drifters ( woohyun x sunggyu, pg-13 ) - part 2.
link to part 1
ix.
ten days into the new year, woohyun goes to the coffee shop at 3am because he can’t sleep. sunggyu is there, as he hopedexpected he would be; they smile now, comfortable with each other enough to go beyond formality boundaries. woohyun orders a caramel macchiato again, sits in the same spot by the window, watching as sunggyu follows him to the seat and sits opposite him and brings with him a chocolate brownie muffin.
“what’s this?” woohyun asks as he gestures towards it, and sunggyu moves it in front of him.
“it’s for you, on the house,” sunggyu says and smiles again, nodding.
woohyun is pleasantly surprised, taking the muffin gratefully. he splits it in half and gives one half to sunggyu, who looks just as surprised at the generous act; he picks it up and eats it happily, and for several long minutes, they sit together in comfortable, peaceful silence.
“tomorrow is sunday,” sunggyu says suddenly, and woohyun almost wants to sarcastically clap and congratulate him for knowledge on the days of the week, but he decides that’s too informal right now. they’re not comfortable enough to start insulting each other yet.
“it is,” woohyun simply agrees, nodding with an amused smile.
“i have a day off tomorrow,” sunggyu says, his voice sounding hopeful, and woohyun wants to imagine he knows exactly where this conversation is going.
“me too,” woohyun says. the library is closed on sundays.
sunggyu blinks, bites his lower lip softly. “there’s a new book store opening in the mall tomorrow, and i don’t have anyone to go with.”
woohyun shrugs, gives a small smile. “i’ll go, if you want,” he flicks his hair out of his eyes, desperately in need of a cut. “hyung.”
he doesn’t miss the delightful smile sunggyu delivers at the sound of the word, making something within him buzz and flutter happily. he doesn’t understand what it means, but pushes it to the back of his mind, ready to analyse later when he’s alone. woohyun does this a lot - overthinks, but only on his own in the dark and silence, when he can spend as long as he needs doing so.
he sips at his drink, licking the caramel from the side of the cup. sunggyu averts his eyes and stares out of the window, cheeks pink but woohyun can’t understand why.
they stay like that, in comfortable silence, neither of them wanting to break it. the christmas tree that twinkled in the corner last month is no longer there, and instead there hangs a banner proclaiming “happy new year” and it feels warm, friendly, welcoming. sunggyu breaks the silence first, but it doesn’t bother woohyun as much as he expected it would.
“how was your new year?” sunggyu asks in a whisper, looking at woohyun with pursed lips; the latter shrugs.
“i went drinking with my friends,” woohyun cracks a satisfied smile, “woke up at 1 in the afternoon on their kitchen floor, no recollection of how i ended up there.” woohyun grins, “how was yours?”
sunggyu laughs heartily, flashing his teeth, “went to visit my friend in busan, ate some food with her, got drunk and cried at atonement in her living room. so a pretty average night.”
woohyun misses the joke, eyes going wide as he asks, “you like atonement?” and it is then, right here in this average little coffee shop at a ridiculously unsociable hour, the air cold and dry around them, that woohyun realises sunggyu is kind of his soul mate. not in a romantic sense, of course - he’s not a drifter - but just in the sense that he’s the kind of friend he’s always wanted, with a love of romance literature and other nerdy things that he has been deprived of all his life.
“it’s one of my favourite movies,” sunggyu says, somewhat astonished.
it takes a minute for woohyun to register what sunggyu has said, still stuck in his own thoughts, mouth agape. he blinks at him.
“h-have you read the book?” he stutters and he really really cannot help the jump of his heart at the nod of his hyung’s head and the small smile he gives in return.
“wow. i’ve never met anyone who even knew about it,” woohyun’s voice is full of awe and is slightly dazed and he laughs in disbelief. he glances at the clock, breathes a sigh of sadness when he realises it’s nearing 4am and he’s starting to get tired.
he makes his leave, saying goodbye to sunggyu but is stopped when sunggyu asks “i’ll meet you at the mall at 12?” and woohyun turns back to look at him, breath hitching somewhere in his throat at the sight of his small eyes wide with curiosity, gentle smile playing at the corners of his lips, cheeks flushed delicately from the warmth of the shop. woohyun decides he looks beautiful at this moment, almost wishing he was a photographer to be able to capture it properly, but he simply ignores the thought and smiles, nodding slowly and finally leaves sunggyu to his work.
woohyun falls asleep thinking of him, smiling secretly into his pillow.
x.
the mall is crowded, reminding woohyun why he never bothers to go (and he tells himself he’s only going because of the books, not because sunggyu asked him to) and making him hate sundays decidedly more than he does usually. sunggyu is already there when he arrives at the store - it’s peculiar seeing him dressed not in his work uniform - and they exchange hellos before walking inside.
it’s a quaint little shop, tiny but cute, and woohyun immediately falls in love with it.
“what’s your favourite genre of book?” woohyun asks curiously as they browse the shelves, his fingers ghosting over the brand new, uncracked spines of the works of the authors.
“i have two,” sunggyu says, following woohyun closely, “the first is war, the second is science-fiction.” he smiles shortly, stopping to examine the blurb of a book he’s picked off the shelf. “what’s yours?”
“fantasy?” woohyun questions his own thoughts, laughing. “i actually love all genres, i can’t pick.”
for the next two hours, they walk around the shop aimlessly, discussing books and their childhood and everything else under the sun (they both end up buying a handful of books each, and agree to swap them when they’ve all been finished) and it’s only when sunggyu mentions food that they both realise they’re hungry and haven’t eaten for the best part of the day. woohyun mentions there’s a really nice japanese restaurant opposite the mall and sunggyu agrees and they find themselves sat at a table, sipping warm sake out of cups, wondering where the time went.
it’s pleasant, something woohyun could most definitely get used to; they remain silent when the food is delivered and they eat with the background noise of the restaurant to keep them company, but it doesn’t feel awkward. woohyun compares to how it was when they first met in sunggyu’s coffee shop, their first conversation just a month earlier and how jaded he was to meet sunggyu in the first place.
a lot can change in a month, and before, he almost had no idea how much. other than sungjong and myungsoo, he doesn’t really have anyone he can call a friend - besides, sungjong and myungsoo always spend their time together and never seem to have time for woohyun, and neither of them share his interests. he’s actually kind of grateful to meet someone like sunggyu, someone who not only respects his weird obsession with books but also indulges in it himself.
he know he will go home tonight and over-analyse this, as he does every night, before falling into some sort of restless slumber at stupid-o-clock in the morning. for now, he thinks, smiling into his liquor, he will just enjoy what he has left of the evening and wait for dawn. today has been an adventure, an adventure he never realised he needed in the first place. sunggyu is like a welcomed breeze, a breath of fresh air, a signal boost at the right time. he’s only known him for a short while but there’s something refreshing, something new and intriguing and something about sunggyu that demands his attention. he just can’t pinpoint what it is.
they finish their meal and share the bill and sunggyu suggests they exchange numbers, to which woohyun wholeheartedly agrees. they do so (woohyun saves sunggyu’s number under the name “gyugyu-nim”) and part ways, finally, with a nod of the head. he watches sunggyu walk in the opposite direction and heads off himself, wrapping his coat and scarf tighter around him because there’s a slight frost in the air.
it’s just past 6 o-clock by the time he gets in, so he fixes himself a tea and flicks on the television to a random drama that’s playing on kbs. he never cares much for tv. his attention favours the things he can experience in books much more. the books he reads, they’re where the real feelings are.
he spends the rest of the night reading until he falls asleep on the sofa, tv still playing in the background.
xi.
when woohyu hears the news, his heart breaks. it’s the second stroke his mother has had. it’s the first to put her in a coma. he goes to visit her in hospital, brings flowers too, sits on the side of her bed for several hours and then leaves with a kiss to her forehead. he goes home, sad and somewhat guilty, and can do nothing but pray - not that it will do anything - that she will recover.
he doesn’t go to work for a week, visits her every day with no change to her consciousness; with every visit, he sits there for several hours, hoping beyond hope that today would be the day she woke up.
he begins to doubt his hopes after a month.
xii.
woohyun calls sunggyu that night, tired and alone and scared, and asks him to come over because he has no one else to ask. he’d tried calling sungjong - myungsoo had answered and said he was busy, which woohyun knew was a lie just by the way he said it - so he is left with no one else. he’s crying when he asks if sunggyu can come over, so he tells him his address and waits by the intercom for sunggyu to ring the doorbell.
the moment he does, woohyun buzzes him inside and can do nothing but hug him tightly and cry. sunggyu leads them to sit on the sofa but doesn’t force him to speak. tight arms wrap around sunggyu’s waist and woohyun’s head rests on his shoulder, and for what seems like hours, the two are silent except for woohyun’s quiet sobbing.
“hyung, what if she doesn’t wake up?”
woohyun never told sunggyu what happened before, had never felt the need to make them both sad or bring up unnecessary details, but now he thinks he can justify it. the oldest of the two doesn’t question him, simply rubs circles on his back and brushes his hair out of his eyes, and whispers in a soft voice “she will, she will”.
xiii.
three weeks later, woohyun asks sunggyu to accompany him to his mother’s funeral because he can’t face it alone. sungjong and myungsoo show up, too, though he half expected them to be as ignorant as always, and woohyun squeezes sunggyu’s hand the entire time. afterwards, there’s a small gathering with his mother’s relatives and friends, but woohyun saves the conversation for a time when his throat isn’t swallowing his words.
he eats, drinks and stares around the room in silence; chatter and some laughter emerges around him but he simply chews his bottom lip, lost in thought. woohyun had never met a more beautiful woman than his mother. the world feels darker and scarier than it’s ever felt before, suffocating, and woohyun wishes he could escape even for just a minute. he excuses himself from the table, wiping his eyes, and disappears into the garden.
it’s cold but he doesn’t care. he is reminded of all the times he hadn’t spent time with her, and feels guilt crash upon his shoulders. they hadn’t spoken since october because woohyun was too busy - too lazy, too poor - to visit. if, at all, there was a way to go back to that day, back to that old life, he would take it in an instant.
“she seems like a wonderful woman,” he hears sunggyu’s voice behind him and inhales sharply, pursing his lips.
“she is. was.”
sunggyu is silent for several seconds, the sound of only the fountains in the background. “whatever you feel right now, it’s only temporary. and you’re not alone, even if you may think you are.”
woohyun shrugs, sniffling. he watches the water in the fountain - a cycle; no clear, finite end or beginning, just water and pipes, and wishes life could be the same. after a few long minutes, sunggyu speaks again.
“no one is alone in this world.”
sunggyu disappears after that, and woohyun goes home. he doesn’t leave his bed for days.
xiv.
the next time he goes to the coffee shop, sometime in early march, woohyun is surprised to see a different guy in sunggyu’s place behind the counter. his nametag says “lee taemin” and woohyun has never seen him before.
woohyun blinks at him. “where’s sunggyu?” he asks, not meaning it to come out as abrupt and rude as it sounds. taemin looks taken aback at best, stuttering out his words.
“h-he called to say he was s-sick, something about a stomach flu.”
“do you know where he lives?”
taemin nods, “10-13 sinsa 1-dong, eunpyeong-gu.”
woohyun nods. luckily that’s not too far, a simple 5 minute walk, so he orders a caramel macchiato and a hot chocolate to go, pays for them both, and takes the short cut to sunggyu’s street. there’s a few cars parked in the underpass, and many more in the other surrounding apartment blocks, but it’s relatively silent; there’s many lights on in the building, so he hopes sunggyu’s is one of them. he finds the right number and rings the bell, and a minute later, sunggyu’s voice asks “who is it?” and woohyun breathes a sigh of relief.
“it’s woohyun, i heard you’re sick so i brought you hot chocolate.”
he hears the door buzz open, and so he smiles and lets himself into the apartment. it’s small - smaller than his own - but with what little furniture sunggyu has, it’s spacious and it feels homey. there’s no couch but instead a rolled-up futon against the wall, in front of a small box tv, with an adjacent kitchen. woohyun quickly sees sunggyu, sat on the futon and wrapped in a blanket. in the low light, he can see his pale face, sunken, fatigued eyes and the hot water bottle he is clutching to his tummy. he looks woohyun in the eyes and whimpers, sighing softly.
“you didn’t have to come, woohyun.”
woohyun smiles and hands him the hot chocolate, which sunggyu eagerly accepts. “i know, hyung. but you’re sick, so i kind of did.”
sunggyu simply smiles in response and averts his eyes back to the tv, which is playing some random movie woohyun doesn’t recognise.
“have you eaten, hyung?” woohyun says, and sunggyu shakes his head, pouting.
“i can’t eat anything, hurts too much,” he murmurs and rests his chin on his knees, sighing.
the younger thinks for a moment. “do you have ramen? i’ll make it for you.”
the barista protests with his eyes, giving woohyun a look that says ‘let me die in peace’ and woohyun snorts, rummaging in the cupboards until he finds a packet of ramen. he gets a pot from the side and boils the water, and not long later presents the ramen to sunggyu in a bowl, handing him chopsticks.
“i hope you weren’t expecting kimchi on the side,” woohyun grins, “i checked your fridge and you don’t have any.”
sunggyu smiles and turns his head to the dongsaeng. “thank you. i know, i’ll make some more soon.” the elder tentatively scoops up some between his chopsticks, and woohyun watches for his reaction. sunggyu chews it, looking confused, before he nods and smiles again, eyes disappearing into little arcs happily.
“it’s delicious.”
woohyun chuckles, “you need to rest. i’ll come over tomorrow night and make sure you’re okay, don’t go to work.”
the barista nods weakly, already nearly finished the ramen and then he blinks tiredly. he stops eating for a moment to think of something, and woohyun can see his cheeks redden in the dim light.
“you can stay the night, if you want.” his voice comes out as a high-pitched squeak, a voice that woohyun has definitely never heard him speak in before. he doesn’t know what it is - whether it’s the cute blush that graces his cheeks or the aegyo voice or even the way he looks ridiculously helpless and clingy, wrapped up in his blanket like a kid. woohyun finds it incredibly endearing.
“i shouldn’t, i don’t have any clothes. and where would i sleep, pabo?” woohyun smiles affectionately at his hyung, gently patting him on the head, and sunggyu nods, looking a little flustered under the blanket he has draped over his shoulders.
woohyun goes back to the door, slips his shoes and coat back on and fixes his hair in the mirror in the cabinet. he turns back around to see that sunggyu has fallen asleep, empty bowl next to his head as he lays on the rolled-up futon. the blanket is underneath him with his shirt having ridden up just slightly, exposing the tiniest speck of flesh where his pants begin. the hot water bottle has been abandoned next to him, and the tv continues to play softly in the background.
it’s in this moment, being with the most innocent and vulnerable side of sunggyu, that woohyun falls in love with him.
he decides not to think too much of the realisation and instead goes back to pull the blanket from underneath his hyung’s sleeping body and instead place it over him; he collects the bowl and hot water bottle and places them both by the sink, and turns the tv off. he leaves giving one last quick glance, and finally shuts the door.
deliberately, he takes the longer way home to his own apartment so he can think. it takes only 10 minutes longer than his usual route but he welcomes the solitude. he’s certain of one thing: he loves sunggyu. he loves sunggyu for all his flaws and imperfections, but he’s also certain that those things make sunggyu who he is, and so he loves them as much as the rest of him. coming to the conclusion is not nearly as frightening, as special or as romantic as he had spent years imagining it would be - he bets sunggyu is probably drooling and snoring in his sleep right now, hair mussed and blanket messy. originally, that thought would disgust him but instead it warms his heart.
he always did hope, if he ever became a drifter one day, that it would be with a beautiful woman who shared his feelings, who had long, dark hair and an innocent personality and a sweet face. he couldn’t be more wrong, he couldn’t have such a wide comparison, but he realises he doesn’t feel shame at all.
there is fear in his heart somewhere - he knows there is, they’re such similar emotions - but he can’t feel it yet; sunggyu doesn’t know, probably doesn’t feel the same, will most likely see woohyun as a friendly dongsaeng, but he’s okay with that. he’s okay knowing that, because this world is fucked up and wants to control emotions and punish nature for problems with nurture.
he smiles sadly as he reaches the apartment and sighs. he’s waited a lifetime for this and it turns out to be the most anti-climactic moment he’s ever experienced. but he doesn’t blame sunggyu for that, nor does he blame the books - it’s him. he shouldn’t have expected so much of a world so empty.
his bed is cold and lonely, and he doesn’t fall asleep until late.
part 3