Archive of Our Own

Do you know what the worst kind of heartache is?

It is not the remembrance of what something once was, like how your fluttering lashes felt when a shy pair of lips lean into yours—the same ones that have sung poetry about their adoration for you; the same ones that would rather tell a million stories into your skin than to let them die on the tongue.

It is not the feeling of giving up, of seeing two toothbrushes in the washroom while you are reaching for your own, or having to eat breakfast alone in the kitchen because sitting down at the dining table would be too reminiscent of a yesterday that lives only in your memories.

It is nothing that has to do with letting go of something you once had because all it takes is a rinsing to rid yourself of that misery. Even though there is the taste of bitterness from a broken heart, that too, can be washed out with soap.

The worst kind of heartache is one that is constant—there is no beginning and there is no end. It is the type that will persistently keep you on your toes with a foolish hopefulness, and then will bring a hammer down on it because the truth is, it is undeserved.

You never had it. Whatever it is you yearn for, long for, it will never be yours.

Does it hurt being broken up with? You can tell the truth. You and I may know the answer to that, but Park Seonghwa does not, and while we take the time we need to ponder it over, he will use up his years wondering why he is stuck in the same time and place, unable to neither move forward nor to retrace his footsteps.

Do you know that Seonghwa still thinks of him? When midnight hits and he is deep into a bottle of soju and too many cans of beer to count, he will smile beautifully for the blurred image of Hongjoong in his mind while the floorboards creak under the pressure of dancing toes.

He will forget pain, and he will imitate a version of himself when he is happiest, and that fleeting, faux kind of bliss comes naturally only to the make-believe rendition of what can never be.

In the drunken state of his mind—intoxicated by a craving known only to the loneliest souls in this little universe of ours—Seonghwa becomes a fool. He falls into a bed unmade from the terrible hangover he woke with and will wake with come tomorrow, and he will giggle madly over the illusion of Hongjoong in the empty space next to him. Chilled fingers will ghost up the skin of his arms, up to his chin, and then to his cheeks. He will leave haunting touches under the thin layer of Seonghwa’s nightshirt, and when they caress him tenderly, he will surrender his heart to a man unknowing of his yearning.

Seonghwa will trap himself in the prison that he has willingly built himself, because tomorrow comes and he wakes blearily to a cold bed with twitchy fingers reaching into the sheets beside him, looking for a lover he knows he never had.

Do you understand now, the pain of loving someone you can not have? There is no chance, no possibility, and no potential of having three simple words, eight weighted letters, repeated from the lips of someone you so desperately wish to hear it from.

Those eyes will never look at Seonghwa with the love he desires, and he will grow blind with time to the gazes of others, for he can never break free of the chains he constructed to the very shape of his own heart.

You must wonder—how can anyone live like this? How does Seonghwa sleep, wake up, and exist in a world so occupied by a lack of regard for even those with more than himself? How, when he has become this empty shell of a person, so consumed by the sickness of wishful thinking and detrimental daydreaming? 

Ah, well, he does not, really. The mechanisms of the human body require nutrients to survive, so Seonghwa eats. He needs water, so he drinks. He has a home—one that feels emptier than when there is a moving body roaming through it, but nonetheless, a home. He lives, but do you think he is living?

I can tell you of a time Seonghwa really lived. It had started so terribly long ago, but if you ask him, he can still let you know which day and what time (he will count the years on his fingers—that is right, years) he had signed his life away to the stranger with perfect, pretty teeth that showed easily with his crooked grin.

He had not a name but a tattoo on the inside of his arm, and his dark hair fell over his eyes in a way that enchanted many people, but not in the way Seonghwa took to it. It was instant, this desperation to have something from the man.

A busted tire on his Mercedes and a comment about how young Seonghwa looked to even have the coupe under his name was almost all that it took. What had really driven the thorn into his heart had been the look Hongjoong leveled at him with—it had been an invitation after dirtying his hands for someone who believed the other to be an angel disguised as the devil, or perhaps it was the other way around.

I only call it a thorn because Seonghwa knew that crashing into bed with a stranger would bring nothing but misery for how quick he had been to fall for him, and Seonghwa knew love of no other kind except for Hongjoong’s hands around his hips with intention to bruise and mark, necessity to claim and demand, and Seonghwa would give it to him in less than a heartbeat.

Hongjoong had asked for his phone number that night with the promise to text, but when Seonghwa woke in the morning, it had been to the sorrow of a half empty bed and a stagnant, still air in his apartment. On the doormat by his front door, a lonely pair of shoes sat upon it when yesterday, there had been two there.

It had taken four long months for Hongjoong to honour his promise, and it came in a silent buzz of a notification and a lit up screen while Seonghwa was in the middle of wrenching the excess moisture in his hair.

It had taken two fleeting seconds for Seonghwa to reply, fingers tapping over the pop-up keyboard so briskly his brain could not catch up, and when Hongjoong arrived, he put his hands on Seonghwa as though they had missed the feeling of his skin under his vicious hands. The touch of his tongue had been all the words Seonghwa needed to know he was wanted, and the language Hongjoong spoke with his dirty love was all that it took for Seonghwa to crave him in his bed for more than just a casual, lustful escapade.

Just like the first time, Seonghwa had woken in the morning alone, and the only indication Hongjoong was ever there at all presses into the pillow next his own, filled out at the sides but dented in the middle as though someone had laid their unspoken burdens there.

Hongjoong had been tired, but clearly not enough to stay.

Do you know that feeling you get when you have to make an appointment somewhere, whether it be at a doctor’s office, or maybe you are calling someone out to take a peek at the constant drip, drip, drip under your sink? There is a clinical approach to it, and there is also an unwritten rule to never speak of more than what is needed to be said.

Are you available tomorrow?

No, sorry. Can you come Saturday instead?

Sure. What time?

Nine?

How about eleven?

Okay.

Every two months like clockwork, Hongjoong came to remind Seonghwa of what it felt like to be remembered, and he would let himself succumb to the loss of loneliness in this man’s presence. In the dreamlike haze Seonghwa slowly grew addicted to, he would worship Hongjoong as though he was the reason why Seonghwa did not have to witness a monochrome world anymore.

Every morning when Seonghwa woke to haunting stillness, he wondered why he kept letting himself give away a part of his own heart until his body began to wax itself of its spirit and vitality. It was sickness with no cure—no remedy.

Then, what does one do when they are so consumed by a longing for something that never started on the first page of the first chapter? Maybe you think it is a little too soon to assume something like that, but Hongjoong never gave more of himself if it meant having to utter words beyond what he seeked, and what he wanted was Seonghwa’s body, battered and bruised from the hurricane that came with his twisted desires.

The first inkling of hope came when Hongjoong, for the first time in months, had asked him a question after they had learned to be comfortable with the sudden space between their heated bodies. “Have you always lived alone?”

While Seonghwa has been alone for a few years now, he still pained over Hongjoong’s curiosity of his bitterly solitary life. Did he seem comfortable living a lonely life? With his head turning to look at the other man, he answered him, “I have.”

They gazed at each other quietly, but Seonghwa could only think, ‘Oh, how he yearned so desperately for Hongjoong to be there in the morning.’

He was not lying. Seonghwa had loved but had never been loved before, if that was the intention of Hongjoong’s question. He could not tell him how every past flutter of his heart paled in comparison to the blossoming affection growing in his chest for the other man. Its stems grew too long, roots so deeply disposed in the trenches of his intestines he would feel a shred of swelling whenever Hongjoong left and emptied a piece from Seonghwa with him.

Perhaps the petals preened prettily when they were drenched crimson, but they flittered easily at the shy smile Hongjoong doted him with on the rare occasion he would stay a little longer to talk of a world outside of Seonghwa’s apartment.

You would think he would know of it, but it seemed he had momentarily forgotten that the universe existed bigger than solely the space between Hongjoong and himself. That was how he felt whenever Hongjoong’s fingers brushed against his skin as though to tell him a story he could never divulge through spoken words.

A simple question was all that it took for Seonghwa to be pulled back in like a magnet to its force, but magnets usually have two sides: one to attract and one to repel. Even though Hongjoong had never once stayed, Seonghwa still recognized the sound of his fractured heart while gazing at the pale, grey skies that Sunday morning. Seonghwa became a game for Hongjoong, pushing and shoving, then pulling and tugging—back and forth, over and over like his body was no longer his own.

It was indisputable. He belonged to Hongjoong.

The next time he visited, he would bring with him an extra laugh, shown only when Seonghwa fell victim to a fit of inevitable hiccups. At that moment, time stopped, and he could not rid himself of the haunting image of Hongjoong’s squinted eyes and Cheshire grin, because Hongjoong had never smiled like that before. The ring of it echoed over and over again, even when he tried to force sleep to come find him, and even when he did finally cry himself to a pitiful slumber.

Why must he love like this? It was a question he often asked himself back then. You will not understand his pain even if you try. It is one that you must experience, and you must follow the exact same steps to achieve it. You can not be past lovers, and you can not be friends. You must be strangers, and you must share your bodies with each other but never your lips.

Have I mentioned they have never kissed?

“Thank you,” Hongjoong mumbled with a yawn, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

Seonghwa blinked slowly. Hongjoong had never thanked him for sex before.

“What for?”

“I had a terrible day.”

Seonghwa did not ask why, and I do not have an answer for it, either. I can speculate that perhaps he could not find a reason to pry, or that a fear of knowing gripped him in a way it never had before. It was territory unfamiliar to him and choosing to take that path meant he was ready to unlock Pandora’s box.

You might not imagine it could have been that terrible, but Seonghwa dreaded the worst. To map the real Hongjoong carefully, he might lose him entirely in the end, and that was not a thought he could have beared.

Sometimes, Hongjoong would leave tiny details about himself behind. They were always short-lived conversations, but Seonghwa consciously imbued his mind with them—every word Hongjoong spoke, how he had said them, and the curious tilt of his head to meet Seonghwa’s gaze. He wanted to burn the image of him into his eyes forever.

He learned of his age, just some months younger than himself. He knew of his favourite colour, food, and song. Hongjoong liked music—he liked it a lot. Seonghwa sometimes fell asleep to a song he had mentioned casually, unworried about how attached Seonghwa would grow to it.

Realistically, just between you and me, Seonghwa did not truly know Hongjoong, and Hongjoong did not know Seonghwa past the fact that he was readily available for him at any time of the day, usually late at night.

The amount of plans Seonghwa had cancelled on is a shared secret between us three. His friends, who were never really that close to him to begin with, message him less and less until the only texts that came were from Hongjoong, very sparingly and very banally.

He was undoubtedly all right with that.

There is no way of telling how hard Seonghwa fell, for even I can not grasp the intricate composite of the different emotions growing inside him at the time. I can tell you, however, that those were probably the best years of his life.

I did mention years.

In the mornings after, Seonghwa often gazed at his naked body in the mirror. His fingers would drift over the abundance of bruises that marred the skin over his neck and collarbone, down his chest and to his tummy. He thought he had grown thinner.

“Are you hungry?”

The way Seonghwa’s heart leapt to his throat had caused a delayed response. “What?”

Hongjoong had shrugged. “You look skinnier. I thought maybe you weren’t eating properly.”

Seonghwa tried to think back to when he had last eaten. “I don’t know.”

It is unknown how their relationship had transformed into one that was so full of spoken language. It took the time of six years for Seonghwa to finally begin to ponder it. At what point had Hongjoong become so familiar with where everything in his kitchen was?

Ramen had never tasted so good during an hour when all the early working bodies in South Korea slept. Hongjoong regarded him from the other side of the table while Seonghwa ate, and he could not help the thrum of energy in his trembling fingers that gripped the chopsticks.

For three years, Seonghwa pined for Hongjoong. He yearned for the things he could never have with him, like locked lips and laced limbs, heartfelt confessions and morning-afters.

No, they were not friends. Truthfully, they were not anything at all. There was one time when Seonghwa had been on his way home from work, and as he crossed the street, his gaze landed naturally on Hongjoong’s on the other side.

You would think they might have gotten closer over the course of those three years, but Hongjoong’s eyes had flicked away before Seonghwa could form a thought in his head, and they passed each other wordlessly when the pedestrian crossing light turned on as if they had not known each other at all.

That same night, Hongjoong came to meet him again, and Seonghwa was no longer surprised to find him gone in the morning.

There was something about the repetition—Seonghwa knew he would come again no matter what. He would wait days and weeks on his toes, and when Hongjoong appeared on the other side of the door, he would heal Seonghwa of his lonely ache with the veined hands that acted as reminders to continue holding on.

They guide him forward as though they were made to console, but they also keep him hanging on by a thin thread like their intentions were villainous. Seonghwa latched onto the force with his life, unable to give it up. He believed he could suffer through the worst if it meant Hongjoong would remedy him with one look and another touch at his waist.

Just like this, Hongjoong trapped Seonghwa in that sickening state of perpetual yearning. In his illusive dreams, spurred by the idea of falling asleep next to Hongjoong, he would be able to slip his hand into Hongjoong’s and feel the warmth of his palm on his own. He would have Hongjoong in every way he is not allowed to have, and he would wake to the colourless reality like the aftereffects of ecstasy had drained his brain of all the serotonin it could produce. His heart would be sunken with the woe that came with a lack of the man’s presence, and he would wallow in it until he needed to get out of bed to continue a life so jaded it matched the way his mind felt.

At least, he could still look forward to Hongjoong.

“Did you know that music can help plants grow?” Hongjoong asked from where he was seated on Seonghwa’s couch, his eyes trained on the little foliage potted on his coffee table.

Seonghwa giggled like Hongjoong had told him the funniest joke he had ever heard. “It’s fake. But is it true? It really can?”

The back of Hongjoong’s finger grazed the green plastic. “It’s true.”

I know it sounds sad. I know there is a heartache to listen to a story about someone declining steadily over a man that would never be his, but when I said these were the brightest years of Seonghwa’s life, I did not lie.

His heart swelled with delight at the bruises Hongjoong would leave in his hips. When he touched himself at night, he reminisced the way Hongjoong’s fingers scratched at the sides of his waist whenever he was close. Seonghwa would let him take and take, even if he had no more to give. Hongjoong wanted his body, so he took it. If he wanted his heart, Seonghwa would let him claw under his ribcage for it. Whatever he wanted Seonghwa to call him, he would let it roll off his tongue like a worship.

He could shatter into a million pieces, but if Hongjoong asked him to, he would gather them back up with bloodied hands to offer himself again and again, until he was no more.

It is with despair that I have to tell you that Seonghwa had been the first to cross the undrawn and unspoken line they developed. He had sunken his whole foot into the waters without first testing them, and it had been so cold he should have taken it as a warning sign, but those hands, so full of ugly delusion, clawed up his calf and dragged him deeper.

“It is late,” Seonghwa’s voice had cut through the stillness in the room.

Hongjoong turned his head to look at him quizzically. “I know.”

“Must you leave?” The question had come with little thought to it, as if he had spoken impulsively, with hopelessness, and the colour on Seonghwa’s face drained when Hongjoong turned away with the dread of having to look at him.

“Um—yeah, I should.”

It had been a mistake. Hongjoong had never stayed the night in the five years that they have been sleeping with each other. After all, was that not all it was? How foolish of Seonghwa to offer something so obscene—to even think of it.

Seonghwa watched Hongjoong leave his apartment with his back facing towards him the entire time, and he would mourn his loss and suffer through his punishment as he would not see Hongjoong again for another four months.

The way that Seonghwa wilted had been incredibly unforeseen. From seeing Hongjoong once a week for four years now to helplessly waiting for a text message to come after an entire month had passed by had devastated him. It had ruined him so completely he had forgotten how beautiful he looked with Hongjoong’s marks over his skin. He could not bear to look in the mirror without those same blemishes, and he could not stand to keep his phone on when the waiting game he played took enough of his attention for him to forget to eat or sleep.

Still, he needed to keep it on, because what if Hongjoong texted? He would stare at the dark screen of his phone, hoping desperately for it to light up with a notification—the only notification he ever got since his love for the other man grew too big to contain.

Ah, but Hongjoong did not adore him the way Seonghwa did. He did not think of Seonghwa at the oddest hours of the day, and he did not wish for him to be his the way Seonghwa did desperately.

Do you know what that does to someone? It makes them drown. How can you stay afloat if you have been tossed overboard as though you meant little to the ship you stupidly clung to?

Seonghwa did not have the chance to ask Hongjoong why he had punished him for wanting him to stay. It was possible he asked solely to look out for him, but they were not even friends—not in the way most people are. Could it not have been that Seonghwa felt he was too tired to make it home safely?

It did not have to mean anything. It obviously did, but Hongjoong did not have to perceive it that way. Why did he? Why must he have to? It had ruined Seonghwa. His sore heart had twisted and ached and crumbled in the loss of Hongjoong’s presence, and Hongjoong did not care. Still, Seonghwa yearned for him.

You can call him foolish or demented. He knew, and yet he still wanted to do it.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Hongjoong had moaned into his neck, his hands having found their way into Seonghwa’s hair.

Seonghwa wanted to cry, and he wanted Hongjoong to pull his hair even tighter until it hurt. “Please.” He did not want to hear another word if all Hongjoong wanted was to dig his nails further into his weak, beating heart. He could claw at him anywhere else, but his heart would die with Hongjoong’s next words.

He gazed down at him, and in the dimly lit room from Seonghwa’s orange lamp, he looked beautiful, drenched in orange on one side, darkened in shadows on the other.

That night, Hongjoong spent a longer time by Seonghwa’s side. “I’m leaving,” he had said, and Seonghwa’s heart fell so quickly he could not find his breath.

“Tomorrow. I don’t know when I will be back.”

Silence made a home around them. Seonghwa’s brain could not process what life would be like without Hongjoong, and fear gripped him so violently fast he felt the nausea crash into him the way it did when alcohol licked up too high on his stomach walls.

“Are you not going to say anything?”

Seonghwa’s skin sizzled with anxiety, and when he opened his mouth, he spoke on autopilot. “W-what do you want me to say?”

Hongjoong regarded him quietly, then flicked his eyes away as though he did not want to be caught staring for too long. “Never mind.”

Seonghwa’s lungs squeezed, and he did not know how to contain the sudden emotions that were overwhelming him. It must have felt as though a phantom hand closed down around him, and if he spoke poorly, everything would flood out. “You don’t know when you’ll be back?”

“I don’t know.”

Japan is not that far from South Korea, but Seonghwa could not so easily purchase a ticket and look for Hongjoong in a different country when his world was not much bigger than the space between him and the other man just a seven months ago.

Seonghwa has grown tired of waiting, and yet he still welcomes the thought of Hongjoong when he snakes himself in between the banal ordinariness of his daily life. He pretends Hongjoong will be waiting for him at home, and when he is met with an empty apartment, he will go to his fridge to find his soju and beer, hoping that Hongjoong will come to him in his drunken mind.

When there is no more, he will walk down to the convenience store and sip at it outside for enough time to get his cheeks flushed and butt numb against the cheap, plastic chair. Strangers walk by and will glance curiously at him, sometimes out of pity, sometimes with apathy.

He wishes for a time, perhaps another life, when Hongjoong could have been his. Must he be punished like this? Must he suffer for loving? They are questions he asks himself over and over again, every single day as though finding the answer is the only reason why he exists. Without them, he would not be anyone anymore. Without Hongjoong, he must find a purpose in this life through his colourblind eyes that have learned to only look for Hongjoong.

The tears that come suddenly make him look pathetic. Oh, poor thing. I do not think anyone in this world yearns as miserably as he does. This love has turned so ugly it borderlines an obsession with Hongjoong, one that is not afraid to drown him in its venom with every new day that comes.

His screen is blurry when he looks through their text conversation history. It is short enough that he does not scroll far to reach the top—the beginning of it all. The message writes itself before he can process it, and his thumb hovers over the button that taunts and haunts.

“Are you drunk texting an ex?”

It is all that Seonghwa needs to turn his phone off, and when he sets it on the table, it is with more force than he intends. He does not care whose voice it belongs to, for it is not Hongjoong. He does not want to look at him, for he is not Hongjoong. Black strands fall across his face when he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, and his cries sound so pained it is as though his world has ended with the sudden realization that he had just almost ended everything he has held onto for the past five years for good.

“H-Hongjoong,” he sobs while wiping at his eyes. He hyperventilates as a disgusting anger and hatred for the world soaks into the venomous obsession he carries in his bloodstream. “Hongj-joong…!”

“Is that his name?”

The stranger sits down across from him and listens to Seonghwa until he has no more tears left to cry. He had been so scarily close to making a mistake that would forever cost him his happiness. If he had tapped send, he knew he would have regretted it, so why did he let himself get so close to ruining it all?

I suppose he is already ruined. Hongjoong has shattered him so entirely, he only knows to find solace at the bottom of soju bottles and outside in the chilly nighttime air. He is cold in his thin shirt, and yet he has grown entirely numb to it, too. His hair has grown long enough for it to touch his shoulders, but he has not thought of getting a haircut in months. It had not been a thought for a long time, his mind overwritten by everything that has to do with Hongjoong.

Hongjoong has taken all of Seonghwa with him, and he has left just the shell of him. He had wanted Seonghwa’s body so terribly badly, so why did he not take that instead? Why must he take every other part of him—his heart, his soul, his love? Why did he leave him behind?

He said he would be back, but even though Seonghwa clings desperately to that artificial optimism, he is afraid that Hongjoong may have lied.

Despite all of that, Seonghwa can not move on if he is unwilling to do so. Ah, it seems I must mention this. Seonghwa is seeing someone new—or, well, can I actually say it like that? I mean that he is trying to see someone new.

The stranger that had watched him break down outside of the convenience store in the middle of the night—Seonghwa had let him in. He had let him into his home and between his legs. He had let him memorize where everything in Seonghwa’s cabinets were, and he had let him stay the night so that Seonghwa had a warm body to wake up to for the first time in his life.

The thing is, ramen does not taste as good if it is not Hongjoong who makes it for him. This man’s body is not the one Seonghwa wants in his bed when he opens his eyes in the mornings. He may have let him in, but he can not find a home in Seonghwa’s heart. It is unfortunate, but there is no room for two. Seonghwa does not even have space in his heart for himself, so how can he push Hongjoong out to replace him with someone else? That is insanity.

The man is perfect in every way, do not misunderstand.

Still, he is not Hongjoong.

Seonghwa hates himself for it. He is mad at himself for wanting to close his eyes to imagine the lips on his own belonged to Hongjoong. He pretends the soft, loving hands that caresses his waist carries in them the turbulence that comes with Hongjoong’s grip. He wishes he does not have to look this man in the eyes and see a glimpse of what could have been him and Hongjoong in a world that loved Seonghwa fairly.

“I love you,” the man says.

“I love you too,” Seonghwa lies, but he has gotten awfully good at faking it if all he has to do is imagine that those words belonged to Hongjoong’s ears instead. He lies to himself and he lies to the whole world for two long years. The pain of doing it is worse than when he had suffered this pitiful loneliness by himself because loneliness can not be shared, and it had taken much too long for Seonghwa to recognize that.

The worst kind of heartache is one where there is no beginning and no end. Seonghwa can not move on—even with the endless patience the man gives him. He waits for Seonghwa and might have waited longer had Seonghwa not laughed deliriously at the sudden text he receives tonight.

He does not blame him for leaving. What if I told you Seonghwa wanted him gone? Did he think he could replace Hongjoong? It is laughable. Nobody can replace him.

Hongjoong comes back to South Korea, and the sick, twisted part of Seonghwa welcomes the cruelty he allows inside his home. He lets Hongjoong discern the differences in his home, and he endures the way Hongjoong perceives the suggestions that lead to the existence of another man that had been in his bed through the extra pairs of shoes by the door and the framed picture of them on the coffee table.

Oh, how Seonghwa has missed him. He has been missing him for so long and loving him until it consumed him and left a trail of memories behind, his veins burned with an irritation of having not had him for two, despicable years.

How could he have done this to Hongjoong? He should have waited. He should have listened. Hongjoong had said he did not know when he would be back, but Seonghwa should have lived day-to-day in a soulless body like a robot until Hongjoong was ready to come back to him. How could he have tried to forget him? He is absolutely deplorable, so he lets himself become a victim of the abuse from Hongjoong’s tongue.

“Did he fuck you like this?” Hongjoong grits out with a thrust so hard it knocks Seonghwa forward onto his chest. His face plants into the pillow as trembling hands grasp at thin sheets. How he so desperately wished for them to smell like Hongjoong again.

“Say something,” Hongjoong provokes. His teeth sink into Seonghwa’s shoulder like they want him to hurt and want him to break, and Seonghwa lets him tear him apart, piece by piece of his heart and bit by bit of his sanity.

“N-no,” Seonghwa chokes out, his voice muffled. No one can ever have Seonghwa like Hongjoong will. If he needs Seonghwa as a sacrifice to prove his devotion, he will have it.

Hongjoong turns him onto his back and peers down at him vindictively, and Seonghwa melts into that cold gaze. He lets his heart heal from Hongjoong’s possessive hands at his waist, and Seonghwa wishes they can stay there longer if it means he can forget the disgust he has for the past two years so that the anguish of the four years before will come home.

He would rather the misery of being a chess piece in the palm of Hongjoong’s hand than nobody at all.

That is right, Seonghwa is nothing without Hongjoong. I had lied. This heartache to him—it is the worst kind and the best kind; it is the most sinful Heaven and the most divine Hell, and Seonghwa realizes this when an epiphany comes to him: this Hongjoong, the one who intends to take Seonghwa for all that he is—the one that has existed in his memories for all the time that he is not with him—this Hongjoong is the one he will both live and die for.

Seonghwa would rather have this than nothing at all, and so he gives and gives and continues to give. When Hongjoong’s teeth graze at his jaw, Seonghwa imagines he takes a bite out of him. When his hand splays over Seonghwa’s rapidly beating heart, he thinks of Hongjoong reaching underneath his ribcage to take what is rightfully his.

For that, Seonghwa will take as well. He will take whatever Hongjoong can give him—wants to give him—and that is all that he prays for. If it is only a text, or worse, an endurance of a two-year wait, Seonghwa will take it because Hongjoong had been the one to present it to him.

It takes three days for Seonghwa to clear his apartment of the items that do not belong to him. It takes another two for him to feel at peace with the emptiness he is greeted with when he comes home from work, only because this is the equal of coming home to Hongjoong.

Everything is exactly as it was before. The cage has not grown in size, it has not changed, but now, it does not have a locked door. Truthfully, I never believed it was ever locked. Seonghwa was always welcome to leave, but he has made himself comfortable inside instead.

The door opens and Hongjoong walks in. Usually, he comes empty handed, but today, there is something.

“What is that?” Seonghwa asks, sitting up straighter.

“Are you hungry?”

They eat on his couch. The TV remote is between their food on the coffee table, but nobody has made a reach for it. Seonghwa does not need media. He does not need anything. He only needs this.

The silence is broken only when they are done eating. Hongjoong tells him all his stories in Japan—of how pretty it is when you take just an hour’s drive out of Tokyo. The sunsets are gorgeous when you find the perfect height to view them from.

Then, “I wish you could have seen it.”

Oh, but he does not truly mean it.

Seonghwa smiles, but he is genuine when he says, “I don’t need to see the sunsets in Japan.”

South Korea has pretty sunrises right from his bedroom window. Hongjoong bruises his neck with kisses as warmth filters in, and when Seonghwa arches his back into his touches, he hopes Hongjoong thinks he looks beautiful in the morning light, enough for him to stay a little longer afterwards.

He is afraid to blink, for Hongjoong may not be there when he opens his eyes again. 

“Sleep,” the other man tells him while lifting the covers up to his chin.

“I can’t,” Seonghwa whispers, and he does not take his eyes off of Hongjoong’s side profile. “It is morning.”

He has never stayed until the sun came up.

Hongjoong sits with his legs off the side of the bed, so when he turns his head, Seonghwa chooses to stare at the hairs at the back of his neck instead. His gaze drops when Hongjoong breathes deeply, and the skin on his back is beautiful in the dawning light. Seonghwa had created an artful masterpiece on his body, and he hopes he may continue to use his medium to depict all of the love and heartache and obsession into his canvas. Hongjoong deserves to know through the storytelling of their lovemaking.

Ah, but there is not really ‘lovemaking’ between them.

The silence is both uncomfortable and lulling—I can not explain it, but we both know Seonghwa is consoled by the pain brought upon him by Hongjoong.

“Did you love him?”

Seonghwa’s mouth runs dry, but he does not hesitate to tell him, “No.”

Hongjoong turns his head just a scant. “Good.”

That night, Seonghwa drinks enough soju to block out everything else except for the words Hongjoong had said to him. In his mind that is so clouded by such possessive and toxic words, Seonghwa finds himself happy to hear them. He is so elated he celebrates. Then, he is resentful of having given the time of two years away to someone else when he should have been devoted to Hongjoong. He is so distraught he drowns in his celebratory bottles.

When he feels hungry, he orders pizza, but when it comes, he is already throwing up in the toilet and suddenly does not feel like eating anymore. The taste in his mouth is both acidic and bitter, a mixture of soju and stomach acid.

It is not enough. He wanders the streets in his slippers because he is too lethargic to put on real shoes, and when he finds a pojangmacha, he orders another two bottles. The first shot stings when he tosses it back with his head, and he fears he might have slammed the glass down a little too hard when he drops his head forward.

His phone lights up with a text notification, and Seonghwa has to squint to make out the words, but when he finally does, he laughs jovially and draws the attention of a suited man a few tables down.

“He—he wants to come again!” he sings and turns his phone around to show the stranger with a finger pointed at his screen. The man has no idea what he is talking about and most definitely can not see the messages on his phone, but Seonghwa is giggling to himself anyway. His hair falls across his face and stick to the damp heat of it. With cheeks this flushed, he should not drink more, but how else do you celebrate besides having more drinks?

Hongjoong has never asked to meet him two nights in a row. It is a rare occasion, and in Seonghwa’s drunken state, he makes another mistake. He was never able to commit to the drunken text he had written out for Hongjoong two years ago, but now, he is excited to chat with unintelligible words?

He must take too long to reply because Hongjoong is calling now.

“Joong-ie!” he yells into his phone, his unfocused eyes taking in the half empty bottle of soju in front of him. He hiccups and lets his eyes fall closed so that he can listen better to the other man’s voice.

“Seonghwa?”

“J-Joong-ie, I—I am so happy tonight,” Seonghwa sighs heartfeltly.

“Are you drunk?”

Seonghwa giggles. “A little…”

“Where are you?”

“Ah, fuck, I really don’t know,” he slurs and pops one eye open with much effort to glance around him. The tarp is red, the tables are metal, and the benches are cheap plastic. It is like every other pojangmacha he has been to. “Pocha, somewhere.”

Suddenly, like fear has found him again after being away for so long, Seonghwa shoots upward, his hand splayed over the table while he speaks nervously into the phone. “B-but you can still—still come. I can—I can g-go home now…! Will you—will you still come?”

Hongjoong’s voice pierces through every noise in Seonghwa’s head. “My god, Seonghwa. You need to stay where you are. I’ll come find you. Do you know how to send your location?”

It is not easy to send your location when you can hardly focus on your screen. Everything is blurry, and his fingers do not tap where he wants them to tap, but he manages to do it anyway—only because Hongjoong wants him to.

Hongjoong wants him to wait there, so Seonghwa waits patiently. Hongjoong wants him to stay on the call with him, so Seonghwa does not hang up. He finishes the rest of the bottle while fighting to keep his eyes trained on the entrance of the tent, and when Hongjoong finally bursts through it, energy finds Seonghwa again.

It has never failed to find him when Hongjoong is here.

“Jesus,” Hongjoong says, and his hands rest on the side of Seonghwa’s face. His cheek is hot, but Hongjoong’s hand stings differently. It sends sparks to his brain, and it electrifies him in a way he has never felt before. This must be what it feels like to be loved.

Seonghwa peers up at the other man with a silly smile. He is still hiccupping when he speaks, “You—you came.”

Something changes in Hongjoong’s expression, but Seonghwa can not find it in himself to care when his heart is so full of a love that exists nowhere except for there. Slowly, Hongjoong removes his hand and finds the seat across from Seonghwa.

“Why did you drink so much?”

Did you know that drinking reduces inhibitions? Seonghwa has had so much to drink, we can not know how a conversation will go. Well, these two do not have conversations like these—have not had conversations like these to begin with.

Ah, actually, I do not think anything even began between them. It is as though they have skipped the most crucial part of knowing someone, and it is the introduction. Their story does not have a first chapter. It was not torn out or lost—it was simply never written.

Seonghwa takes too long to answer.

“Hwa, you’re killing me. Please say something.”

Seonghwa sniffs, and then a little giggle escapes. “Don’t say that.”

“What?”

“I don’t like to hear it.”

Is he killing Hongjoong? He had no idea. Is he not just nothing to him? Perhaps he is something, but he is not killing him.

When Hongjoong does not say anything, Seonghwa forces his eyes up to his face. Hongjoong is not looking at him, but rather past him, so Seonghwa turns to glance past his shoulder, but even in the blurry vision, he does not see anything.

“Why did you drink so much?”

Seonghwa ignores him to reach for the other bottle, still full, but Hongjoong snatches it out of his hand to spill some across his own. He pours the liquid into the shot glass, but before Seonghwa can take it, Hongjoong is knocking it back.

“How much did you drink?”

“Three.”

“Bottles?”

“Yeah?”

A sigh leaves Hongjoong’s lips. Seonghwa blinks at him, and he does not think about anything except for how handsome Hongjoong looks sitting across from him. Two minutes go by, and there is now a second soju glass and another bottle on the table.

“Can we play a game?” Seonghwa asks while watching Hongjoong swallow down the liquid. His hands twitch for another drink of his own. He knows he should not keep doing this, but he can not help it.

“Sure.”

“You have to tell the truth. I will—will also tell… the truth,” Seonghwa explains with another hiccup.

Hongjoong regards him quietly. Seonghwa drinks half his glass.

“Do you r-remember how we met?”

“Yeah?” Hongjoong responds almost immediately. “You didn’t know how to change a tire.”

“My life…” Seonghwa slurs, index finger pointing directly at Hongjoong like he is accusing him of committing a crime, “my life became more… more exciting since I met you.”

The way Hongjoong gulps is visible. “Then why are you a mess?”

“Is tha—is that your question?”

Hongjoong takes another drink. “Yeah.”

“Because,” Seonghwa starts, his heart beating out of his chest, “you’re killing me.” He gives Hongjoong’s words right back at him only because he thinks he deserves to hear them more.

Hongjoong’s fingers quiver from where they are curled around his soju glass, and then he is reaching to pour himself another drink. They are silent until he is about to lift his glass. With a heavy pause, he slides his gaze to Seonghwa’s glossy eyes. “Your turn.”

“Do—do you think…” Seonghwa slurs, “do you think I’m pretty?”

The way that Hongjoong stares at him should have scared him into thinking he has said something wrong, but then the man is laughing. It is a breathy, beautiful sound. “Yes, Seonghwa. I think you’re very pretty.”

The smile that breaks across Seonghwa’s face is more than just pretty, actually. It is a smile that encompasses every little happiness that he has been seeking, and he hopes Hongjoong can read it in its vague translation.

“Why don’t you want to see the sunsets in Japan?”

Seonghwa’s smile drops just a little. This time, he stares at his soju glass, but he does not make a move to drink from it. “I already told you. I don’t need to see them.”

“But why?”

“I only need to see you.”

Ah, there it is—the point at which the conversation takes its momentous turn. We all saw it coming, but have you prepared for it?

“Did you—did you know that this is the first time you’ve called me?”

Hongjoong’s soju glass comes down harder than it should have. “I know.”

The alcohol must be hitting him quickly considering how much he has had in the past three minutes. Maybe he did not eat yet, or perhaps he is finally succumbing to their history of twisted, violent passions.

It is Hongjoong’s turn, but Seonghwa is speaking anyway, “You’ve ruined me, Hongjoong.” He does not realize the tear that glides down his cheek, but we know, and Hongjoong knows. Hongjoong sees it like blood against cold, ceramic skin.

“I am nothing without you,” Seonghwa whispers as a shaky hand reaches again for his glass. He is fully aware he is crying now, but he does not wipe them from his face, but he does not stop crying, either, as though he wants Hongjoong to see just how severely he has been fragmented.

His hand trembles when he drinks, and the next time he opens his mouth, he is staring at a spot on Hongjoong’s shirt, unable to meet his eyes. “When you were gone, I… I lost myself. I didn’t—didn’t know how to cope, didn’t know what to—what to do with myself… Am I stupid?”

“No,” Hongjoong speaks quickly with panic in his voice. “No, you’re not, I’m—”

“I am. I am,” Seonghwa cuts him off and presses a hand into his chest. The look in his eyes is one of insanity, and the image of Hongjoong blurs as his tears drip to his chin. “I—I-I let myself go! I don’t even know who I am anymore! And you know what’s—what’s worse?”

Hongjoong is silent.

“We never even had anything…!” Seonghwa’s voice cracks when a fresh wave of tears hits him. “We weren’t ever anything. We were—were strangers. I fell in love with you and—a-a-and I didn’t even know you! I didn’t know you past—past what you wanted me to see. You—you hurt me so bad, Hongjoong. I—I gave you everything. D-do you know that? Do you know that I—I let you pull me in, and then push me away like—like I’m nothing a puppet for you? It confuses me, and it hurts me, and I know this but—but I still let you do it to me.” He looks crazy, the way he cries and laughs acidically at the same time. “That’s crazy, right? But do you know what’s crazier?”

Seonghwa’s laughs reduce to small breaths, and he looks down at the soju bottle in his hands before squeezing his eyes closed. “It’s the fact that—that I’m okay with it. I’m okay with all of it, I—I only want you like this. I only need you like this. I don’t care if—if you can’t give me all of you, but please— please, let me have just this part of you…”

The soju bottle is slowly pried from his grip, his knuckles having grown white from how tightly he had been holding it. Hongjoong says nothing as he drinks from the bottle instead.

Seonghwa waits desperately for Hongjoong to say something.

“I’m sorry.”

It is the sound of Seonghwa’s heart breaking that sounds in his ears. Why must Hongjoong apologize? Did he not just tell him he loves him? Even with the torment his warped love brings? Even with his knuckles that know to spell Seonghwa’s name on him? He swallows wetly, his face twisting into one of unimaginable heartache. “Don’t be sorry… I don’t—I don’t want to hear it. Please don’t make me regret telling you this.”

When the soju bottle comes down, it is empty. Hongjoong is silent while Seonghwa weeps into the ends of his sleeves.

“It is my fault.”

It is his fault.

“I’m sorry I’ve hurt you.”

Seonghwa shakes his head, but he sobs so hard he is unable to form words.

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean to lead you on like this.”

Ah…

“I was so… I was so afraid that—that I’d lose you if I couldn’t have you like—like that…”

“N-no, you couldn’t—you would have me. You have me forever, Hongjoong, I—”

“It’s as you said. We weren’t anything to begin with.”

Seonghwa cries harder. “Hongjoong, please—”

“Is it my turn?”

His sniffles become quiet suddenly. “W-what?”

“Can I still come over?”

Seonghwa didn’t know what it feels like to have Hongjoong kiss him on the lips until tonight. It is soft and gentle, and then suddenly bruising and volatile as if he kisses to claim and to devour. He marks him up as though Seonghwa belongs to him, and tonight, Seonghwa offers every part of him for him. He lets himself cry until his tears have formed a wet spot on his pillows, and, for the first time, he lets himself have more than what he asks for.

With hands in Hongjoong’s hair and a tongue pleading desperately across Hongjoong’s teeth, he does not have to pretend to have him tonight. This time, it is his turn to take from Hongjoong what he has taken from him all these years.

Hongjoong’s hands on his hips feel like home, but when they sit around his neck like a collar with his name on it, it feels even better. The sex that they have is not like it has ever been before—it is passionate and tender, and it is cathartic and purifying. Hongjoong fucks him like he wants to rid Seonghwa of all the pain that has accumulated in the years he has spent trapping him in an endless cycle of hope and despair, and Seonghwa feels like he has been reborn.

“I love you,” he sobs with arms around Hongjoong’s neck, “and I need you. I need you, H-Hongjoong.”

They have never talked during sex.

“I love you, Hwa,” Hongjoong whispers into his lips, and the pure bliss that blossoms hotly across Seonghwa’s entire body is all that he needs to reach heaven. How he has longed to hear those words from him—has waited years that have felt like a lifetime to know what they sound like from those lips.

When Hongjoong comes inside of him, Seonghwa feels cleansed of his misery. When he lays his head down on the pillow, body turned to look at Seonghwa, there is the promise of purpose—of newness. It is a hope given to him by no one else but Hongjoong, and Seonghwa knows only to take what Hongjoong gives. This is something he will take with greedy desperation.

Seonghwa will have Hongjoong in all the ways he has ever dreamed of—wished and prayed for. He knows now what it is like to kiss him, and tomorrow, he will know how it feels when their hands close around each other, fingers interlocking to replicate the jaded daydreams that have been haunting him endlessly. He can forgive him for everything that he has viciously taken from Seonghwa if it means he can be with him in a world that has treated him so unfairly.

Perhaps, he thinks, it is time the universe takes pity on him.

Although, Hongjoong can be quite the promise breaker. When Seonghwa wakes up, the other side of the bed is empty.