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The smell of dust is so stifling that Sunoo chokes and coughs as if he is being put on an automated sneeze dispenser. He now has – he glances at the cupboard behind him where his alarm clock still sits atop of – four more shelves and the last of his desk stuff to pack.
He hates it when he has to move because, well, he just hates packing – the act of, the idea of, the principle of it all. He hates having to clear all of the traces that made a place his, to press reset, and transport his entire life to a strange place that maybe, one day, he can make and call his home. He thinks that it’s just sad, that you get rid of your mark in the world that way, the one you so purposefully and carefully made, to feel the pain of an ending only to redo it all over again.
Most importantly, he thinks it’s like a heartbreak too, to lose a home you have always known. At least only momentarily, hopefully.
It wasn’t this draining, when he moved out of his childhood bedroom into this place. Is it because he is older now?
(He knows why. He just doesn’t want to admit that to himself because once he does, then it becomes true, and he already has enough of those to keep him awake for a lifetime.)
"Hey, cardbox delivery," Sunghoon’s head peeks from behind the doorframe and Sunoo sneezes at the new wave of dust. "Oh shit, sorry. Why didn't you open the window?"
"Too lazy-!!" His sneeze triggers another wave of heaving, and he scrambles around for the tissue box. He rips two out in one go and blows his nose, the sound echoing in the barren room. He coughs again and wipes his tears, his allergy on the verge of having a fit. "Uh, sorry. Help—"
"You're too damn delicate for your own good." Sunghoon rolls his eyes and walks to the window, behind Sunoo's collection of cardboxes and suitcases, and opens it.
It takes a couple of minutes but the fresh smell brought over by the wind helps Sunoo breathe in both content and relief. His lungs are finally working as how they should be. "Sunghoonie-hyuuung, you're a life saver, I swear."
Sunghoon only hums in response as if he has been hearing it over and over again (which is sadly true, because what is Kim Sunoo if not an avid believer in words of affirmation) and sits in front of Sunoo, newly dusted stash of cardboard boxes in tow. He sets up a new one before Sunoo can ask him to, making sure it’s taped up and secured before helping him put – read: shove – his things into the newly created space.
One of the things strewn about Sunoo is a dolphin-shaped porcelain from the floor, painted in oriental blue. Sunghoon picks it up and cracks a laugh. "Hey, isn't this that dolphin I asked you to buy for Wonyoung?"
"Yeah, the one you begged for me to get because apparently I only exist when you need my employee discount. The same one you conveniently forgot to specify that you want your gift to be a goddamn plushie," Sunoo scowls. “Just get the prettiest one. Pretty, my ass.”
Remembering the hardship he has to go through to get that the pretty porcelain piece and battling his manager to approve his employee discount and his manager’s purchase benefit to get the item for nearly 70% off, Sunoo frowns deeper at the memory of being told ‘What is this, Kim Sunoo? Where's the dolphin plushie? Sunoo-ya, you can’t be serious?’
"It's not my fault! You were the one who didn’t understand my instructions!
“She doesn't even like dolphins anyway. You suck at gift giving, hyung."
"Hey, I was just on the stage of getting to know her at that time! In my defense, she likes whatever I give her anyway," the taller man makes a move to carelessly place the offending article into the box and Sunoo, ever the loving father of that poor, misunderstood little dolphin, slaps the offending hand and places the dolphin on top of his crossed legs instead.
"He's just a big, brainless bad guy, baby. Don't worry, daddy will punish him," he coos at the dolphin before sticking his tongue out to Sunghoon, who raises his eyebrow in amusement.
"Really, Sunoo? Fifteen years of friendship and I’m ‘big brainless guy’. Wow."
"Anything for my baby," he dismisses the complaint and pats the dolphin's head with his fingers softly, as if the dolphin is a toy poodle and not a china that weighs enough to kill a man when thrown in a precise trajectory. Sunoo has had Jake help him calculate the possibility. It is, indeed, plausible if Sunoo has the arm strength to do so.
Sunghoon snorts and drops Sunoo’s pre-med bibles into the box as well. "I gave that to you, shut up."
"Well, you better treat my baby better than this then," Sunoo counters, their bickering a tune as old as time as he unfolds one of the newspapers and takes a big sheet, holding it in front of Sunghoon. "Or this," he crushes the said sheet down between his fingers aggressively and slams it down the box.
Sunghoon cringes despite himself. Sunoo might look like he is made of peaches and sunshine, blessed by Aphrodite or whatever, but Sunghoon has seen enough evidence of the younger’s destructive wrath to know better.
"Yes, ma'am. It won't happen again, ma'am," he says, making a cross motion with his finger over his heart solemnly. Sunoo hums satisfactorily in response and crushes more newspapers.
"When will Wonyoung be arriving anyway? Tomorrow?" he asks instead, slowly covering his books with his army of newspaper –- well, as cushiony and sturdy as papers can be.
"Yeah, flying straight from Tokyo. I can't wait." Sunghoon’s is wide enough to show his prominent fangs, eager with excitement, and Sunoo’s heart swells and burns at the same time. He doesn’t think he can form any coherent response so he settles it with a quiet but genuine, "That's good then."
He adds a smile, one that he knows Sunghoon can’t say no to, and continues to pack the last of his belongings away.
It chips at him, one movement at a time.
"When's your turn? You gotta introduce someone to us soon, you know. To me, to be precise. Especially to me, best friend’s privilege." Sunghoon uses the ruler he found amongst Sunoo’s packed things to point at the fox-eyed man – how Riki’s architectural drawing kit always ends up in Sunoo’s possession, Sunghoon doesn’t really know.
Sunoo only smiles in response and looks down at the newspapers in front of him, grey and withering under his hands. He kind of feels like one, sometimes. He kind of feels like one now, actually, being crushed with his own hands to cushion a porcelain from falling and breaking.
After all, what else can he do when he's no longer needed? The date on his newspaper page has long passed and he has overstayed his welcome. He would rather be a cushion than to wipe glass windows anyway. Being a cleaner sucks. Being dirty and wet sucks. At least this way, he can choose how he ends up as with dignity.
"Well," he starts, kickstarting the process of take-crush-shove process with the newspaper again and watches as it slowly fills the depth of a freshly set, smaller box. "It's complicated. A little bit."
"You never really… You don’t tell me anything anymore, you know," Sunghoon says – no, he doesn't whine. "We’re best friends since we were in grade school, flatmates for almost four years, and through all that and until now, you are my best friend. In fact, you are still my flatmate until all of your things are inside the moving truck and you have settled into your new flat. So I demand you to tell me now."
Sunoo sighs, because there is really nowhere to run when Sunghoon sets his mind onto something. "If you wanna gossip that bad then… Well, I think Jay-hyung is hitting on Minjeong-noona. and I think he's going to end up somewhere this time," he offers, tone expertly nonchalant, but the smirk he gives at Sunghoon’s surprised face betrays him.
"No way, since when!?" His thick eyebrows are steadily going higher, threatening to go past is hairline. “He didn’t tell me anything about this- What!?”
"I believe since last month, or maybe earlier than that? But," Sunoo replies with a shrug. "You're too oblivious to these kind of things, hyung. I’m not surprised he doesn’t tell you. I don’t think he told anyone but Jake hyung."
"Jongsaeng, that sly fucking bald eagle," Sunghoon grumbles under his breath as he leans back to his palm, long legs stretching sideways with his toes brushing Sunoo’s jeans-clad thighs.
Sunoo has proudly passed the shivering stage. It takes years, though. He’s still working on the butterflies and the chest pangs.
"And I think Jungwonie is being played by that girl he met at Heeseungie hyung’s party," he continues, taking his mind off of things he's not supposed to think. "She's iffy with Jake hyung, I can smell it. Good lesson for Jungwonie to not mess around with girls smarter than him."
"How do you even know these things?" Sunghoon asks incredulously, shaking his head. Sunoo answers with a laugh. “Do you know who you’re talking to, hyung? I have eyes on the back of my head.”
The newspaper bed is thick enough by now. Sunoo gives it a good couple of pushes to buy time, because Sunghoon is not letting it go. He knows the weight of that stare for years now.
"Because," he says after a while, looking down at the dolphin on his lap. "I know how other people feel. I guess. It comes easy to me. Reading people. They do ridiculous things when they like someone."
Sunoo sighs then, a soft thing that sounds more melodic than heavy, as he lowers the porcelain gently into the cushioned box with a smile that Sunghoon can't quite place. He notices that Sunoo smiles like that often. It makes him look...
How does one say it without it sounding stupid. Soft? But so, so sad. Almost... wistful? Bittersweet?
Well, he does say it from time and time again that his best friend is too pretty for his own good.
"But I don't know how I feel. I don't know how to name my own feelings or to figure out what I'm feeling sometimes," Sunoo continues and ends with a tone of finality.
All the time.
He closes the lids to all the cardboxes circling them and Sunghooon helps to hold it close for him in autopilot so that Sunoo can tape the flaps close. Sunoo beams at him with a cheerful thank you, and they repeat the same process for all the cardboard boxes in the room.
Sunoo’s bed and desk had gone away first. This feels final, like nail in the coffin. Uneasiness always makes Sunghoon goes quiet.
Sunoo works in silence after that. He always does, actually, now that Sunghoon reflects on his tenure as Kim Sunoo’s best friend.
He is one who keeps to himself, but knows when to be boisterous and merry. He always knows what to say and what to do, and Sunghoon doesn't quite know what to do without him. Even Wonyoung, after a year, still doesn't know how to get him out of his head when he is in one of his contemplative, morose moods.
It’s endearing when his girlfriend complains about it, but having known Sunoo for almost all of his life makes some things unchangeable. Sunoo is his constant, someone who Sunghoon knows will always be there for him, no matter the season and weather. They went through them together for more than a decade. They grow up together during that time too, and Sunoo is still his best friend through it all. He still gets to call Sunoo his best friend, through it all.
He watches Sunoo as he works, offering help wordlessly when it's needed. The room used to be full of things that invoke memories not only to Sunoo, but also to him. Now, as he is observing it more closely, it is scary how he notices a few things here and there that he has no knowledge of existing or has no contextual understanding of.
He eyes Riki’s ruler and frowns. He supposes it's fair because his room is now full of things that Sunoo isn't a part of either.
Sunghoon does feel bad, though, for bringing up the possibility of Sunoo moving out of their shared apartment. They have dreamed of sharing an apartment ever since they both decided to move to Seoul after being accepted to the same university. Despite Wonyoung being a good friend of Sunoo and Jungwon (he even thought that Wonyoung was Jungwon’s girlfriend at that time, and he nearly chickened out of the race before Jungwon vehemently denies it when asked), he knows that despite being a true extrovert, Sunoo hates it when he feels that his personal space is unsafe or being intruded by.
But Sunoo doesn't mention about having a department senior he's close with either, and Sunghoon frowns. How close can this senior and Sunoo be until he can just ask Sunoo if he wants to move in with him, conveniently? What name is Choi Soobin anyway?
"Oh, the truck is here already,” Sunoo says as he locks his phone, bringing Sunghoon back from his thoughts. Sunghoon nods and gets up, helping Sunoo hauling his suitcases down from their apartment into the truck waiting downstairs. Sunoo wanted to save up on cost by hiring only a driver and a truck, and Sunghoon had promised him that he would help through the day as his muscle.
After endless trips of going back and forth, one that even he feels winded by (which has evidently made Sunoo very, very cranky), only the cardbox that holds Sunoo’s baby dolphin remains in the now emptied room. It will be Wonyoung’s study space and closet, Sunghoon had timidly explained. It doesn’t really matter. It shouldn’t matter.
Sunoo takes the last box in his arms, grunting slightly at the weight but shakes his head at Sunghoon when he asks if he would like a hand with it instead.
"My baby, my responsibility," Sunoo says with that smile again, and the sun from the opened window gleams on his skin, bringing the hazel in his eyes forward. This is not the first time he has seen this, the uneasiness of a deja vu turns the gears in his mind.
The whirring stops as it locks into place, Sunghoon… Sunghoon knows he's not talking about the damn dolphin.
Since when had Sunoo start to answer his questions so vaguely – or maybe so obviously? And how the hell it has taken Sunghoon such a long time to finally read between Sunoo's lines?
He remembers Sunoo's off-handed ‘I like you’ during one of their usual basketball night outs in high school when Sunghoon dared Sunoo to tell him the biggest secret he has kept in life, and he remembers laughing at it because that was one good joke. The sun had hit Sunoo like that, just then. He feels like an ass now, in hindsight.
He remembers Sunoo's presence in every skating championship he's in and his ‘get your head in the game, you stupid, woe-begone-me dipshit. It doesn't matter if you place today or not. At least you can still stand here while thousands of people are willing to give up everything to have a chance at what you have’s (and how Sunoo said it, the harsh light of the arena hitting him, as if he had experienced it himself).
He remembers Sunoo’s ‘She'll be good for you, don't question it. I know you better than you’ll ever do’ when he introduced Wonyoung to him. Sunoo was right. He was smitten, tripping over his feet from day one.
He also remembers the times when he caught Sunoo’s expressionless face before he smiled his signature ecstatic grin, cheeks splitting with the force of it. The same smile was there when he told Sunoo that he and Wonyoung were finally dating, and it was there when he told Sunoo that he might be falling in love with Wonyoung, admitting it out loud for the first time.
It was there, too, when he raised the idea of Sunoo moving out over a dinner they don’t make and take together as often as they used to. The same uneasiness, because maybe, for the first time, he realises that he cannot read Sunoo the way he used to.
He thought that the brief second of nothingness was just an expression Sunoo adopts when he has to process his thoughts, like how Sunghoon thinks he looks like he zones out, but… he feels like the worst person on Earth now that he realises the reason why Sunoo looked like he was lost.
And now that Sunghoon knows who Sunoo likes, loves – is loving? How long? Since when? – and Sunghoon’s heart is breaking because Sunoo is the man with the greatest heart he has ever known and it's not fair for him to hold it for someone like Sunghoon, who keeps Wonyoung inside of his because like Sunoo said, Wonyoung is someone he didn’t know he needs until she filled in a crevice within him as she has always meant to belong there.
He looks at Sunoo who’s making his way down the hall and, in a split-second decision, pads over quickly to wrap his arms around Sunoo from behind.
The younger freezes in his tracks and blinks in confusion, trying to look over his shoulder to see Sunghoon's face but Sunghoon's stern “don’t, please” makes him halt his movements. He shifts his gaze down to the box in his hold instead.
Fifteen years, and he can never say no to Sunghoon. He’s too weak and both the butterflies and the chest pangs are creating chaos inside of him. Sunghoon is warm, has always been, and he has never held Sunoo like this. He will have the time to flush it out of his system later. All in due time. Maybe this is the wake up call he needs. Kim Sunoo will always find a way.
"Thank you, and… I’m sorry," Sunghoon says after a few beats of silence, his voice is barely louder than a whisper. Though it could be applicable to anything, Sunoo knows Sunghoon better than he knows himself and Sunoo knows, then, that Sunghoon knows.
Sunghoon knows. Sunghoon knows. His heart jackrabbits in his chest before it lurches to the pit of his stomach and it hurts, but Sunoo stays still. He’s had fifteen years of practice, perfected in the last year and a half.
At lost at how things turned out, how his confession is… Does this count as a confession? What does anyone do in this situation? Sunoo awkwardly – tries to, at least – cracks a laugh and shakes his head, his hair tickling Sunghoon's chin.
"Don't be. It’s—It’s my choice.” Sunoo swallows, his throat dry but his voice wet. “I'm happy, with you. I’m happy for you. I hope you are now and you will… always be, too. I just want you to be happy. You… I want to make you happy."
And Sunghoon feels his heart shattering into pieces, falling to his feet, because Sunoo is really, and will always be, the most beautiful person he has ever known in his entire lifetime. “I’m sorry. I…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I know.”
Maybe it’s the inevitability of an ending that he knows will happen, but Sunoo braves himself to lean up to kiss Sunghoon’s jaw as gentle as he once had when they were ten, and Sunghoon’s first loss in his championship made him frantic and unstable. His voice, lilting and soft, so familiar to Sunghoon as he murmurs, “farewell gift. Thank you for everything too.”
The hold tightens, and Sunoo lets himself wish, for a while. In another universe, maybe… He stops himself there, like he always has, and smiles to himself. This is why he loves Park Sunghoon. His lovely, wonderful Park Sunghoon with his big heart and fierce protectiveness. He is always the first person Sunoo reaches for when he is hurt.
Sunoo is older now. He will be stronger, now. Sunghoon is too important, irreplaceable in every role he has taken in Sunoo’s life.
“Take care, okay? We’ll be okay. I promise.”
Sunghoon takes that as a cue to loosen his hold and stay where he is, watching Sunoo's back as he walks out the door. Sunoo doesn’t look back, not once, and he disappears from view when Sunghoon finally takes a breath. His chest feels tight, his throat hurting and his eyes burn, but he takes deep breaths to shake the feeling off, just like how Sunoo taught him to.
Sunoo is a good friend, a great best friend, and Sunoo will forever be his best friend. Nothing can change that. Nothing will ever change that.
Sunoo said that they will be okay, so they will. Between the two of them, Sunoo is the one who always knows what to do.
(If only Sunghoon chooses to follow Sunoo, he would hear Sunoo's sob break the moment the elevator shuts behind him. Maybe, for once, he would see Sunoo's heart and love falling down in rivulets down his cheeks, like how he has done for many nights for the past decade.
But Sunghoon doesn't, like a lot of things he doesn't choose to do, and for that, Sunoo is grateful.
He wants to be remembered as strong and beautiful by the man he loves anyway.)