like he’d run in the hallway when he was trying to find Soobin. Stay where you are, Soobin had texted him. But he can’t stay here. He has to find him again. Yeonjun found him before. He’d held him so tight.

His shoulder kind of hurts, somewhere in the distance, maybe. Way back on shore where everyone else is. Out here, it’s cold. He’s just floating.

It’s okay as long as he runs.

Never trust anyone—

“Shut up,” He breathes. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

People are all around him, telling him to stop, but they’re so far away he barely notices them. They’re galaxies away. He bursts outside. People are staring at him. At his bare feet. Hospital gown. He doesn’t care. They can stare if they want. Soobin’s probably going to stare, when Yeonjun flies into his bedroom a day early.

He won’t be able to stare for long, though, because Yeonjun’s going to hit him.

People are always doing that.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

Yeonjun runs. He steps on something sharp and doesn’t care. Pain lances through his shoulder and he doesn’t care.

|||

Yeonjun’s POV

 Is this what it’s like to be you, Soobin? To not care?

You made me human.

Humans are so fragile. I shouldn’t have made you human. You should have stayed ice.

Ice melts.

Metal, then. Diamond.

Something as indestructible as you always said you were.

You’re sitting in the living room armchair. Fingers together, you’re thinking. Mom’s not home. We’re alone together. It’s my chance. I pounce.

“Did you know there were more deaths by scissors last year in Japan than deaths by gun violence?” you say as I attack you with my comb.

“We’re not in Japan. I’m giving you a haircut. You’re not going to be able to see and you’ll walk off a cliff or something.” I put my elbow on your shoulder, my wrist against the side of your face, the warmth of you, carefully snipping your bangs. Pieces of you fall to the carpet.

“You are really rather irrationally convinced that something’s going to happen to me.”

“Well, I’d love to just care about you without that, but after Beomgyu—” I stop myself and trim a couple locks around your neck. You have a nice neck. Which is probably a creepy thing to think when I’m holding scissors.

“Subject change needed. Got it. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do that you haven’t?”

“Where the hell did you get that from?”

“That magazine,” you say, pointing to a copy of Mom’s magazines on the floor, which is lying open to a personality test.

“I can’t tell you. You’re going to laugh.” I finish trimming and hang my arms loosely around your neck. I’m going to have to vacuum.

“I would never laugh at you.”

“You laugh at me all the time.” I rest my chin on your head, something I can only do when I’m standing and you’re sitting. “Fine…contra dancing.

“…Square dancing.”

“Contra dancing! It’s different. They have the dances at the church once a month. I walked by once, it looks like fun. And it’s not hard to learn.”

“You want to wear a cowboy hat and kick your legs around to fiddle music.” You don’t brush my arms away, or reach up to knock my chin off your head. I expected you to.

“The fiddle’s basically the same thing as the violin, you know.”

“I would never play it so idiotically.”

You said we’d be all right, Soobin. I know you’re not gone, because you’re never wrong.

That’s not very rational.

“Being rational is boring, sometimes,” I whisper as I run.

You were supposed to be boring.

You’re supposed to be alive. And you are. You have to be. I’m really mad at you, Soobin. I’m mad at you for not coming to visit me in the hospital. I’m going to open your door and get mad at you, and then I’m going to kiss you and tell you I love you.

Because I haven’t told you, yet.

My courage slipped through my fingers.

It’s a cold day and not many people are out, but one or two are, just enough to stare at the girl in the hospital gown who flies past. You’re going to laugh when I tell you about this, Soobin. I’m going to tell you lots of things.

Like how you shouldn’t feel guilty.

And how maybe you can do experiments in the microwave, if you really want to, but only when Mom isn’t home.

And how I might even let you smoke every so often.

And how you still owe me a date.

I keep running. My house is closer now. I can see it. Right next to the burned-out husk of your old house. But it’s okay. That house was too big for you anyway. Too lonely. I hope you like living with me, Soobin. I never asked you. I’ll ask you today, after we go on our date. I’m glad you’re okay. It would break me forever if you weren’t.

I’m still floating, out in the sea. I see you. You putting your arm over me in bed, drawing me closer to you. You whispering in my ear. You making the entire cafeteria sing me happy birthday. You standing next to Kai’s body, still holding that goddamn lacrosse stick, because you had the sense to know it wasn’t the murder weapon but you didn’t have the sense to put it down.

You.

God, I love you. My heart swells. I’m going to tell you over and over again. Until we’re both old. You will reach retirement, Soobin. You will.

I wrestle with the door. It’s locked. Somewhere in my iceberg brain I remember the spare key under the stairs, and then I’m inside. The house is quiet. I go straight to your door.

Which is closed.

You never close your door.

“The door was always closed.” I throw my paintbrush back in the bucket. “That was one of the things I hated about the whole thing.”

“Doors are made to close.” You paint another wide swath of blue across the wall. Your brush strokes are messy, uneven. You don’t care enough to make them neat.

“No, you don’t get it. It was like a crypt, the way we kept it. The door closed all the time just made it worse, because you knew what was behind it.” I don’t know why this is coming out so suddenly. I’ve never said any of it before. “It was like Mom thought if we kept everything exactly the same, then maybe Beomgyu would walk back in one day and thank us for not messing anything up. Like how some parents turn their kids’ rooms into offices when they go off to college, and some don’t change their rooms for years. It’s the same when a kid dies, I guess.”

“Attachment,” you say. “Refusal to acknowledge change.”

“Yeah. I mean, I know what it was. I just hated it. Because it was a lie. Beomgyu was never coming back and there was this mausoleum for him in the middle of the house. Sometimes I just wanted to come in here and smash everything. Just to make the outside look how I felt about the whole thing.”

“How do you feel about it now?” You have a fleck of paint on your forehead. I reach over and try to rub it off, but it’s dried.

“How do I feel about you moving in here?” I smile. “I feel really, really good about you moving in here.”

You made this room alive again.

You made me alive again.

I see you everywhere. You, stealing cars. You trying to trick me into skipping school on the photo went out. You grabbing my hand, pulling me back up onto the roof. You, moonlit, freezing, dragging yourself out of the water. You looking down at the casserole on your shirt and realizing you’d just made one more enemy in this world.

You being very, very wrong about that, though.

I open the door. You’re not in your bed. Your bed is made. You never make your bed. The floor is vacuumed. You never vacuumed. The shelves are tided. You never tidied. You have a horror of people touching your things.

Your room looks the same, but different.

A corpse with makeup on its face to make it look alive.

A mausoleum.

I heard you tell him just this morning, every time you asked if he was okay.

If he has a heart, I think I broke it.

You’re wrong for him, Yeonjun.

He thinks he’s invincible. He’s not.

He’s heartbroken. Because it turns out that the only person he’s ever cared about hates him, just like everyone else.

Shut up, Minhyuk.

There’s something on the bed. A present. Wrapped.

I take out my phone and call you. I’ve never called you before. I always texted you. You haven’t even bothered to create an answering machine message. The voice on the other one is a mechanical one, reading off your number instead of your name.

I text you.

Yeonjun: you’re out buying ingredients to make me an apology dinner tonight

I take a step toward the present on the bed.

Yeonjun: you’re out smoking a cigarette, just like last time

It’s sitting there. Innocuous. But not tossed casually, the way you would have left it. Placed there by someone who was afraid of it.

Yeonjun: please come home now

Yeonjun: my mom touched your things

Yeonjun: you’ll be angry

Yeonjun: that’s okay

Yeonjun: i need to see you now

I touch it. I pick it up. I unwrap it.

A DVD and two pieces of paper fall on the bed. Learning to Contra-Dance in Under an Hour. Two tickets to a dance at the local cafe, on evening of my birthday. Sheet music. Hand-written. A note at the bottom. You’re the only person for whom I’d play my violin like an idiot. Happy birthday, Yeonjun.

I’m crying. Tears are pouring down my face. I’m crying so hard I can barely breathe, my lungs hitching, my nose blocked up. I’m sobbing. I can hear myself sobbing. I don’t want to hear those noises. Don’t want you to hear them when you come home.

Tell him soon. Nobody lives forever.

Not even the invincible Choi Soobin.

Suddenly I’m screaming. I’m screaming so loud I’m terrified of it. The ceiling above me is the same color as the sky in my dreams, the almost-dark blue that comes before a sunset or a sunrise and I never knew which one. There’s a sun inside me now. They told me in elementary school that eventually the sun will die and as that happens, it will get bigger, engulfing all the planets around it in fire. The sun inside me is dying, and I’m being engulfed.

You died, Soobin, and now you’re burning down my world.

I grab your dresser and throw it against the ground, violently. It crashes. Splinters. I scream at the pieces.

I’m very hard to hurt.

I swing your lamp against the wall. It shatters, glass flying everywhere. A shard cuts my cheek.

I won’t let anyone kill me, Choi Yeonjun.

I lift your bedside table and smash it to the ground. The legs crack apart. I seize your books, tear their pages out. Your favorite books. I upend your drawers on the floor, ripping your clothes apart, your sleek dark expensive clothes. I punch a hole in the wall we painted together.

You look…nice. It’s…distracting.

You looked at me just before Taehyun fired. Your expression, gentle. Understanding. Like you didn’t want me to be scared.

Yeonjun. There’s something I want to tell you.

I’ll never know what you wanted to tell me.

I sink to the ground amidst the wreckage, the tears still pumping out of me, steadily, endlessly, like the way I bled in your arms.

Like the way you must have bled in no one’s arms.

The bullet took the cleanest path it could straight through you, and out the other side.

You’ll have a minimum of one use as a human shield.

|||

“But I thought I heard you talking to me,” I say dazedly.

You smile under the almost-dark brown sky. “You may have hallucinated it. Occasional side effect of going into shock and nearly dying.”

“But I could have sworn,” I say. “I could have sworn.”

“I probably was talking to you, in fact. The bullet that passed through you entered my upper arm. Arms are always getting chopped off in movies and no one blinks. Nobody thinks there’s arteries there. You were shot in the upper chest or lower shoulder, depending on how you define it. Either way, it certainly looked bad. I would have been more concerned about you. There may have been a minute or two that I didn’t notice it had severed my brachial artery, and by then it was too late. Didn’t you wonder how it was possible that all the blood was just coming from you?”

“But,” I whisper. “I lost blood too. Immediate blood transfusion, they said. Saved my life.”

“Blood type. You’re type AB negative. Universal receiver. I’m type O negative. Universal donor, but I can only receive type O negative blood. Which there’s a shortage of right now, I’m afraid. They had enough of the right kind for you in the ambulance. Even when it comes to blood, people want nothing to do with me.”

“But I saved you,” I say stupidly. “I jumped in front of you.”

“Like in the movies, yes. Very brave. Unlike in the movies, people use types of guns that can shoot through more than one body even in the event of a dramatic rescue by someone breaking their promise not to do anything dangerous to save my life.”

“I made a promise to someone else first,” I say. “I promised Minhyuk I’d protect you if he let you stay in here.”

“Then that’s two promises you’ve broken.” You take a step back. And then another. The water is up to your knees.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I told you not to trust me, Yeonjun. I warned you many times.”

“That wasn’t the real you.” Tears slip down my face.

“The real me bled to death while you were unconscious.” You step back again and then you’re gone, but your voice isn’t. “I’m all you have now.”

I’m alone in the sea, Soobin.

Alone, without you.

|||

I tore three stiches when I woke up.

They keep me in the hospital another two nights.

I don’t talk. I’m asleep, even when I’m awake. I stare at the ceiling.

People want to interview me. I don’t want to be interviewed.

Mom wants to talk to me. Wants me to talk. She’s worried. I don’t want to be talked to. Or worried about.

I want to stay curled up quietly on my own little piece of nothingness.

On the second night, the person behind the curtain—Siyoung—leaves. He walks past my bed and I look at him, unfocused, registering nothing but hooded eyes. He leaves a card on my bedside table. I spend the next two hours gathering enough strength to pick it up.

Hwang Siyoung. 876-987-245

I don’t know what it means. I don’t care. I’m dead inside and nobody else has noticed.

Only stupid people die.

I guess you were as stupid as the rest of us.

A few people from school come visit me to apologize. To say they were wrong about you. As if that’s news. As if you ever cared what they thought. As if I could save them from their guilt.

You saved my life, Yeonjun.

No, Soobin. I didn’t.

Yujin, the nurse, comes by one time with something in a little plastic bag.

“I thought you might want this. Some people do, after they’re shot. My grandfather got shot in Vietnam and he always kept the bullet. Said it helped him.”

It’s a tiny bronze-colored piece of metal. It looks like an earplug. Or an eraser. A little thing that looks like an eraser killed you, Soobin.

Sorry. No.

I killed you.

“Thanks.” It’s the first word I’ve said aloud since I whispered to you that being rational was boring, when I was running, before I got to your room.

I say my next three words to Mom, when she asks what I need:

“A chain and some wire.”

She’s so happy I’m speaking that she brings them to me, although I overhear her telling the nurse to make sure I don’t hurt myself with them. There was a time I would have done anything to prevent her from thinking I’d hurt myself. Now I don’t care.

I wrap the wire around the end of the bullet, attach it to the chain, and put it around my neck. We’re the two things that killed you. We should be together.

Then I go to sleep.

I see you when I sleep. Your face. Your cheekbones, your lips. Your lightning eyes. Your dark hair that I had cut. It’s you without a heart, and you speak to me.

You say, “If you’d let me move, I’d be alive.”

You say, “If you hadn’t told Taehyun where you were, I’d be alive.”

You say, “If I hadn’t met you, I’d be alive.”

You’re honest.

I am honest, and in this society that happens to be constituted as mean.

I have to sleep during the day, because at night, all I can do is cry.

|||

They commit me for a week.

Because I won’t talk. Because I’ve struggled with depression in the past. Because I’m reacting abnormally. Because, because, because.

The therapist tells me to write my feelings down. I don’t. He tells me to take the bullet off from around my neck. I don’t. He tells me to remember the good times. I don’t. I don’t deserve the good times.

You are a complete mystery to me, Choi Yeonjun.

You like—my lips?

You don’t want me to get lung cancer.

You really were trying to murder me, by getting me to do this.

Besides, the good times hurt.

Eventually I care about the first thing I’ve cared about since you, which is that my bed at home is more comfortable and easier to sleep in than the bed in the mental hospital. So I tell the therapist all the things he wants to hear, and they send me back.

Mom has turned your room into an office. The room that isn’t alive anymore.

I’m alive, aren’t I? Here. A pulse and everything.

Yeonjun: you

Yeonjun: were

Yeonjun: wrong

All of your things, the ones I didn’t destroy, the ones that were outside your door and didn’t burn in the fire, are in the attic. I go through them one day when I feel like punishing myself. I find little notes, the ones you were always writing to yourself, the ones you never threw away because you never threw anything away.

You were writing about me.

Have significant problem, though: I like Yeonjun.

Kissed him (strange. Had some effect on me.)

      I’ll do something to ruin it. I always do something.

Must seek further confirmation of third hypothesis before I hope

Yeonjun: i’m sorry for not being a jellyfish.

You were trying to figure me out.

You didn’t understand. It hurts.

I should have told you. I should have told you every day.

I don’t deserve your writing. I take the notes with me to your grave. The same graveyard where Beomgyu is buried.

The gravestone just says your name. Your date of birth and death. Not Hated by all who knew him. Except Choi Yeonjun.

The stone has nothing of you in it. I press my forehead to it and it’s cold.

Stronger than he thinks.

No, I’m not.

I pile the notes, the napkins and receipts and torn-off bits of pizza box, at the base of your headstone. I burn them with your lighter. The flame licks them up the way it licked your house up. They turn to ash fast. Nothing left behind to prove what they were. The fire flickers out, and then there’s no evidence of what ate them up except the ruined pieces it left behind.

“I was going to tell you something.” My voice is hoarse from not speaking.

I’ll tell him when the sun comes up.

What were you going to tell me?

“But there’s no point in me saying it now. You’re not here. You’re nowhere near here. I could say it and say it, and the whole world could hear it, and you still wouldn’t.”

There are flowers by the base of the gravestone. Guilt flowers. No one liked you enough to leave you flowers out of love. I should have brought flowers. Instead I brought fire.

Yeonjun: what if you came back right now

Yeonjun: that would be like you

Yeonjun: just to show up with a smirk on your face

Yeonjun: i want to see your face

Yeonjun: i want to see your everything

Yeonjun: i want to touch you

I’ll never touch you again, will I?

I’ll never pause by your door again, telling you we’ll be late, telling you to come down for breakfast. Never spill tea on your floor again and mop it up with my sweatshirt because you’re too excited to tell me you have paper towels. Never climb into bed with you again. I only did that once. Why had I only done that once? I’d wanted to, every night.

Had you wanted to?

I lie down. You’re six feet below me. The closest I’ll ever get to climbing into bed with you again. I shut my eyes. I’ll sleep here. Close to you.

Except I’m not close to you.

You’re not here.

Where are you?

I sit up so fast it makes me dizzy. Of course you’re not here. You died before you ever set foot here. But maybe, somewhere else—

I run back to Mom’s car and drive so quickly that someone nearly crashes into me. Maybe it’s the same car you saved me from, back when we first met. Wouldn’t that be funny. They’ll never know that they owe you an escape from a manslaughter charge.

I drive to the ocean.

It’s bleak here. Cold. The sky is slate-gray. It’s going to rain. The sea will swallow it all up. I get out of the car, the wind grabbing my hair at once and flinging it everywhere. There’s nobody on the beach. It’s too cold for that. Nobody could survive out here for long.

There are certain things someone like me needs to survive. A good mystery is one of them.

Was I your mystery, Soobin? Did you solve me before you died?

I walk to the end of the dock. The wind is trying to pull me forward. Pull me into the water. Is that you? Are you the wind now?

“Minhyuk told me the only thing worth valuing about you was that you were a genius.” The wind takes my words and whips them away, hungrily. “He was wrong. He was wrong about a lot of things, but that especially. There were so many things about you that were good and important.”

The clouds are darker in the distance. There’s a storm coming.

“I waited too long,” I whisper. “I lost our chance.”

I take off my shoes, setting them neatly together where both of our shoes had been before. I remember the cold. Remember how I broke into a thousand pieces. Maybe it was the same for you. Maybe there are still some pieces of you down there.

“It doesn’t matter because I don’t love—” My voice cracks in half.

I jump in.

It’s not like before. It doesn’t shatter me. Doesn’t freeze me to my core. It feels like I’m stepping into my own skin. I’ve been in freezing water ever since you died, Soobin.

I break through the surface, gasping, my clothes billowing around me. My skin is ice.

You’re not here.

If you left some part of yourself here, it washed away long ago.

There’s no part of you left anywhere. A bullet and a nightmare is all I have left.

I float back. The sky stretches above. It’s an almost-dark blue. There’s a single black bird wheeling above me.

I’m alone in the sea.

Chapter Text

“At least that’s the end of him texting you, little brother. He had his phone in his pocket.”

Don’t respond. Look through binoculars. Magnification eight. Water temperature likely between forty and fifty degrees Celsius. Ten, fifteen minutes before hypothermia sets in. I open the car door.

“Calm your chivalric impulses. I have contacted the harbor master. He’s already walking down from the boathouse.”

Shut up, Minhyuk. But: he’s right. Figure leaving boathouse. Bloody idiot. Not walking quickly enough. Two minutes before the harbor master will reach him. Though: he’s already getting out of the water.

“See? Hardly a suicide attempt.”

Symptoms of hypothermia: hyperventilation. Loss of coordination. Shivering. Slurred speech. Too far away to tell. Can barely see his face, even with binoculars. Parked on a hill, a considerable distance away. Too far for him to see. Minhyuk has a different car now. Tinted windows. He wouldn’t recognize it.

“The fact that you’re ignoring me is making me considerably more worried for your wellbeing than if you were snapping at me like normal.”

Could run down. Put my arms around him. Warm him. Tell him: sorry. Tell him: I’m alive.

“It’s for the best, dear brother.”

For the best. Possibly the cruelest words in the human language. The harbor master has reached him now. He’s standing up. He’s calling someone. I turn to Minhyuk. “You say that like it wasn’t my idea.”

“It was a nice touch, the detail with bullet going through him and into you. Now we don’t have to explain the lack of an additional gunshot. And the EMTs have recently acquired enough cash to send them on a substantial holiday. I don’t think they’ll be telling anyone the truth. Our tracks are covered, Soobin. We can move on.”

“I told you I wouldn’t leave until I knew he was all right.” The harbor master has wrapped a blanket around him. He’s getting into his car. He forgot his shoes.

“He’s been released from both hospitals. What more do you want?”

“He’s wearing the bullet he thinks killed me around his neck, he tried to sleep on my grave, and now he’s jumping into the ocean in winter. That’s hardly all right.” He’s gone. Car taking him away. No: wait. Try to get last glimpse of him. Can’t. Gone.

“That’s what people do. They grieve. They get sentimental, they visit graves and familiar places, and then they move on. He’ll be fine.” His voice changes. Gentles. Very unusual. “You know you don’t have to do this, Soobin.”

“He nearly died because of me.” That sentence: painful. Still not used to this. This pain in my chest.

“Yes, and now he’s grieving because of you.”

“Grieving’s better than dying.”

“He might not agree.”

Hate Minhyuk. “I’m being rational. This is the best way to keep him safe. I’m a dangerous person who attracts dangerous situations and I don’t want him to be drawn into another one. If I had just left, he would have come after me. This way, there’s no danger of that.” Chest still hurting. Should take medication for it, possibly. “The grieving won’t last. It’s not as if he loves me.”

Minhyuk: silent.

“I’m ready to leave.”

“Don’t do you want to know where we’re going? I’ve got my eye on a little town.”

“I don’t care where we’re going.” All other towns are the same. None contain Choi Yeonjun.

Minhyuk drives. Car pulls away. Tires on gravel. I look: storm coming. Sky dark. Ocean: quiet, waiting. A single black bird soaring below the clouds.

Goodbye, Yeonjun.