come home (someone's been missing you) (part 1.)
Title: come home (someone's been missing you)
Fandom and OT3: Super Junior; hyukhaemin (Eunhyuk/Donghae/Sungmin)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 16 191
Summary: Sungmin grows up on an island with two other boys.
Warnings: (Minor Character) Death
Notes: Written for troisbang.
Bundles of thanks to everyone has helped me write this, and for nautisch who beta-ed this morning. Apologies this is so late, I couldn't help it. :(
Title taken from OneRepublic's 'Come Home.' It's basically the soundtrack to this.
If Sungmin had a choice, he wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world.
The island, with a circumference of two hours by foot, is a beautiful place: lush with greenery and surrounded by the sparkling, clear sea. The air is always slightly scented by the ocean and the sunlight lights up everything in dazzling, breathtaking way. There’s something about it, from the way he hears the birds in the morning to the paths and layout of the homes of everyone he knows.
Sungmin loves this island with his soul, and he doesn’t want to ever let go of it.
On the island, there are exactly ten kids in his year group. That means that at school, his year group is combined with two others to make one class of twenty-two.
But no matter where you are, you’ll always find people you’re closer to than others, an inexplicable bond to certain people. Sungmin feels it, loud and clear, with a certain Lee Hyukjae and Lee Donghae.
He knows that the other kids call them the Lee brothers, and the adults affectionately refer to them as the Three Brats Who Will Never Part. But he doesn’t mind it - because it’s true that he’d trust these two other boys, his brothers, with his life.
It isn’t easy to find a soulmate in a lifetime, much less two, but Sungmin has done just that with Lee Hyukjae and Lee Donghae.
Sungmin sometimes dreams of a bare apartment with cream walls and small lights. He dreams that the apartment’s empty, that the window looks out to this strange, foreign place with grey buildings thousands of feet high, wires breaking the peace of the sky and noise, just noise, everywhere.
He dreams of this place and walks around it; the simple, glass coffee table, patched up couches and into the bedroom with a simple bed in pink and lavender. He walks into the bathroom where it is white, all white with the silver of taps and towel racks where the only splash of difference is the mould on the ceiling.
The kitchen is the last place he gets to, foreign and strange with its gas stove and silver lightning. The fridge contains packaged foods, wrapped carefully and neatly placed, and he doesn’t like it. It feels so contrived and neat, not like a home at all.
He’s always glad when he wakes up from these dreams with his soft, yellow walls and warm bed, the sunlight greeting a good morning.
“Good morning, precious,” Donghae purrs in his ear at six am, and Sungmin screeches and falls off the bed, clutching his ear. He can hear Sungjin laughing in the next room.
Hyukjae stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets with a smile on.
“Schooooooooooool tiiiiiiiiiime,” he says happily, and Sungmin groans.
“It’s six, why are we even up?”
Donghae jumps up and down in excitement, all skin and bones, limbs flying everywhere, and Hyukjae keeps out of his way.
“Your mum said she’d make a cake by the time we got back from school if we get all the berries now!”
Sungmin groans and buries his head in his pillow, though a smile tugs at his lips. “Come on, she can make you a cake anytime, but I want my sleep now. Let me go to sleep!”
Persisting, Donghae tugs at the blanket covering Sungmin until Sungmin’s left shivering, curled up and trying to retain some warmth.
“Caaaaaaaaaaaaake,” Donghae tempts, and Hyukjae laughs. Sungmin groans before he joins in the laughter too, sitting up.
“Okay, okay, but you owe me. Come on, let’s go!”
When they eventually get to school, an hour late with their mouths smeared with berry juice, Donghae promises the teacher to bring in some cake the next day. She dismisses their tardiness with a laugh.
Sometimes, when Sungmin wakes up, he finds bruises and scratches he doesn’t remember getting. It’s usual for him now to simply wake up, pause for a moment to mentally catalogue any areas of his body that hurt, and to treat them.
“Did you hurt yourself again?” Hyukjae would say as he points to the new bandaid on the crook of Sungmin’s elbow, and he’d shrug.
“Maybe, I guess.” He pauses and fingers the bandaid slightly, tonguing his cheek in thought. “I dunno; it was like that when I woke up.”
Donghae nods. “It’s like sleep-hurting, you know instead of sleepwalking, or sleep-talking? You sleep-hurt.” He nods seriously until Hyukjae is grinning at him widely, trying hard to keep his laughter in, and Sungmin is looking at Donghae, confused.
Donghae holds Sungmin’s stare for a moment, his own eyebrows together in thought, before he breaks into a grin.
“Kidding, you’re just really clumsy.”
Hyukjae takes the opportunity to drop a pen, tries to reach for it, and consequently falls out of his chair.
Seven to half past eight, every night, is dedicated to studying, but not in respect to schoolwork.
At this time, everything is put down and each of them trudges home dutifully as their parents take out utensils and begin assembling them. At this time, Hyukjae’s father brings out different shaped pipes and spanners, Sungmin’s father arranges nets and fishing rods, and Donghae’s father unlocks the door of the post office.
And for an hour and a half each evening, Sungmin, Donghae and Hyukjae carefully listen to the life they’ll lead in the future.
Years pass before reality decides to slap them in the face and rob them of childish innocence.
It’s when Donghae is sixteen that his father passes away.
He’s not there to witness it, but his mother calls and he excuses himself.
Hyukjae finds him in one of the supply closets, tucked in between the fresh, clean printer paper and boxes of dusty chalk. Donghae’s curled up, hands pressed over his eyes and shaking just the smallest bit, absolutely silent.
Hyukjae’s scared and wants to call Sungmin, who’d know what to do, but he closes his eyes and crouches, hugging Donghae to his chest, and to his heart.
I want it to be okay, Hyukjae wants to say, but he knows that Donghae’s already thinking that, and it’d be useless and it’d hurt to just hear the words uttered, the reality that he wants to be spoken and denied.
Sungmin’s favourite place is the park by the abandoned cottage, four stone benches erected centuries ago and older men congregating there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday faithfully.
He watches as they arrange black and white stones with small snaps, playing baduk as the sun sets and streetlights come on.
“You should learn sometime, Sungmin,” Jungsu always says when Sungmin approaches, school bag slug across a shoulder or bags of groceries in his hands.
“I’d prefer to watch,” Sungmin always replies, smiling, and seats himself down.
“I used to be a pro,” Jungsu says one day as he watches Youngwoon place a black stone, before he scoops up a white one in his own hand and places it down swiftly. Youngwoon frowns.
“A pro?” Sungmin watches the delicate veins on Jungsu’s hands, the calluses on his fingers and the absent-minded smile.
“Yes, I used to play baduk for a living, but you get tired of it; the stuffy rooms and silence. How hard you have to concentrate.” He crosses his eyes and wiggles his fingers towards Youngwoon, who scowls.
Sungmin watches as Youngwoon bites his thumb and hesitantly places a stone, which Jungsu captures and takes from the board, plopping it in a shallow dish.
“I’ve retired now, and I don’t regret it. I used to live in Seoul, but it’s nice to be here and breathe in the fresh seaside air; not have to worry about games and mistakes.”
Jungsu smiles, dimple in place, and Sungmin watches as Jungsu and Youngwoon arrange the territory, signalling Jungsu’s victory.
“Jungsu,” Sungmin tries as they’re gathering the stones, packing up.
Jungsu looks up, smile in place. “Yes, Sungmin?”
“Did you ever do radio? TV?”
Youngwoon pauses as he slips the black pieces back into their container.
“You think he’s pretty enough to?” He leers, and Sungmin laughs.
“Nah, I just. Your voice, face? They seem familiar. Different?” He pauses in thought, and Jungsu laughs.
“Aw, thanks, but no. I wish though, that would be nice.” Jungsu shakes his head, still smiling as he and Youngwoon stack the containers on the board.
“Here, let me,” Youngwoon says as he takes the board, and Junsu smiles his thanks just before he tells Youngwoon, quite cheerfully, that he’ll probably die before Youngwoon manages to beat him.
Youngwoon groans, Jungsu tells him that he’ll just have to try harder next time, and Sungmin dutifully picks up the bags of groceries and goes on his way.
With Donghae’s father gone, he’s forced to take over the family business. He drops out of school, and the silence left between Sungmin and Hyukjae is palpable and so, so brittle.
“So,” Hyukjae says, clearing his throat. “How do you do this maths question?”
It’s one from over a week ago, something they had meant to finish and hand in but time had taken hold, and Sungmin clears his throat, looking at it.
“It’s pretty simple…” he starts, but he stops and there’s a mind blank.
What the fuck?
Sungmin knows these questions; he knows how to do them like he knows the back roads of their small town, the colours of the seashells and what time the tide comes in and out. But, he can’t solve it; he can only look at it and swallow.
“Sorry,” he says, and excuses himself, Hyukjae staring down at his fingers.
One down, two to go, he thinks.
Donghae’s father was a brilliant man; kind-hearted with passion who gave up everything for his family. More than once when they were over for dinner, Donghae’s father would tell them of the time he was once scouted out in the streets of Seoul, but then he had met Donghae’s mother. Here, they traded the customary glance and smile while Donghae and his brother, Donghwa, pretended to throw up, and they fell in love. Sungmin smiled politely and Hyukjae concentrated on the yummy, yummy food, and Donghae’s mother always chastised Donghae, asking why couldn’t I have a lovely son like Sungmin? and she reached over to ruffle said boy’s hair.
“Because we live to make your life wonderful, fulfilling and entertaining,” Donghae and Donghwa said simultaneously, and Hyukjae and Sungmin snorted into their dinner.
“One day, you’ll take over the posting business, and you’ll see what life is really about,” Donghae’s father said before digging into his dinner.
Now, when Hyukjae and Sungmin drop by for dinner, there’s only silence and the quietly shuffling of eating utensils.
“Together forever,” Donghae always whispers when they’re out on the highest hill on the island, lying on their backs with their faces upturned towards the stars.
“Three as one,” Hyukjae says, raising a fist, and the two join in.
“Never, ever apart,” Sungmin says, and he blinks, feeling a strange curling in his chest before Hyukjae points out he can make out the figure of some naked woman in the stars.
Before, Hyukjae’s father used to take them out stargazing and teach them all the names of the constellations when he had time.
“This, there, can you see it? Those stars grouped together, the bright ones next to the tiny prick near Mars? That’s Cassiopeia.”
“The one that looks like Jaejoong’s ass,” Donghae would whisper, and Hyukjae would snigger with him.
But Sungmin listened faithfully, and now he can pick out the Phoenix, Orion, Pisces and Andromeda, tell the stories that Hyukjae’s father used to tell. He can spread his hand out and pluck out a group of stars, say that this star is a part of Lacerda, the lizard, this one part of Pegasus…
“Hey, can you see Orion?” Sungmin says when they’re on the beach, trying to relive an old careless time. But Donghae looks at him with bloodshot eyes, and Hyukjae doesn’t even bother.
Sungmin falls silent, but he eyes the skies, the heavens. He wonders what it’s like to be one of them; a star.
Hyukjae drops out of school when he’s sixteen and a half; two months after Donghae had dropped out.
It’s not unusual. Most kids only go to school until the end of middle school on the island because they never need the extra, useless knowledge when, for the rest of their life, they’d be following in their parents’ footsteps.
“I want to see Seoul one day,” Hyukjae says when Sungmin visits, playing with some nuts and bolts he’s supposed to be able to identify.
“Me too. We should go there one day.”
Sungmin bites his lip when Hyukjae shakes his head, scattering the small, metal pieces until they clink on the floor, the wooden boards worn.
“Can’t. Have to stay here, remember?”
Hyukjae smiles that sad, worn out smile, and Sungmin wonders when Hyukjae became a quitter.
“We should go to Seoul one day,” Sungmin greets Donghae when he drops off the post in the afternoon, the sun just about to set.
Donghae avoids his eyes, letters to the Kims next door dangling from his left hand.
“What about your family here?”
Sungmin dismisses it. “They’ll be fine; they have their own life and I should be allowed my own, right?”
The hesitation is there when Donghae opens his mouth next, but he closes it, eyes brimming with tears.
“I wish you all the best in your life, Lee Sungmin.”
What Hyukjae doesn’t say is that he wishes, sometimes.
He wishes for fame, for an opportunity to just let go of everything and do what he wants. He knows what he wants; he has felt the bass thumping in his ears, thrumming through his body as he moves to the music and - he wants more. He wants to learn how to be beautiful; to be able to move like those people on TV and to be passionate about something he cares about, not pipes and nuts and bolts.
But, as with everything on this island, family and obligation comes first. So he listens to his father as he teaches Hyukjae which spanner to use for this screw, what’s wrong if a sink is bubbling over and when to replace a pipe. Hyukjae listens, notes it all down, and banishes any other thoughts from mind.
Donghae wants, too.
His father always had the passion and skill -- he used to laugh -- to be great and famous. To be a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry, and the ability to charm the hearts of thousands of girls nationwide. But no; Donghae’s father put family first, and Donghae puts aside the soccer ball.
He’s got a job to do, and Donghwa dutifully accompanies him as they ride their bikes to the post office.
“I wish we were kids again,” Hyukjae says on the beach as they gather for Junsu and Junho’s birthday.
“I wish it wasn’t so cold,” Donghae says as he buries his nose into his scarf, and Sungmin laughs, wrapping around him in a hug.
“Man up!” Sungmin says as everyone cheers, fireworks lit and spiralling.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAAAAAAAY!”
The twins laugh and scream in joy, sand piled in their hair and down their shirts, and Sungmin, Hyukjae and Donghae laugh from a safe distance away.
“CAKE, CAKE, CAKE!”
Someone brings out the cake Sungmin’s mother made; a large one enough for seventy people with two identical boys drawn in icing. There are seventeen red balloons trailing from their linked hands, and Junsu and Junho admire it.
“Your mum’s skilled,” Junsu says, and Sungmin shrugs, smiling. She is, but that doesn’t mean he is - or will be.
“CUT IT!” Sungmin screams along with everyone else, and Jaejoong brings forward a large knife, holding it threateningly.
“MOVE UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE AN ARM!”
They scoot away, and soon, they’re eating rich, chestnut cake with a thin layer of chocolate. Donghae savours it and openly moans when he takes a bite, and Hyukjae finishes his slice within a few seconds, grinning when he does.
“I’m looking forward to when you make cake like that, Sungmin, and we get to eat it for free,” Hyukjae says as he lies down on the sand, smiling at the thought.
“Mmmm, free chocolate cake every afternoon…” Donghae drools at the thought.
Sungmin’s silent, tracing patterns with the leftover icing, and he stands abruptly.
“Better go wish the birthday boys a happy birthday,” he says with a false smile, and walks off.
Sungmin remembers when the three of them used to band together and go exploring in the wilderness, guns in their holsters (carrots in their belts), packs on their backs (empty bags but for food) and appropriate clothing and shoes on (tees and shorts with sandals.) They’d trek along the tracks, relentless branches and bushes obscuring every path and rocks making their way difficult.
He remembers the determination they held on each of their faces as they reached the High Point of the Mountain and Therefore the Island; the glory as they looked over the island and the surrounding sea.
“So pretty,” Donghae whispered, clutching both of their hands tight, and Sungmin remembers looking out, seeing the same awe reflected on Hyukjae’s face before he squashed the thought of so much water, so little Island.
Sungmin wonders if it’s always been like this; him wondering what it is like out there while Hyukjae and Donghae are content as they are.
When Sungmin enters his final year of schooling, the teachers approach him to encourage him to study at Seoul National University with his grades. Medicine, science, foreign languages and culture, arts, anything is possible!
He applies to them all diligently, under the teachers’ orders, and hides it from Hyukjae and Donghae. The feeling of guilt only intensifies when they take bites of his mother’s peach cake.
“Mum,” Sungmin says as he stands in the doorway of the living room, suddenly feeling four again and afraid of the dark.
His mother looks up and smiles, patting the space beside her as his father fixes one of his fishing lines in the corner.
“What’s wrong?”
“It…” He hesitates. He feels a sense of loyalty towards his parents; after all, they birthed him and raised him up to be who he is now. They raised him to be headstrong and passionate; pursuing his goals until they give up on him and never the other way around.
His mother kisses his temple softly, lacing their fingers, and he smiles, feeling his heartbeat slowing.
“It’s about going to university,” he says, and his father’s hands still.
“We want the best for you, son,” he interrupts. “If you want to go to university, then that’s fine with us. If you want to become a fisherman like me, or learn how to bake like your mother, then that’s fine. But choose what you want to do.”
His mother smiles at him.
“What your father said is right; do what you want. We know that what we like and how we live might not be what you want - but it’s important for you to find out for yourself and not feel obligated to stay here. We made a choice to settle here, and it’s your choice if you want to stay.”
Sungmin’s heart feels warm at these thoughts and words, and he swallows thickly, feeling the irrational urge to cry.
“Remember we love you and want what’s best for you,” his mother says, and he smiles, leaning his head against her shoulder.
“I know, thank you.”
“Have you decided where you want to go, to study what?”
Here, Sungmin hesitates, his mouth opening slightly in the automatic action, but no words come out, and he shuts it, shaking his head.
“Ah, well when you decide, tell us. Now go to bed, you still have school tomorrow.” His mother smooths a hand over his hair, and he kisses her cheek, saying a goodnight to both of his parents.
Hyukjae sits in his backyard, picking at the grass as the tools for his father’s trade lie in front of him, Sora sitting opposite.
“And you’d use this for?” she asks as she holds up some biggish spanner, and Hyukjae shrugs.
“I dunno, to unscrew something?”
Sora mimes throwing it at him, and he ducks, hands coming up defensively.
“Come on, concentrate. This pipe?”
He glances at it.
“Hot water. Coz it’s durable. Or something.”
“Hyukjae, you have to know this shit. I’m not going to be around to fix your ass if you stuff something up in Taejin’s house, okay?”
Hyukjae laughs and throws grass at her, inwardly wincing at the thought of Taejin’s house. The words begin to sink in, and he pauses.
“Wait, you’re not going into plumbing?”
Sora snorts, and Hyukjae ducks as she throws grass back.
“Please, me? Plumbing? Nah, I’m going to Sungmin’s mum’s bakery, learn to make cakes and stuff. Maybe even go to Jinki’s dad’s place to learn bread, combine them into one shop.” She puts a finger to her chin. “Or maybe I can marry Jinki and we’ll make one huge food thing.”
Hyukjae laughs again.
“You and Jinki? Please, as if he’d even want to be in the same ROOM - and have you seen the way he’s been following Sunyoung around?”
Hyukjae shakes his head and Sora rolls her eyes.
“Wait, Sungmin’s mum’s bakery? Sungmin isn’t taking over that, or Sungjin?”
“Don’t you talk to him or something? His mum said Sungmin might go to university in Seoul. You know, go study.”
What? Hyukjae’s eyes widen. Sungmin going to Seoul, leaving their island? Hyukjae swallows, looking down at his life spread out in front of him, and quickly gathers the bolts, sliding them back into their bag, gathering the pipes together and putting the tools back into the box.
“I’ll be back,” Hyukjae says when he pushes himself to his feet and starts running, running and running and he doesn’t realise it until he’s pounding on Donghae’s front door, and Donghwa opens it, looking shockingly like a sleepy Donghae.
“Donghae’s down at the post office today,” he says, and Hyukjae thanks him. He makes a motion towards Donghwa’s bike, and Donghwa nods sleepily.
“Just return it later.”
There’s a familiar twirling of spokes as they spin, but whoever said that you never forget how to ride a bike is wrong, because he stumbles and almost falls, hands shaking as he remounts.
He bursts into the post office, Donghae looking up from a stack of envelopes with a ready smile.
“Can I - oh, Hyukjae, what’s wrong?”
“Do you know about Sungmin?” he asks almost brusquely, and Donghae smiles that small, sad smile of his before he reaches under the counter.
The envelope he produces is made of crisp parchment, words carefully printed with a beautiful stamp displaying the Han River. It has Seoul National University embossed on the corner.
“Nothing gets past me,” Donghae whispers, fingers clutching the letter tight, and Hyukjae’s heart breaks.
Hyukjae begins learning the trade diligently, learning how to fix pipes and tubing, learning how to fix the water heating system when it starts failing, or how to speed it up and make sure it doesn’t fail in winter. He learns which bolts go where, what tools are used for which part of the piping, and, this is his least favourite bit, he starts getting to know how the sewerage system works.
His father congratulates him now that he’s learnt the basics, and when the Cho family calls to say that their sink keeps leaking, Hyukjae’s father takes him along. Sora waves him and mouths have fun when they pass the bakery, and he pokes a tongue out at her.
There’s a much forgotten, unappreciated book in the bookstore that Sunny mans on the weekend. It’s brown, boldly embossed with gold vines and patterns before a tentative Memories title is shown. She gives it to Sungmin when he picks up his textbooks, smiling.
“Thought you might appreciate this - doesn’t look like anyone’s read it in a while.”
He thanks her but doesn’t put too much thought in it. After all, it’s not like anyone seems to appreciate books for what they’re worth, on this island. For all he knows, the only books that are actively read are cookbooks and manuals, and about ten books in the whole school.
He mourns the loss of knowledge in such a small place, but he can’t change much. He takes it anyway and starts reading it that night.
“Do you ever wonder if we’re real, if what we’re living is a lie?” Donghae asks Hyukjae as they sit on the steps of the post office.
Hyukjae looks at him. He sees a small boy, too young for the world with dreams and fears larger than life itself. He sees a teenager with thin limbs, ready to break at the softest touch and skin ready to bruise from the simplest caress. He sees Donghae, best friend and brother, and he wonders why in that moment, he feels more love for Donghae than he ever has before.
“Why do you think that?” Hyukjae asks back, voice hoarse and he blinks, swallows thickly.
“I just.” Donghae looks up to the sky, where the sun’s shining brightly and blindingly, and he stretches out a hand. Hyukjae watches the silhouette of Donghae’s hand as it curls into a fist, and Donghae brings it down.
“Don’t you feel like that sometimes? We’re stuck here, on this stupid, small island for our whole life, and we can’t leave. We should be able to, right? Sungmin’s doing right by himself, leaving, taking control of his life but we?”
Donghae shakes his head, eyes closed almost delicately, and Hyukjae can just imagine the tears sliding down over the soft planes of his cheeks.
“We’re not doing anything. We’re just sitting back, letting everyone give us what we need and want.”
Hyukjae licks his lips before he answers, slowly, going through it as he figures it out.
“We’re doing what’s right; everyone on this island has a job to do. We can’t just up and leave because we want to; there’s an established set of what goes on here. Ruining the balance - we just can’t do that.”
Donghae sighs, rubbing his hand through his hair before he looks down to the ground.
“I just feel useless and like, life is pointless. For the rest of my life, I’m going to sort mail, while Sungmin’s going to travel the world, go to places and see things. He’s going to see what it’s like out there and we’re just going to sit here our whole life, on this island in this tiny corner of the world.”
Donghae frowns and Hyukjae laughs lightly even if he feels his heart clench at Donghae’s words, voicing his thoughts.
“Sungmin’s going to live his life and we’re going to live ours, right? There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just the way life is.”
Slowly, Donghae curls his fingers around Hyukjae’s sleeve, leaning into his shoulder and looking into the town; the shops, the lonely Main Street and the tranquillity that just settles down, comfortable.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
A week before Sungmin’s exams, he takes the day off school and goes walking. He walks along the edge of the beach and crouches in the small rock pools, smiling at the small crabs that scamper about, and the urchins and starfish that go along with the flow.
He walks along the edge of the ocean as the tide comes in, the foam making the sand gargle gently, and Sungmin laughs as he tries to tug his shoes free from the sand.
At around half way, an hour into his journey, he takes a breather on the side of the island with the abandoned cottage.
The paint is peeling from its walls, the window frames slightly askew, but otherwise it’s in an okay condition, not too dangerous to explore.
Sungmin pokes around in it, fingers ghosting the edges of old tables and chairs, leaving paths free of dust as he walks around the one-roomed home. There’s barely anything left, only the most basic of furniture and he’s surprised to find the glass still in the windows, a sombre hello! in the grime he draws.
It’s not a bad house, he finds, but he can feel the ghosts of the past stirring as they wait for him to leave. When he steps out the door and breathes in the fresh ocean smell, he sees the abandoned stone tables where Jungsu, Youngwoon and Yunho congregate. For now, it’s empty, and he wonders where they are.
But he continues on, walking around the island as he skirts the edges of the cliffs, admiring how the ocean breaks over the rocks. He wonders if the island’s always been like this; delicately beautiful in one part, but fiercely dangerous otherwise. He wonders if this is what the whole world is like, not just the small part he knows.
He continues on his way and arrives back at the school, students milling around during lunch, laughter reigning high, and he recognises himself in the younger students as they jump and play. But he doesn’t feel like going back there yet, learning more things to decide his future, so he walks back to the centre of town, arriving at the post office.
“Hello, can I-Sungmin!” Donghwa’s voice greets him happily, and Sungmin feels a smile creep onto his face.
“Ah, are you going back to the school soon? This is a package for them; it’s probably your test papers.” He smiles, and Sungmin can see the likeliness to his father, to Donghae.
“Sure, thanks.”
“No worries. Does…” Donghwa hesitates, and Sungmin waits patiently, fingers clutching at the fragile package holding his future. “Does Donghae know that you’re planning on leaving the island?”
Sungmin knows that this would come up soon - he can’t avoid this forever, hiding the truth from his best friends.
“I haven’t told them, no.” Sungmin shakes his head and he wonders where they are now, if they’re deciding their own future or letting the future decide itself. “But you know how it is here; they probably already know.”
“Still…” Donghwa plays with a pen, and Sungmin can see where they differ here; where Donghae is rash and ready to jump in at the first opportunity, Donghwa weighs up everything first. Sungmin can see himself in Donghwa, and he knows that they would’ve been great friends if only time let them.
“You know what Donghae’s like; he’s just waiting for you to say something. Maybe he does know, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell him yourself. After all, it’s better to hear it from the person themself, right?”
The paper’s crinkled from where his fingers scrunch the envelope, but Sungmin finds himself nodding.
“I’ll tell him when I see him next.”
Donghwa lets out a smile, a small, cautious one, and Sungmin smiles too.
“Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, later.”
Noon.
Noon, and Donghae sorts through the mail; the Kims (that is, Kibum’s family), the Lees (Sungmin’s), Jung (Jessica’s) and Cho (the new couple who’s expecting soon.) There’s a package for Sungmin’s mother’s bakery (oooh, new decorations!) a package for Yunho (Donghae shakes it but it clinks delicately and he puts it down, scared) and a huge box that sits in the corner of the post office - unclaimed and unlabelled, and Donghae shrugs.
Noon, and Hyukjae follows his father to inspect the sewer lines underneath the heart of the island; the town hall. The stench is mind blowing, and Hyukjae struggles to take a breath that doesn’t make him want to throw up. His father laughs at him.
Noon, and Sungmin’s sitting in an empty classroom, his right hand sliding up and down the barrel of a pen, eyes fixated on the sheet in front of him. Deciding his future, he weighs up the options as he writes his name and thinks; yeah, I want to leave this place.
“Old times’ sake, let’s do this for old times’ sake,” Sungmin says after his final test when he turns up at the post office, the sun ready to set.
“Do what? Go to the cliffs?” Donghae doesn’t look up as he sorts the envelopes into Domestic and International, and Hyukjae absent-mindedly doodles.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go to the cliffs. Do you want to?”
Hyukjae looks up, grease on his arms, neck and under his eyes. He lets out a sigh, and Donghae finally looks up, reaching the bottom of the stack.
“To the cliffs?” Hyukjae says, and rubs at a mark on his arm. “Yeah, why not.”
The cliffs haven’t changed, but Sungmin feels like he has, that he’s grown as a person since he last laid on the sharp rocks - last time it had been with Sunny by his side, tentative but faking a surety and confidence he still doesn’t have.
“How come you wanted to come here?” Hyukjae asks, his nose buried into Sungmin’s shoulder. Sungmin feels warm air settling there and shivers as Donghae curls along his other side, already dropping off into sleep.
“He’s tired, leave him alone,” Hyukjae says when Sungmin raises his hand to nudge Donghae awake. Sungmin looks at Hyukjae’s face, but he’s staring at the stars, eyes half glazed in tiredness. Tired of life, at eighteen.
“So?” Hyukjae prompts, and Sungmin makes a small sound of acknowledgement.
“For old times’ sake.” Sungmin blinks, and turns back to the stars. He can spot Scorpio, already feeling a sting in his heart, regretting his choices. He doesn’t want to leave.
“Is that it? You can come here anytime you want you know; you don’t have to come with us when you’re leav- oh.”
Sungmin turns when Hyukjae laces his fingers with Sungmin’s, surprisingly warm as the sea breeze tugs at their hair, their clothes.
“When I’m?”
“When you’re leaving, right?”
Sungmin tenses; and Hyukjae can feel it, Sungmin’s shoulder going stiff and unyielding. Its then that Sungmin realises Donghae’s tense too, too tense to be asleep, and he breathes out slowly.
“I’m leaving, right.”
“Were you ever going to tell us?” Donghae asks softly, so quiet that Sungmin isn’t sure if he imagines it or not.
“Of course I was; I couldn’t leave without telling you, as if I could.” Sungmin bites his lip, feeling Hyukjae’s hand tightening and Donghae’s hand resting almost possessively on his hip.
“Were you really?” Hyukjae murmurs, and Sungmin blinks, steeling himself. He remembers the textbooks he has at home, poring over them every night and his gaze suddenly blurs; black on white.
Black on white, black on cream, and he blinks again, the stars swimming into view though they look less distinct than before. Oh, he’s crying, and Hyukjae is too, and Donghae might be, but he might be imagining it all, some fantasy where him leaving doesn’t matter all that much or this never really existed in the first place.
“Where to?” Donghae finds the courtesy to ask.
“Seoul.” It sounds like he’s saying the English world for soul, when he knows the Korean word has a whole different meaning. He wishes it didn’t sound like he was giving up a part of him, his heart, his soul, to run away to some far part of the country none of them really know.
“To do what?”
The words sound hollow coming from Hyukjae because this island is all they’ve ever known; they can’t imagine something without the island, themselves without the island.
“To study.”
“Ah. Do you know what?”
Sungmin shrugs, feeling Donghae’s head roll slightly and Hyukjae’s head bump.
“I just - I want to see the world, you know? I don’t want to be stuck here forever, in this small place, never seeing the world. I want to go out and experience something different, something I can’t experience here.”
Sungmin’s voice sounds pitiful even to his own ears, desperate and pleading, as if trying to convince more than just the two of them.
“How can you just leave?” Hyukjae asks, watching each rise and fall of Sungmin’s chest. Sungmin watches the stars, spotting Aquarius.
“We’re not bound down by this place; we can leave if we want. Nothing’s stopping us,” Sungmin says, and Donghae smiles lightly.
“Maybe you think that way, Sungmin, but we have to stay here.” Sungmin feels guilty for even bringing this up, and he sends a prayer up to Donghae’s father.
“But Hyukjae, you’re not-“
“I am.” Hyukjae squeezes Sungmin’s hand tighter. “It’s just. I want to, sometimes, just leave this place. Leaving fucking plumbing and the pipes and the screws and the sewers forever but even if Mum and Dad say it’s okay.” There’s a choked gargle of laughter at the sewers comment. “Even if they say it’s okay, you can see it’s not. You can’t just leave this place and expect everything to be okay.”
Donghae sighs softly, cool on Sungmin’s skin.
“You have to understand, Sungmin; that it isn’t about yourself. This place is about everyone; it’s about people working together to do their job to have a perfect community. I do the mail, Hyukjae does the pipes, your mum does the cakes, Yunho does the electricity, Sunny’s mum does the books. Everything, it just fits.”
“You’re upsetting the balance,” Hyukjae interrupts. “Everyone depends on each other here, everyone has a place and everyone knows it. You’re just; just going away and.” He pauses, lets out a breath, and lifts a hand to swiftly wipe away tears.
“What he’s saying is-“
“I know what he’s saying,” Sungmin says, loudly. It echoes, startles a few birds. “I know, I understand, but I don’t want this life. At all. This life, frankly, sucks, it fucking sucks and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Donghae breathes lightly before he lifts both hands, fitting them together like a web.
“This is this island, this place. We fit, perfectly. And this,” he tucks his right, middle finger down across his palm, out of the web. “And this? This is with you gone.”
There’s a small gap, a window of sky and stars that Sungmin can see through the hole, and he feels something break inside of him.
“I don’t want this, I don’t. I never asked for anyone to rely on me, okay? I just want to be selfish, do what I want.”
“Maybe you’re being too selfish,” Hyukjae whispers as he clutches Sungmin’s hand hard, tighter when Sungmin tries to pull it away.
“We, we understand,” Donghae says hesitantly. “We just wish you wouldn’t.”
Sungmin doesn’t want to go, either. He wants these two boys with him, for the rest of his life, but even as he watches the stars and closes his eyes, seeing a bright, white room, he doesn’t know if he wants that either.
“Maybe,” he says softly, and Donghae hugs him.
“We love you,” Hyukjae says, sounding as if he’s about to cry again and Sungmin can’t help the laughter at that.
“Yeah, I love you too.”
He still has the book Sunny gave him months ago, tucked away in one of his drawers. It comes to mind when he’s chopping up some vegetables for dinner, and he closes his eyes as his hands still.
Donghae delivers the letter personally at the end of his route, handing it over as his thumb brushes over the skin of Sungmin’s wrist. The emblem in the corner is one Donghae has come to loathe, and Sungmin opens the letter slowly, almost reverently.
To: Lee Sungmin
We are pleased to announce that you’ve been accepted into…
That’s enough for him before he flings himself into Donghae’s arms, the other boy stumbling back a few steps before he hesitantly hugs back.
“So you made it, you’re really going.”
Sungmin nods into Donghae’s shoulder, trying to control his heart and his breaths.
“I made it,” he breathes, and all Donghae can hear is, I’m already gone.
When Sungmin tries to remember the trip from island to mainland, he can’t. It’s just; it feels like it never existed.
There’s no gentle transition via plane or boat from his childhood home to his place of study, even if he knows it had to have happened.
It’s like he was on the island one day and in Seoul the next. Inexplicable.
“It’s not like he’s dead,” Donghae chokes out, and Hyukjae swallows.
That’s right, Hyukjae remembers, and pulls Donghae into a hug.
It’s going to be okay, he can’t find the words to say.
Seoul is nice, if not a bit intimidating, and his roommate is… liveable, for now. He doesn’t mind Kim Heechul too much until he comes home one day drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke, and Sungmin locks himself in his bedroom even as he hears Heechul throwing up in the bathroom.
He sighs and damns his morals before going to the bathroom and pushing Heechul’s fringe out of the way as the smell of sick wafts, filling their dorm.
“You’re a good kid,” Heechul rasps out, still drunk, and Sungmin smiles at him.
That’s how they bond.
Donghae gets violently ill a month after Sungmin leaves.
He can’t swallow anything, his throat is so sore, and the small amount of water he can take comes back up when he gags, and then coughs.
Everytime he makes a noise, the barest movement, Hyukjae is scared the energy will sap him of his life energy, and he’ll simply die, just like that.
Donghwa has to do all the duties on his own, and Hyukjae is occupied with taking care of Donghae; changing him out of his pajamas, feeding him and dabbing at his forehead.
“Bet you always wanted to see me like this,” Donghae rasps out, syllables slurred and eyes only half open as Hyukjae changes his pajamas.
“You’re right,” Hyukjae says, trying to laugh. “Never looked better.”
“Charmer.” Donghae laughs before it turns into splutters and he falls into sleep.
Hyukjae prays for Donghae’s health. He’s afraid to admit that more than anything, he wishes Sungmin was there because he’d know what to do.
The university calls him in for an interview, and asks him to describe himself and his interest in this particular major.
“I’m Lee Sungmin,” he says, remembering to smile. First impressions count the most.
“Foreign relations have interested me since I was young, and the outside world has been of particular interest to me in recent years. While Korea is beautiful and fascinating in itself, different cultures and languages captivated me simply by being different.” He’s reciting the script he and Heechul had pored over for hours until he could do it, glassy-eyed and a perfect smile on.
“That’s very good,” one of the interviewers says, smiling and leaning forward. “Now tell me, if the black ball hits the ground before the white ball does, is the black ball heavier?”
Sungmin opens his mouth automatically before his smile drops.
“Pardon?”
“If the black ball hits the ground before the white ball does, is the black ball heavier?”
“Er.” He looks around, but the other interviewer is just sitting back, watching with an interested expression.
“Well,” he says slowly, trying to remember physics. “It depends if they’re released at the same time at the same place, if we factor wind resistance into it, if they’re the same shape and made from the same material, and along with that, the mass. If we assume that they’re released at the same time at the same place in the same conditions with no wind resistance, and they’re both made from the same material in the same shape, then the black ball is probably heavier, but it could also not be and be affected by another factor I haven’t taken into account.”
Sungmin takes a tiny, hopefully unnoticeable gasp. The interviewers talk amongst themselves before nodding at him.
“Tell me about your home.”
“Oh.” A smile takes hold. “I used to live on an island before I moved to Seoul; it had the most beautiful trees and only had a community of around two hundred, two hundred and fifty people. The beaches were gorgeous and had the most wonderful marine life, along with the small town and school we had…”
“It says here you lived in Goyang.” The interviewer on the left raises an eyebrow.
Sungmin shakes his head. “Impossible. I grew up on an island, not in the city.”
The one on the right hums. “Must be a clerical error. Please continue.”
He only hesitates a moment before he smiles brightly and proceeds even as he feels a small weight on his mind, unprompted and heavy.
Donghae recovers in the bleakest moment during the darkest storm. Even Minho, the resident doctor, hadn’t been able to predict Donghae’s recovery, or diagnose his sickness.
“I have no idea what it is,” he had said sadly, putting away his stethoscope. “The symptoms match nothing I know. I’m sorry, but without knowing, I have no way of treating him.”
During a particular loud thunderstorm that shakes the foundation of Donghae’s house, he turns over in bed, opens his eyes brightly and calls out cheerfully to Hyukjae slumped on the floor.
“Hey, let’s go find Sungmin! I bet we can find some lightning struck glass if we try hard enough.”
Hyukjae stirs, blinks once before he rubs his eyes and blinks again.
“Donghae…?”
Donghae snorts. “Who’d you expect, your fairy godmother? C’mon, let’s find Sungmin!”
The squawk Donghae lets out is most parts surprised and a tiny bit undignified, but all of that is crushed by the force of Hyukjae’s grateful hug.
“Sungmin?” Donghae asks hopefully, but he decides to let it go when he feels Hyukjae’s tears on his neck.
“Thought I had lost you,” Hyukjae whispers hoarsely, and then Donghae realises that no, the delusions and dreams he had been living weren’t real and Sungmin’s long gone.
And he understands that Hyukjae had forgotten the ‘too’ at the end of those words.
Heechul helps him hack into the university’s mainframe to take a look at his records even if he’s technically allowed to waltz up to the reception desk and ask for it himself. But asking for his hometown, when he should very well know where he’d come from, seemed a bit… stupid, is the only adjective he can think of.
“My friend, Cho Kyuhyun,” Heechul says, introducing them briefly.
They nod, and Sungmin sees a tall man (or boy, if Heechul isn’t lying about Kyuhyun’s age) with mussed hair and a serious mouth.
“Hyung?” the man-boy says, and Heechul grins.
“This is Lee Sungmin, whose record you’ll be hacking into. That is, if you can get in.”
Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “Show me to the computer - uni is child’s play. You’d think by now they’d wonder why I’m getting ten extra food coupons a week.”
“Give me.”
“Later.”
Heechul leads Kyuhyun over to his laptop, minimising the program quickly, and Kyuhyun brings up the command dialogue box.
“Sit back and watch, hyung.”
He cracks his fingers, stretching them out before latching onto the keyboard and efficiently smashing keys into some comprehendible jargon. Sungmin and Heechul watch over his shoulders before he carefully takes a url and sticks it into the internet explorer, Sungmin’s profile popping up.
Kyuhyun sighs in satisfaction and sits back, ten minutes barely gone.
Everything’s there; his full name, date of birth, grades and faculty, as well as details of the student volunteer organisation he’s part of.
As he scrolls down, he eyes the rather unflattering photo they have of him, in a uniform he vaguely recognises and then a list of schools he’s attended. Just to the left of that is his ‘Place of Origin,’ which has a neat ‘Goyang’ next to it, as well as a mailing address.
Kyuhyun taps his fingers against his lips before taking the mouse again, acquiring a gleam in his eye.
“So, you want to see what I usually do? We go here and just tweak this number… Then we shuffle this around… And voila! Perfect grades, extra food and some welfare support if you ever wanted some.”
Kyuhyun grins as he turns around, his arms spread in childish glee. Sungmin takes his mouse and corrects the information, reverting the numbers and grades back.
Heechul frowns. “Spoilsport. Hey, do me!”
The sigh Kyuhyun lets out tells Sungmin something about their relationship, but a certain clerical error won’t correct itself in his mind.
Autumn’s here, the leaves are saying.
The sun’s retreating back to the horizon that much faster, and the air is getting cooler. The leaves are turning crunchy underfoot, and the flowers have retreated.
But at the beach, the sun is blazing high in the sky, the warmth bare but there, and the sand still soft and warm.
That’s where Hyukjae finds Donghae on their day off, the high tide having caused the sand to become smooth and even.
He’s holding a large stick, dragging it laboriously through the dirt behind him as he treads lightly. He’s doing it methodically and calmly, and Hyukjae watches him, the brother he never had, as he carves temporal lines into the sand.
“What’re you doing?”
Donghae looks up and waves before he jogs over to Hyukjae, toes burying through the sand and making friends with the shells.
“Can you see-Oh, you can’t see from here.” He frowns. “Okay, I’ll finish up and then we’ll go up to the cliffs. Did you know you can see the Great Wall of China from outer space? I bet if you wrote big enough, you could see it as well, and if, you know, aliens ever decided to just fly by, they’d see it. Or people in alternate universes going through a universal rip or something, I don’t know. But I’ll show you!”
A sudden gust of wind blows at them from the ocean, both of them suddenly tasting hair. Donghae spits his out while Hyukjae moves it with his fingers, pulling the strands from his tongue.
“Are you sure about this?”
Donghae looks down at his feet, toes wriggling at him.
“It’s been over a month since Sungmin’s been gone and we haven’t heard,” he says softly, and Hyukjae freezes. “If aliens can see it, then he must be able to as well, since he’s closer, right? I just miss him, Hyukjae; it just doesn’t feel right with him gone.”
Hyukjae knows what Donghae means. One third of their universe has gone, never to return, and it feels like the world is slowly tipping on its axis, the fabric of their world falling apart at the seams.
But it wouldn’t help to just mope in misery, so Hyukjae allows Donghae to drag him to the cliffs that overlook that small section of sand, and quite clearly, he can read; Lee Sungmin, we miss you.
Sungmin takes the sheets Kyuhyun printed out and folds them in half, his photo with a crease right down the middle and his date of birth marred.
He folds it in half again before, in a moment of panic, he unfolds it and smooths it out, feeling the shine of the ink against his fingertips.
The hangul for ‘Goyang’ stands out to him, ominous almost, and he feels betrayed as he thinks of Hyukjae and Donghae back at home, pushed to the back of his mind and disregarded.
“I wonder…” Sungmin begins, before he scrunches up the sheets and throws it in the bin without looking back. He knows himself better than anything anyone else could’ve said.
He has the emergency contact in his mind, the one with Sungjin’s name on it. It's normal, right? To have his brother as an emergency contact and have Sungjin notify his parents if they couldn’t be contacted. The phone number listed beside Sungjin’s name is familiar as well, in the way that memories told over and over again are - barely there, but undeniably memorable.
The other number, and name, is foreign. It has the slightest tinge of déjà vu connected to it like everything else he’s encountered since he’s come to Seoul, but he can’t recall it.
Licking his lips, he dials the number to Choi Sooyoung, fear creeping up his spine and settling at the base of his neck.
“Hello?”
A sweet voice answers, definitely a girl and with the unmistakable tone of someone expecting something of someone else.
“Sungmin?” she goes on to ask, in the same tone. “You can’t prank me you know, there’s this invention called caller ID.”
There’s humour in her tone, even as Sungmin’s frozen still, her voice washing over him like a childhood blankie. It feels familiar, like picking up an old instrument and being able to play it still, or closing his eyes and still being able to recite the twenty or so ingredients that go into a Black Forest cake.
“Sungmin?”
Her voice is worried, and it makes him worried. Fear, more than anything, makes him take the phone away from his ear and press the small, red button.
After a hesitant text message to her, and the reply full of question marks and a confuzzled emoticon, they agree to meet for lunch.
Sungmin’s playing with his phone as he anxiously waits, pictures of all of the girls he knows flitting through his mind before he takes a breath and braces himself. Words Donghae had told him come to mind, of how to treat a lady right; to hold her hand when the time called for it; how to act if she was being a bit of an asshole.
She greets him with a touch on his shoulder before seating opposite, swinging her shoulder bag into the spare seat.
“Sungmin?” she asks, and her voice and tone are the exact same they had been over the phone.
“Sooyoung,” he tries for measure, as if he hadn’t practised for twenty minutes in front of the mirror, trying to get the feeling of her name flowing naturally.
“Yeah? What’s wrong?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, and Sungmin takes a moment to look at her.
She isn’t stunning and she’s still familiar in that fuzzy way, like an old film. Her gold earrings glint in the light, just plain gold rings, and her face is free of makeup. Her fringe brushes her eyes when she ducks, and her hair’s kept short, shy of her shoulders.
She isn’t conventionally pretty, either, but Sungmin’s drawn to her, this stranger he supposedly knows.
“Sung…min?”
He jerks his head, gaze shifting from her shoulders to her face, concerned.
“I…”
He doesn’t know how to start.
I was born in Goyang? I grew up there? The uni records say that, and that you’re my emergency contact?
“Is something wrong?” Sooyoung leans closer, putting her hand on his, and he jerks.
The intimate touch tells him more than any words ever could; that they’re closer than friends, maybe best friends. Maybe lovers, boyfriend-girlfriend.
She slowly retracts her hand, settling back in her seat and looking at him.
“There’s something… That’s been bothering me.”
“Yeah?” She tilts her head and smiles encouragingly, asking him, but of what?
“I’m not the Sungmin you know.”
It’s the best beginning he can think of right now and her eyes cloud over, the sudden intimacy replaced with wariness.
“What do you mean?”
“I just… It feels weird, talking to you, like I should know you, but I don’t. I feel like I should know about Goyang, because everything says I grew up there, when I didn’t. It feels like I should know, I don’t know, more about everything, everywhere, but I don’t. You… Seem familiar. In some distant way, I don’t know, but I don’t know anything about you, only your name, because apparently the university lists you as my emergency contact when I don’t. I don’t know you. I’m sorry Sooyoung.”
He looks up, and she’s smiling, her hands on the table between them, folded.
“Sungmin, your favourite bird is the nightingale, and your favourite colour; blue. You like dawn better than dusk because a new day is a new day to life, and you like thunderstorms because they remind us of how insignificant we might be. You like the cold better than the hot, orange juice with pulp and warm milk better than cold. You like chocolate pudding only when there’s melted chocolate inside served with strawberries.”
With each word, Sungmin feels like Sooyoung’s taking pieces of his soul and showing it to the world, each part stripped bare.
“How do you know this?” he whispers, and she smiles.
“I know everything about you, Sungmin. We grew up together in Ilsan and went to the same school, before both enrolling in uni here. Even if you’ve forgotten or you’re confused, I remember.”
“But- but I wasn’t even born here, I was born on an island off the coast, small and secluded.”
“You were born in Goyang,” she says, and Sungmin shakes his head.
“No, I was born on the island,” he says, trying for patience but failing miserably.
“Your birth certificate says you were born in Ilsan in Goyang. You were born there, not on some island. I know, Sungmin.”
He shakes his head again. “They’ve got it wrong. For eighteen, nineteen years of my life, I lived on an island.”
“Then what’s the name of that island?”
The breath in him rushes out in a soft whoosh, and he wonders why his mind is suddenly blank.
“I do not know.”
(Part 2.)
Fandom and OT3: Super Junior; hyukhaemin (Eunhyuk/Donghae/Sungmin)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 16 191
Summary: Sungmin grows up on an island with two other boys.
Warnings: (Minor Character) Death
Notes: Written for troisbang.
Bundles of thanks to everyone has helped me write this, and for nautisch who beta-ed this morning. Apologies this is so late, I couldn't help it. :(
Title taken from OneRepublic's 'Come Home.' It's basically the soundtrack to this.
If Sungmin had a choice, he wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world.
The island, with a circumference of two hours by foot, is a beautiful place: lush with greenery and surrounded by the sparkling, clear sea. The air is always slightly scented by the ocean and the sunlight lights up everything in dazzling, breathtaking way. There’s something about it, from the way he hears the birds in the morning to the paths and layout of the homes of everyone he knows.
Sungmin loves this island with his soul, and he doesn’t want to ever let go of it.
On the island, there are exactly ten kids in his year group. That means that at school, his year group is combined with two others to make one class of twenty-two.
But no matter where you are, you’ll always find people you’re closer to than others, an inexplicable bond to certain people. Sungmin feels it, loud and clear, with a certain Lee Hyukjae and Lee Donghae.
He knows that the other kids call them the Lee brothers, and the adults affectionately refer to them as the Three Brats Who Will Never Part. But he doesn’t mind it - because it’s true that he’d trust these two other boys, his brothers, with his life.
It isn’t easy to find a soulmate in a lifetime, much less two, but Sungmin has done just that with Lee Hyukjae and Lee Donghae.
Sungmin sometimes dreams of a bare apartment with cream walls and small lights. He dreams that the apartment’s empty, that the window looks out to this strange, foreign place with grey buildings thousands of feet high, wires breaking the peace of the sky and noise, just noise, everywhere.
He dreams of this place and walks around it; the simple, glass coffee table, patched up couches and into the bedroom with a simple bed in pink and lavender. He walks into the bathroom where it is white, all white with the silver of taps and towel racks where the only splash of difference is the mould on the ceiling.
The kitchen is the last place he gets to, foreign and strange with its gas stove and silver lightning. The fridge contains packaged foods, wrapped carefully and neatly placed, and he doesn’t like it. It feels so contrived and neat, not like a home at all.
He’s always glad when he wakes up from these dreams with his soft, yellow walls and warm bed, the sunlight greeting a good morning.
“Good morning, precious,” Donghae purrs in his ear at six am, and Sungmin screeches and falls off the bed, clutching his ear. He can hear Sungjin laughing in the next room.
Hyukjae stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets with a smile on.
“Schooooooooooool tiiiiiiiiiime,” he says happily, and Sungmin groans.
“It’s six, why are we even up?”
Donghae jumps up and down in excitement, all skin and bones, limbs flying everywhere, and Hyukjae keeps out of his way.
“Your mum said she’d make a cake by the time we got back from school if we get all the berries now!”
Sungmin groans and buries his head in his pillow, though a smile tugs at his lips. “Come on, she can make you a cake anytime, but I want my sleep now. Let me go to sleep!”
Persisting, Donghae tugs at the blanket covering Sungmin until Sungmin’s left shivering, curled up and trying to retain some warmth.
“Caaaaaaaaaaaaake,” Donghae tempts, and Hyukjae laughs. Sungmin groans before he joins in the laughter too, sitting up.
“Okay, okay, but you owe me. Come on, let’s go!”
When they eventually get to school, an hour late with their mouths smeared with berry juice, Donghae promises the teacher to bring in some cake the next day. She dismisses their tardiness with a laugh.
Sometimes, when Sungmin wakes up, he finds bruises and scratches he doesn’t remember getting. It’s usual for him now to simply wake up, pause for a moment to mentally catalogue any areas of his body that hurt, and to treat them.
“Did you hurt yourself again?” Hyukjae would say as he points to the new bandaid on the crook of Sungmin’s elbow, and he’d shrug.
“Maybe, I guess.” He pauses and fingers the bandaid slightly, tonguing his cheek in thought. “I dunno; it was like that when I woke up.”
Donghae nods. “It’s like sleep-hurting, you know instead of sleepwalking, or sleep-talking? You sleep-hurt.” He nods seriously until Hyukjae is grinning at him widely, trying hard to keep his laughter in, and Sungmin is looking at Donghae, confused.
Donghae holds Sungmin’s stare for a moment, his own eyebrows together in thought, before he breaks into a grin.
“Kidding, you’re just really clumsy.”
Hyukjae takes the opportunity to drop a pen, tries to reach for it, and consequently falls out of his chair.
Seven to half past eight, every night, is dedicated to studying, but not in respect to schoolwork.
At this time, everything is put down and each of them trudges home dutifully as their parents take out utensils and begin assembling them. At this time, Hyukjae’s father brings out different shaped pipes and spanners, Sungmin’s father arranges nets and fishing rods, and Donghae’s father unlocks the door of the post office.
And for an hour and a half each evening, Sungmin, Donghae and Hyukjae carefully listen to the life they’ll lead in the future.
Years pass before reality decides to slap them in the face and rob them of childish innocence.
It’s when Donghae is sixteen that his father passes away.
He’s not there to witness it, but his mother calls and he excuses himself.
Hyukjae finds him in one of the supply closets, tucked in between the fresh, clean printer paper and boxes of dusty chalk. Donghae’s curled up, hands pressed over his eyes and shaking just the smallest bit, absolutely silent.
Hyukjae’s scared and wants to call Sungmin, who’d know what to do, but he closes his eyes and crouches, hugging Donghae to his chest, and to his heart.
I want it to be okay, Hyukjae wants to say, but he knows that Donghae’s already thinking that, and it’d be useless and it’d hurt to just hear the words uttered, the reality that he wants to be spoken and denied.
Sungmin’s favourite place is the park by the abandoned cottage, four stone benches erected centuries ago and older men congregating there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday faithfully.
He watches as they arrange black and white stones with small snaps, playing baduk as the sun sets and streetlights come on.
“You should learn sometime, Sungmin,” Jungsu always says when Sungmin approaches, school bag slug across a shoulder or bags of groceries in his hands.
“I’d prefer to watch,” Sungmin always replies, smiling, and seats himself down.
“I used to be a pro,” Jungsu says one day as he watches Youngwoon place a black stone, before he scoops up a white one in his own hand and places it down swiftly. Youngwoon frowns.
“A pro?” Sungmin watches the delicate veins on Jungsu’s hands, the calluses on his fingers and the absent-minded smile.
“Yes, I used to play baduk for a living, but you get tired of it; the stuffy rooms and silence. How hard you have to concentrate.” He crosses his eyes and wiggles his fingers towards Youngwoon, who scowls.
Sungmin watches as Youngwoon bites his thumb and hesitantly places a stone, which Jungsu captures and takes from the board, plopping it in a shallow dish.
“I’ve retired now, and I don’t regret it. I used to live in Seoul, but it’s nice to be here and breathe in the fresh seaside air; not have to worry about games and mistakes.”
Jungsu smiles, dimple in place, and Sungmin watches as Jungsu and Youngwoon arrange the territory, signalling Jungsu’s victory.
“Jungsu,” Sungmin tries as they’re gathering the stones, packing up.
Jungsu looks up, smile in place. “Yes, Sungmin?”
“Did you ever do radio? TV?”
Youngwoon pauses as he slips the black pieces back into their container.
“You think he’s pretty enough to?” He leers, and Sungmin laughs.
“Nah, I just. Your voice, face? They seem familiar. Different?” He pauses in thought, and Jungsu laughs.
“Aw, thanks, but no. I wish though, that would be nice.” Jungsu shakes his head, still smiling as he and Youngwoon stack the containers on the board.
“Here, let me,” Youngwoon says as he takes the board, and Junsu smiles his thanks just before he tells Youngwoon, quite cheerfully, that he’ll probably die before Youngwoon manages to beat him.
Youngwoon groans, Jungsu tells him that he’ll just have to try harder next time, and Sungmin dutifully picks up the bags of groceries and goes on his way.
With Donghae’s father gone, he’s forced to take over the family business. He drops out of school, and the silence left between Sungmin and Hyukjae is palpable and so, so brittle.
“So,” Hyukjae says, clearing his throat. “How do you do this maths question?”
It’s one from over a week ago, something they had meant to finish and hand in but time had taken hold, and Sungmin clears his throat, looking at it.
“It’s pretty simple…” he starts, but he stops and there’s a mind blank.
What the fuck?
Sungmin knows these questions; he knows how to do them like he knows the back roads of their small town, the colours of the seashells and what time the tide comes in and out. But, he can’t solve it; he can only look at it and swallow.
“Sorry,” he says, and excuses himself, Hyukjae staring down at his fingers.
One down, two to go, he thinks.
Donghae’s father was a brilliant man; kind-hearted with passion who gave up everything for his family. More than once when they were over for dinner, Donghae’s father would tell them of the time he was once scouted out in the streets of Seoul, but then he had met Donghae’s mother. Here, they traded the customary glance and smile while Donghae and his brother, Donghwa, pretended to throw up, and they fell in love. Sungmin smiled politely and Hyukjae concentrated on the yummy, yummy food, and Donghae’s mother always chastised Donghae, asking why couldn’t I have a lovely son like Sungmin? and she reached over to ruffle said boy’s hair.
“Because we live to make your life wonderful, fulfilling and entertaining,” Donghae and Donghwa said simultaneously, and Hyukjae and Sungmin snorted into their dinner.
“One day, you’ll take over the posting business, and you’ll see what life is really about,” Donghae’s father said before digging into his dinner.
Now, when Hyukjae and Sungmin drop by for dinner, there’s only silence and the quietly shuffling of eating utensils.
“Together forever,” Donghae always whispers when they’re out on the highest hill on the island, lying on their backs with their faces upturned towards the stars.
“Three as one,” Hyukjae says, raising a fist, and the two join in.
“Never, ever apart,” Sungmin says, and he blinks, feeling a strange curling in his chest before Hyukjae points out he can make out the figure of some naked woman in the stars.
Before, Hyukjae’s father used to take them out stargazing and teach them all the names of the constellations when he had time.
“This, there, can you see it? Those stars grouped together, the bright ones next to the tiny prick near Mars? That’s Cassiopeia.”
“The one that looks like Jaejoong’s ass,” Donghae would whisper, and Hyukjae would snigger with him.
But Sungmin listened faithfully, and now he can pick out the Phoenix, Orion, Pisces and Andromeda, tell the stories that Hyukjae’s father used to tell. He can spread his hand out and pluck out a group of stars, say that this star is a part of Lacerda, the lizard, this one part of Pegasus…
“Hey, can you see Orion?” Sungmin says when they’re on the beach, trying to relive an old careless time. But Donghae looks at him with bloodshot eyes, and Hyukjae doesn’t even bother.
Sungmin falls silent, but he eyes the skies, the heavens. He wonders what it’s like to be one of them; a star.
Hyukjae drops out of school when he’s sixteen and a half; two months after Donghae had dropped out.
It’s not unusual. Most kids only go to school until the end of middle school on the island because they never need the extra, useless knowledge when, for the rest of their life, they’d be following in their parents’ footsteps.
“I want to see Seoul one day,” Hyukjae says when Sungmin visits, playing with some nuts and bolts he’s supposed to be able to identify.
“Me too. We should go there one day.”
Sungmin bites his lip when Hyukjae shakes his head, scattering the small, metal pieces until they clink on the floor, the wooden boards worn.
“Can’t. Have to stay here, remember?”
Hyukjae smiles that sad, worn out smile, and Sungmin wonders when Hyukjae became a quitter.
“We should go to Seoul one day,” Sungmin greets Donghae when he drops off the post in the afternoon, the sun just about to set.
Donghae avoids his eyes, letters to the Kims next door dangling from his left hand.
“What about your family here?”
Sungmin dismisses it. “They’ll be fine; they have their own life and I should be allowed my own, right?”
The hesitation is there when Donghae opens his mouth next, but he closes it, eyes brimming with tears.
“I wish you all the best in your life, Lee Sungmin.”
What Hyukjae doesn’t say is that he wishes, sometimes.
He wishes for fame, for an opportunity to just let go of everything and do what he wants. He knows what he wants; he has felt the bass thumping in his ears, thrumming through his body as he moves to the music and - he wants more. He wants to learn how to be beautiful; to be able to move like those people on TV and to be passionate about something he cares about, not pipes and nuts and bolts.
But, as with everything on this island, family and obligation comes first. So he listens to his father as he teaches Hyukjae which spanner to use for this screw, what’s wrong if a sink is bubbling over and when to replace a pipe. Hyukjae listens, notes it all down, and banishes any other thoughts from mind.
Donghae wants, too.
His father always had the passion and skill -- he used to laugh -- to be great and famous. To be a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry, and the ability to charm the hearts of thousands of girls nationwide. But no; Donghae’s father put family first, and Donghae puts aside the soccer ball.
He’s got a job to do, and Donghwa dutifully accompanies him as they ride their bikes to the post office.
“I wish we were kids again,” Hyukjae says on the beach as they gather for Junsu and Junho’s birthday.
“I wish it wasn’t so cold,” Donghae says as he buries his nose into his scarf, and Sungmin laughs, wrapping around him in a hug.
“Man up!” Sungmin says as everyone cheers, fireworks lit and spiralling.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAAAAAAAY!”
The twins laugh and scream in joy, sand piled in their hair and down their shirts, and Sungmin, Hyukjae and Donghae laugh from a safe distance away.
“CAKE, CAKE, CAKE!”
Someone brings out the cake Sungmin’s mother made; a large one enough for seventy people with two identical boys drawn in icing. There are seventeen red balloons trailing from their linked hands, and Junsu and Junho admire it.
“Your mum’s skilled,” Junsu says, and Sungmin shrugs, smiling. She is, but that doesn’t mean he is - or will be.
“CUT IT!” Sungmin screams along with everyone else, and Jaejoong brings forward a large knife, holding it threateningly.
“MOVE UNLESS YOU WANT TO LOSE AN ARM!”
They scoot away, and soon, they’re eating rich, chestnut cake with a thin layer of chocolate. Donghae savours it and openly moans when he takes a bite, and Hyukjae finishes his slice within a few seconds, grinning when he does.
“I’m looking forward to when you make cake like that, Sungmin, and we get to eat it for free,” Hyukjae says as he lies down on the sand, smiling at the thought.
“Mmmm, free chocolate cake every afternoon…” Donghae drools at the thought.
Sungmin’s silent, tracing patterns with the leftover icing, and he stands abruptly.
“Better go wish the birthday boys a happy birthday,” he says with a false smile, and walks off.
Sungmin remembers when the three of them used to band together and go exploring in the wilderness, guns in their holsters (carrots in their belts), packs on their backs (empty bags but for food) and appropriate clothing and shoes on (tees and shorts with sandals.) They’d trek along the tracks, relentless branches and bushes obscuring every path and rocks making their way difficult.
He remembers the determination they held on each of their faces as they reached the High Point of the Mountain and Therefore the Island; the glory as they looked over the island and the surrounding sea.
“So pretty,” Donghae whispered, clutching both of their hands tight, and Sungmin remembers looking out, seeing the same awe reflected on Hyukjae’s face before he squashed the thought of so much water, so little Island.
Sungmin wonders if it’s always been like this; him wondering what it is like out there while Hyukjae and Donghae are content as they are.
When Sungmin enters his final year of schooling, the teachers approach him to encourage him to study at Seoul National University with his grades. Medicine, science, foreign languages and culture, arts, anything is possible!
He applies to them all diligently, under the teachers’ orders, and hides it from Hyukjae and Donghae. The feeling of guilt only intensifies when they take bites of his mother’s peach cake.
“Mum,” Sungmin says as he stands in the doorway of the living room, suddenly feeling four again and afraid of the dark.
His mother looks up and smiles, patting the space beside her as his father fixes one of his fishing lines in the corner.
“What’s wrong?”
“It…” He hesitates. He feels a sense of loyalty towards his parents; after all, they birthed him and raised him up to be who he is now. They raised him to be headstrong and passionate; pursuing his goals until they give up on him and never the other way around.
His mother kisses his temple softly, lacing their fingers, and he smiles, feeling his heartbeat slowing.
“It’s about going to university,” he says, and his father’s hands still.
“We want the best for you, son,” he interrupts. “If you want to go to university, then that’s fine with us. If you want to become a fisherman like me, or learn how to bake like your mother, then that’s fine. But choose what you want to do.”
His mother smiles at him.
“What your father said is right; do what you want. We know that what we like and how we live might not be what you want - but it’s important for you to find out for yourself and not feel obligated to stay here. We made a choice to settle here, and it’s your choice if you want to stay.”
Sungmin’s heart feels warm at these thoughts and words, and he swallows thickly, feeling the irrational urge to cry.
“Remember we love you and want what’s best for you,” his mother says, and he smiles, leaning his head against her shoulder.
“I know, thank you.”
“Have you decided where you want to go, to study what?”
Here, Sungmin hesitates, his mouth opening slightly in the automatic action, but no words come out, and he shuts it, shaking his head.
“Ah, well when you decide, tell us. Now go to bed, you still have school tomorrow.” His mother smooths a hand over his hair, and he kisses her cheek, saying a goodnight to both of his parents.
Hyukjae sits in his backyard, picking at the grass as the tools for his father’s trade lie in front of him, Sora sitting opposite.
“And you’d use this for?” she asks as she holds up some biggish spanner, and Hyukjae shrugs.
“I dunno, to unscrew something?”
Sora mimes throwing it at him, and he ducks, hands coming up defensively.
“Come on, concentrate. This pipe?”
He glances at it.
“Hot water. Coz it’s durable. Or something.”
“Hyukjae, you have to know this shit. I’m not going to be around to fix your ass if you stuff something up in Taejin’s house, okay?”
Hyukjae laughs and throws grass at her, inwardly wincing at the thought of Taejin’s house. The words begin to sink in, and he pauses.
“Wait, you’re not going into plumbing?”
Sora snorts, and Hyukjae ducks as she throws grass back.
“Please, me? Plumbing? Nah, I’m going to Sungmin’s mum’s bakery, learn to make cakes and stuff. Maybe even go to Jinki’s dad’s place to learn bread, combine them into one shop.” She puts a finger to her chin. “Or maybe I can marry Jinki and we’ll make one huge food thing.”
Hyukjae laughs again.
“You and Jinki? Please, as if he’d even want to be in the same ROOM - and have you seen the way he’s been following Sunyoung around?”
Hyukjae shakes his head and Sora rolls her eyes.
“Wait, Sungmin’s mum’s bakery? Sungmin isn’t taking over that, or Sungjin?”
“Don’t you talk to him or something? His mum said Sungmin might go to university in Seoul. You know, go study.”
What? Hyukjae’s eyes widen. Sungmin going to Seoul, leaving their island? Hyukjae swallows, looking down at his life spread out in front of him, and quickly gathers the bolts, sliding them back into their bag, gathering the pipes together and putting the tools back into the box.
“I’ll be back,” Hyukjae says when he pushes himself to his feet and starts running, running and running and he doesn’t realise it until he’s pounding on Donghae’s front door, and Donghwa opens it, looking shockingly like a sleepy Donghae.
“Donghae’s down at the post office today,” he says, and Hyukjae thanks him. He makes a motion towards Donghwa’s bike, and Donghwa nods sleepily.
“Just return it later.”
There’s a familiar twirling of spokes as they spin, but whoever said that you never forget how to ride a bike is wrong, because he stumbles and almost falls, hands shaking as he remounts.
He bursts into the post office, Donghae looking up from a stack of envelopes with a ready smile.
“Can I - oh, Hyukjae, what’s wrong?”
“Do you know about Sungmin?” he asks almost brusquely, and Donghae smiles that small, sad smile of his before he reaches under the counter.
The envelope he produces is made of crisp parchment, words carefully printed with a beautiful stamp displaying the Han River. It has Seoul National University embossed on the corner.
“Nothing gets past me,” Donghae whispers, fingers clutching the letter tight, and Hyukjae’s heart breaks.
Hyukjae begins learning the trade diligently, learning how to fix pipes and tubing, learning how to fix the water heating system when it starts failing, or how to speed it up and make sure it doesn’t fail in winter. He learns which bolts go where, what tools are used for which part of the piping, and, this is his least favourite bit, he starts getting to know how the sewerage system works.
His father congratulates him now that he’s learnt the basics, and when the Cho family calls to say that their sink keeps leaking, Hyukjae’s father takes him along. Sora waves him and mouths have fun when they pass the bakery, and he pokes a tongue out at her.
There’s a much forgotten, unappreciated book in the bookstore that Sunny mans on the weekend. It’s brown, boldly embossed with gold vines and patterns before a tentative Memories title is shown. She gives it to Sungmin when he picks up his textbooks, smiling.
“Thought you might appreciate this - doesn’t look like anyone’s read it in a while.”
He thanks her but doesn’t put too much thought in it. After all, it’s not like anyone seems to appreciate books for what they’re worth, on this island. For all he knows, the only books that are actively read are cookbooks and manuals, and about ten books in the whole school.
He mourns the loss of knowledge in such a small place, but he can’t change much. He takes it anyway and starts reading it that night.
“Do you ever wonder if we’re real, if what we’re living is a lie?” Donghae asks Hyukjae as they sit on the steps of the post office.
Hyukjae looks at him. He sees a small boy, too young for the world with dreams and fears larger than life itself. He sees a teenager with thin limbs, ready to break at the softest touch and skin ready to bruise from the simplest caress. He sees Donghae, best friend and brother, and he wonders why in that moment, he feels more love for Donghae than he ever has before.
“Why do you think that?” Hyukjae asks back, voice hoarse and he blinks, swallows thickly.
“I just.” Donghae looks up to the sky, where the sun’s shining brightly and blindingly, and he stretches out a hand. Hyukjae watches the silhouette of Donghae’s hand as it curls into a fist, and Donghae brings it down.
“Don’t you feel like that sometimes? We’re stuck here, on this stupid, small island for our whole life, and we can’t leave. We should be able to, right? Sungmin’s doing right by himself, leaving, taking control of his life but we?”
Donghae shakes his head, eyes closed almost delicately, and Hyukjae can just imagine the tears sliding down over the soft planes of his cheeks.
“We’re not doing anything. We’re just sitting back, letting everyone give us what we need and want.”
Hyukjae licks his lips before he answers, slowly, going through it as he figures it out.
“We’re doing what’s right; everyone on this island has a job to do. We can’t just up and leave because we want to; there’s an established set of what goes on here. Ruining the balance - we just can’t do that.”
Donghae sighs, rubbing his hand through his hair before he looks down to the ground.
“I just feel useless and like, life is pointless. For the rest of my life, I’m going to sort mail, while Sungmin’s going to travel the world, go to places and see things. He’s going to see what it’s like out there and we’re just going to sit here our whole life, on this island in this tiny corner of the world.”
Donghae frowns and Hyukjae laughs lightly even if he feels his heart clench at Donghae’s words, voicing his thoughts.
“Sungmin’s going to live his life and we’re going to live ours, right? There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just the way life is.”
Slowly, Donghae curls his fingers around Hyukjae’s sleeve, leaning into his shoulder and looking into the town; the shops, the lonely Main Street and the tranquillity that just settles down, comfortable.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
A week before Sungmin’s exams, he takes the day off school and goes walking. He walks along the edge of the beach and crouches in the small rock pools, smiling at the small crabs that scamper about, and the urchins and starfish that go along with the flow.
He walks along the edge of the ocean as the tide comes in, the foam making the sand gargle gently, and Sungmin laughs as he tries to tug his shoes free from the sand.
At around half way, an hour into his journey, he takes a breather on the side of the island with the abandoned cottage.
The paint is peeling from its walls, the window frames slightly askew, but otherwise it’s in an okay condition, not too dangerous to explore.
Sungmin pokes around in it, fingers ghosting the edges of old tables and chairs, leaving paths free of dust as he walks around the one-roomed home. There’s barely anything left, only the most basic of furniture and he’s surprised to find the glass still in the windows, a sombre hello! in the grime he draws.
It’s not a bad house, he finds, but he can feel the ghosts of the past stirring as they wait for him to leave. When he steps out the door and breathes in the fresh ocean smell, he sees the abandoned stone tables where Jungsu, Youngwoon and Yunho congregate. For now, it’s empty, and he wonders where they are.
But he continues on, walking around the island as he skirts the edges of the cliffs, admiring how the ocean breaks over the rocks. He wonders if the island’s always been like this; delicately beautiful in one part, but fiercely dangerous otherwise. He wonders if this is what the whole world is like, not just the small part he knows.
He continues on his way and arrives back at the school, students milling around during lunch, laughter reigning high, and he recognises himself in the younger students as they jump and play. But he doesn’t feel like going back there yet, learning more things to decide his future, so he walks back to the centre of town, arriving at the post office.
“Hello, can I-Sungmin!” Donghwa’s voice greets him happily, and Sungmin feels a smile creep onto his face.
“Ah, are you going back to the school soon? This is a package for them; it’s probably your test papers.” He smiles, and Sungmin can see the likeliness to his father, to Donghae.
“Sure, thanks.”
“No worries. Does…” Donghwa hesitates, and Sungmin waits patiently, fingers clutching at the fragile package holding his future. “Does Donghae know that you’re planning on leaving the island?”
Sungmin knows that this would come up soon - he can’t avoid this forever, hiding the truth from his best friends.
“I haven’t told them, no.” Sungmin shakes his head and he wonders where they are now, if they’re deciding their own future or letting the future decide itself. “But you know how it is here; they probably already know.”
“Still…” Donghwa plays with a pen, and Sungmin can see where they differ here; where Donghae is rash and ready to jump in at the first opportunity, Donghwa weighs up everything first. Sungmin can see himself in Donghwa, and he knows that they would’ve been great friends if only time let them.
“You know what Donghae’s like; he’s just waiting for you to say something. Maybe he does know, but that doesn’t mean you can’t tell him yourself. After all, it’s better to hear it from the person themself, right?”
The paper’s crinkled from where his fingers scrunch the envelope, but Sungmin finds himself nodding.
“I’ll tell him when I see him next.”
Donghwa lets out a smile, a small, cautious one, and Sungmin smiles too.
“Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, later.”
Noon.
Noon, and Donghae sorts through the mail; the Kims (that is, Kibum’s family), the Lees (Sungmin’s), Jung (Jessica’s) and Cho (the new couple who’s expecting soon.) There’s a package for Sungmin’s mother’s bakery (oooh, new decorations!) a package for Yunho (Donghae shakes it but it clinks delicately and he puts it down, scared) and a huge box that sits in the corner of the post office - unclaimed and unlabelled, and Donghae shrugs.
Noon, and Hyukjae follows his father to inspect the sewer lines underneath the heart of the island; the town hall. The stench is mind blowing, and Hyukjae struggles to take a breath that doesn’t make him want to throw up. His father laughs at him.
Noon, and Sungmin’s sitting in an empty classroom, his right hand sliding up and down the barrel of a pen, eyes fixated on the sheet in front of him. Deciding his future, he weighs up the options as he writes his name and thinks; yeah, I want to leave this place.
“Old times’ sake, let’s do this for old times’ sake,” Sungmin says after his final test when he turns up at the post office, the sun ready to set.
“Do what? Go to the cliffs?” Donghae doesn’t look up as he sorts the envelopes into Domestic and International, and Hyukjae absent-mindedly doodles.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go to the cliffs. Do you want to?”
Hyukjae looks up, grease on his arms, neck and under his eyes. He lets out a sigh, and Donghae finally looks up, reaching the bottom of the stack.
“To the cliffs?” Hyukjae says, and rubs at a mark on his arm. “Yeah, why not.”
The cliffs haven’t changed, but Sungmin feels like he has, that he’s grown as a person since he last laid on the sharp rocks - last time it had been with Sunny by his side, tentative but faking a surety and confidence he still doesn’t have.
“How come you wanted to come here?” Hyukjae asks, his nose buried into Sungmin’s shoulder. Sungmin feels warm air settling there and shivers as Donghae curls along his other side, already dropping off into sleep.
“He’s tired, leave him alone,” Hyukjae says when Sungmin raises his hand to nudge Donghae awake. Sungmin looks at Hyukjae’s face, but he’s staring at the stars, eyes half glazed in tiredness. Tired of life, at eighteen.
“So?” Hyukjae prompts, and Sungmin makes a small sound of acknowledgement.
“For old times’ sake.” Sungmin blinks, and turns back to the stars. He can spot Scorpio, already feeling a sting in his heart, regretting his choices. He doesn’t want to leave.
“Is that it? You can come here anytime you want you know; you don’t have to come with us when you’re leav- oh.”
Sungmin turns when Hyukjae laces his fingers with Sungmin’s, surprisingly warm as the sea breeze tugs at their hair, their clothes.
“When I’m?”
“When you’re leaving, right?”
Sungmin tenses; and Hyukjae can feel it, Sungmin’s shoulder going stiff and unyielding. Its then that Sungmin realises Donghae’s tense too, too tense to be asleep, and he breathes out slowly.
“I’m leaving, right.”
“Were you ever going to tell us?” Donghae asks softly, so quiet that Sungmin isn’t sure if he imagines it or not.
“Of course I was; I couldn’t leave without telling you, as if I could.” Sungmin bites his lip, feeling Hyukjae’s hand tightening and Donghae’s hand resting almost possessively on his hip.
“Were you really?” Hyukjae murmurs, and Sungmin blinks, steeling himself. He remembers the textbooks he has at home, poring over them every night and his gaze suddenly blurs; black on white.
Black on white, black on cream, and he blinks again, the stars swimming into view though they look less distinct than before. Oh, he’s crying, and Hyukjae is too, and Donghae might be, but he might be imagining it all, some fantasy where him leaving doesn’t matter all that much or this never really existed in the first place.
“Where to?” Donghae finds the courtesy to ask.
“Seoul.” It sounds like he’s saying the English world for soul, when he knows the Korean word has a whole different meaning. He wishes it didn’t sound like he was giving up a part of him, his heart, his soul, to run away to some far part of the country none of them really know.
“To do what?”
The words sound hollow coming from Hyukjae because this island is all they’ve ever known; they can’t imagine something without the island, themselves without the island.
“To study.”
“Ah. Do you know what?”
Sungmin shrugs, feeling Donghae’s head roll slightly and Hyukjae’s head bump.
“I just - I want to see the world, you know? I don’t want to be stuck here forever, in this small place, never seeing the world. I want to go out and experience something different, something I can’t experience here.”
Sungmin’s voice sounds pitiful even to his own ears, desperate and pleading, as if trying to convince more than just the two of them.
“How can you just leave?” Hyukjae asks, watching each rise and fall of Sungmin’s chest. Sungmin watches the stars, spotting Aquarius.
“We’re not bound down by this place; we can leave if we want. Nothing’s stopping us,” Sungmin says, and Donghae smiles lightly.
“Maybe you think that way, Sungmin, but we have to stay here.” Sungmin feels guilty for even bringing this up, and he sends a prayer up to Donghae’s father.
“But Hyukjae, you’re not-“
“I am.” Hyukjae squeezes Sungmin’s hand tighter. “It’s just. I want to, sometimes, just leave this place. Leaving fucking plumbing and the pipes and the screws and the sewers forever but even if Mum and Dad say it’s okay.” There’s a choked gargle of laughter at the sewers comment. “Even if they say it’s okay, you can see it’s not. You can’t just leave this place and expect everything to be okay.”
Donghae sighs softly, cool on Sungmin’s skin.
“You have to understand, Sungmin; that it isn’t about yourself. This place is about everyone; it’s about people working together to do their job to have a perfect community. I do the mail, Hyukjae does the pipes, your mum does the cakes, Yunho does the electricity, Sunny’s mum does the books. Everything, it just fits.”
“You’re upsetting the balance,” Hyukjae interrupts. “Everyone depends on each other here, everyone has a place and everyone knows it. You’re just; just going away and.” He pauses, lets out a breath, and lifts a hand to swiftly wipe away tears.
“What he’s saying is-“
“I know what he’s saying,” Sungmin says, loudly. It echoes, startles a few birds. “I know, I understand, but I don’t want this life. At all. This life, frankly, sucks, it fucking sucks and I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Donghae breathes lightly before he lifts both hands, fitting them together like a web.
“This is this island, this place. We fit, perfectly. And this,” he tucks his right, middle finger down across his palm, out of the web. “And this? This is with you gone.”
There’s a small gap, a window of sky and stars that Sungmin can see through the hole, and he feels something break inside of him.
“I don’t want this, I don’t. I never asked for anyone to rely on me, okay? I just want to be selfish, do what I want.”
“Maybe you’re being too selfish,” Hyukjae whispers as he clutches Sungmin’s hand hard, tighter when Sungmin tries to pull it away.
“We, we understand,” Donghae says hesitantly. “We just wish you wouldn’t.”
Sungmin doesn’t want to go, either. He wants these two boys with him, for the rest of his life, but even as he watches the stars and closes his eyes, seeing a bright, white room, he doesn’t know if he wants that either.
“Maybe,” he says softly, and Donghae hugs him.
“We love you,” Hyukjae says, sounding as if he’s about to cry again and Sungmin can’t help the laughter at that.
“Yeah, I love you too.”
He still has the book Sunny gave him months ago, tucked away in one of his drawers. It comes to mind when he’s chopping up some vegetables for dinner, and he closes his eyes as his hands still.
- Memory is a delicate thing, it had read. Fragile but so easily influenced, memory is what people come to rely on when everything else fails, yet more and more mental diseases are being diagnosed every year. The degradation of memories is not uncommon, but we still hold memories in high respect.
The problem with the mind is that once the seed of an idea is planted, you will never lose it. If someone tells you you had owned a kitten when you were younger, chances are you won’t believe it without physical evidence. But with carefully tampered photographs and people around you telling you that such an event happened without it actually occurring, your mind will start inventing memories that fit these descriptions. The kitten scratched you when you were seven, and you needed stitches. It used to sleep in your bed every night. Your sister was allergic and hated the cat. Once these so-called “memories” are introduced to you, and as long as you believe they are true, your mind will create their own version of these memories to fill in the gaps.
Once the mind is convinced something is true, reason will become useless.
Donghae delivers the letter personally at the end of his route, handing it over as his thumb brushes over the skin of Sungmin’s wrist. The emblem in the corner is one Donghae has come to loathe, and Sungmin opens the letter slowly, almost reverently.
To: Lee Sungmin
We are pleased to announce that you’ve been accepted into…
That’s enough for him before he flings himself into Donghae’s arms, the other boy stumbling back a few steps before he hesitantly hugs back.
“So you made it, you’re really going.”
Sungmin nods into Donghae’s shoulder, trying to control his heart and his breaths.
“I made it,” he breathes, and all Donghae can hear is, I’m already gone.
When Sungmin tries to remember the trip from island to mainland, he can’t. It’s just; it feels like it never existed.
There’s no gentle transition via plane or boat from his childhood home to his place of study, even if he knows it had to have happened.
It’s like he was on the island one day and in Seoul the next. Inexplicable.
“It’s not like he’s dead,” Donghae chokes out, and Hyukjae swallows.
That’s right, Hyukjae remembers, and pulls Donghae into a hug.
It’s going to be okay, he can’t find the words to say.
Seoul is nice, if not a bit intimidating, and his roommate is… liveable, for now. He doesn’t mind Kim Heechul too much until he comes home one day drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke, and Sungmin locks himself in his bedroom even as he hears Heechul throwing up in the bathroom.
He sighs and damns his morals before going to the bathroom and pushing Heechul’s fringe out of the way as the smell of sick wafts, filling their dorm.
“You’re a good kid,” Heechul rasps out, still drunk, and Sungmin smiles at him.
That’s how they bond.
Donghae gets violently ill a month after Sungmin leaves.
He can’t swallow anything, his throat is so sore, and the small amount of water he can take comes back up when he gags, and then coughs.
Everytime he makes a noise, the barest movement, Hyukjae is scared the energy will sap him of his life energy, and he’ll simply die, just like that.
Donghwa has to do all the duties on his own, and Hyukjae is occupied with taking care of Donghae; changing him out of his pajamas, feeding him and dabbing at his forehead.
“Bet you always wanted to see me like this,” Donghae rasps out, syllables slurred and eyes only half open as Hyukjae changes his pajamas.
“You’re right,” Hyukjae says, trying to laugh. “Never looked better.”
“Charmer.” Donghae laughs before it turns into splutters and he falls into sleep.
Hyukjae prays for Donghae’s health. He’s afraid to admit that more than anything, he wishes Sungmin was there because he’d know what to do.
The university calls him in for an interview, and asks him to describe himself and his interest in this particular major.
“I’m Lee Sungmin,” he says, remembering to smile. First impressions count the most.
“Foreign relations have interested me since I was young, and the outside world has been of particular interest to me in recent years. While Korea is beautiful and fascinating in itself, different cultures and languages captivated me simply by being different.” He’s reciting the script he and Heechul had pored over for hours until he could do it, glassy-eyed and a perfect smile on.
“That’s very good,” one of the interviewers says, smiling and leaning forward. “Now tell me, if the black ball hits the ground before the white ball does, is the black ball heavier?”
Sungmin opens his mouth automatically before his smile drops.
“Pardon?”
“If the black ball hits the ground before the white ball does, is the black ball heavier?”
“Er.” He looks around, but the other interviewer is just sitting back, watching with an interested expression.
“Well,” he says slowly, trying to remember physics. “It depends if they’re released at the same time at the same place, if we factor wind resistance into it, if they’re the same shape and made from the same material, and along with that, the mass. If we assume that they’re released at the same time at the same place in the same conditions with no wind resistance, and they’re both made from the same material in the same shape, then the black ball is probably heavier, but it could also not be and be affected by another factor I haven’t taken into account.”
Sungmin takes a tiny, hopefully unnoticeable gasp. The interviewers talk amongst themselves before nodding at him.
“Tell me about your home.”
“Oh.” A smile takes hold. “I used to live on an island before I moved to Seoul; it had the most beautiful trees and only had a community of around two hundred, two hundred and fifty people. The beaches were gorgeous and had the most wonderful marine life, along with the small town and school we had…”
“It says here you lived in Goyang.” The interviewer on the left raises an eyebrow.
Sungmin shakes his head. “Impossible. I grew up on an island, not in the city.”
The one on the right hums. “Must be a clerical error. Please continue.”
He only hesitates a moment before he smiles brightly and proceeds even as he feels a small weight on his mind, unprompted and heavy.
Donghae recovers in the bleakest moment during the darkest storm. Even Minho, the resident doctor, hadn’t been able to predict Donghae’s recovery, or diagnose his sickness.
“I have no idea what it is,” he had said sadly, putting away his stethoscope. “The symptoms match nothing I know. I’m sorry, but without knowing, I have no way of treating him.”
During a particular loud thunderstorm that shakes the foundation of Donghae’s house, he turns over in bed, opens his eyes brightly and calls out cheerfully to Hyukjae slumped on the floor.
“Hey, let’s go find Sungmin! I bet we can find some lightning struck glass if we try hard enough.”
Hyukjae stirs, blinks once before he rubs his eyes and blinks again.
“Donghae…?”
Donghae snorts. “Who’d you expect, your fairy godmother? C’mon, let’s find Sungmin!”
The squawk Donghae lets out is most parts surprised and a tiny bit undignified, but all of that is crushed by the force of Hyukjae’s grateful hug.
“Sungmin?” Donghae asks hopefully, but he decides to let it go when he feels Hyukjae’s tears on his neck.
“Thought I had lost you,” Hyukjae whispers hoarsely, and then Donghae realises that no, the delusions and dreams he had been living weren’t real and Sungmin’s long gone.
And he understands that Hyukjae had forgotten the ‘too’ at the end of those words.
Heechul helps him hack into the university’s mainframe to take a look at his records even if he’s technically allowed to waltz up to the reception desk and ask for it himself. But asking for his hometown, when he should very well know where he’d come from, seemed a bit… stupid, is the only adjective he can think of.
“My friend, Cho Kyuhyun,” Heechul says, introducing them briefly.
They nod, and Sungmin sees a tall man (or boy, if Heechul isn’t lying about Kyuhyun’s age) with mussed hair and a serious mouth.
“Hyung?” the man-boy says, and Heechul grins.
“This is Lee Sungmin, whose record you’ll be hacking into. That is, if you can get in.”
Kyuhyun rolls his eyes. “Show me to the computer - uni is child’s play. You’d think by now they’d wonder why I’m getting ten extra food coupons a week.”
“Give me.”
“Later.”
Heechul leads Kyuhyun over to his laptop, minimising the program quickly, and Kyuhyun brings up the command dialogue box.
“Sit back and watch, hyung.”
He cracks his fingers, stretching them out before latching onto the keyboard and efficiently smashing keys into some comprehendible jargon. Sungmin and Heechul watch over his shoulders before he carefully takes a url and sticks it into the internet explorer, Sungmin’s profile popping up.
Kyuhyun sighs in satisfaction and sits back, ten minutes barely gone.
Everything’s there; his full name, date of birth, grades and faculty, as well as details of the student volunteer organisation he’s part of.
As he scrolls down, he eyes the rather unflattering photo they have of him, in a uniform he vaguely recognises and then a list of schools he’s attended. Just to the left of that is his ‘Place of Origin,’ which has a neat ‘Goyang’ next to it, as well as a mailing address.
Kyuhyun taps his fingers against his lips before taking the mouse again, acquiring a gleam in his eye.
“So, you want to see what I usually do? We go here and just tweak this number… Then we shuffle this around… And voila! Perfect grades, extra food and some welfare support if you ever wanted some.”
Kyuhyun grins as he turns around, his arms spread in childish glee. Sungmin takes his mouse and corrects the information, reverting the numbers and grades back.
Heechul frowns. “Spoilsport. Hey, do me!”
The sigh Kyuhyun lets out tells Sungmin something about their relationship, but a certain clerical error won’t correct itself in his mind.
Autumn’s here, the leaves are saying.
The sun’s retreating back to the horizon that much faster, and the air is getting cooler. The leaves are turning crunchy underfoot, and the flowers have retreated.
But at the beach, the sun is blazing high in the sky, the warmth bare but there, and the sand still soft and warm.
That’s where Hyukjae finds Donghae on their day off, the high tide having caused the sand to become smooth and even.
He’s holding a large stick, dragging it laboriously through the dirt behind him as he treads lightly. He’s doing it methodically and calmly, and Hyukjae watches him, the brother he never had, as he carves temporal lines into the sand.
“What’re you doing?”
Donghae looks up and waves before he jogs over to Hyukjae, toes burying through the sand and making friends with the shells.
“Can you see-Oh, you can’t see from here.” He frowns. “Okay, I’ll finish up and then we’ll go up to the cliffs. Did you know you can see the Great Wall of China from outer space? I bet if you wrote big enough, you could see it as well, and if, you know, aliens ever decided to just fly by, they’d see it. Or people in alternate universes going through a universal rip or something, I don’t know. But I’ll show you!”
A sudden gust of wind blows at them from the ocean, both of them suddenly tasting hair. Donghae spits his out while Hyukjae moves it with his fingers, pulling the strands from his tongue.
“Are you sure about this?”
Donghae looks down at his feet, toes wriggling at him.
“It’s been over a month since Sungmin’s been gone and we haven’t heard,” he says softly, and Hyukjae freezes. “If aliens can see it, then he must be able to as well, since he’s closer, right? I just miss him, Hyukjae; it just doesn’t feel right with him gone.”
Hyukjae knows what Donghae means. One third of their universe has gone, never to return, and it feels like the world is slowly tipping on its axis, the fabric of their world falling apart at the seams.
But it wouldn’t help to just mope in misery, so Hyukjae allows Donghae to drag him to the cliffs that overlook that small section of sand, and quite clearly, he can read; Lee Sungmin, we miss you.
Sungmin takes the sheets Kyuhyun printed out and folds them in half, his photo with a crease right down the middle and his date of birth marred.
He folds it in half again before, in a moment of panic, he unfolds it and smooths it out, feeling the shine of the ink against his fingertips.
The hangul for ‘Goyang’ stands out to him, ominous almost, and he feels betrayed as he thinks of Hyukjae and Donghae back at home, pushed to the back of his mind and disregarded.
“I wonder…” Sungmin begins, before he scrunches up the sheets and throws it in the bin without looking back. He knows himself better than anything anyone else could’ve said.
He has the emergency contact in his mind, the one with Sungjin’s name on it. It's normal, right? To have his brother as an emergency contact and have Sungjin notify his parents if they couldn’t be contacted. The phone number listed beside Sungjin’s name is familiar as well, in the way that memories told over and over again are - barely there, but undeniably memorable.
The other number, and name, is foreign. It has the slightest tinge of déjà vu connected to it like everything else he’s encountered since he’s come to Seoul, but he can’t recall it.
Licking his lips, he dials the number to Choi Sooyoung, fear creeping up his spine and settling at the base of his neck.
“Hello?”
A sweet voice answers, definitely a girl and with the unmistakable tone of someone expecting something of someone else.
“Sungmin?” she goes on to ask, in the same tone. “You can’t prank me you know, there’s this invention called caller ID.”
There’s humour in her tone, even as Sungmin’s frozen still, her voice washing over him like a childhood blankie. It feels familiar, like picking up an old instrument and being able to play it still, or closing his eyes and still being able to recite the twenty or so ingredients that go into a Black Forest cake.
“Sungmin?”
Her voice is worried, and it makes him worried. Fear, more than anything, makes him take the phone away from his ear and press the small, red button.
After a hesitant text message to her, and the reply full of question marks and a confuzzled emoticon, they agree to meet for lunch.
Sungmin’s playing with his phone as he anxiously waits, pictures of all of the girls he knows flitting through his mind before he takes a breath and braces himself. Words Donghae had told him come to mind, of how to treat a lady right; to hold her hand when the time called for it; how to act if she was being a bit of an asshole.
She greets him with a touch on his shoulder before seating opposite, swinging her shoulder bag into the spare seat.
“Sungmin?” she asks, and her voice and tone are the exact same they had been over the phone.
“Sooyoung,” he tries for measure, as if he hadn’t practised for twenty minutes in front of the mirror, trying to get the feeling of her name flowing naturally.
“Yeah? What’s wrong?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, and Sungmin takes a moment to look at her.
She isn’t stunning and she’s still familiar in that fuzzy way, like an old film. Her gold earrings glint in the light, just plain gold rings, and her face is free of makeup. Her fringe brushes her eyes when she ducks, and her hair’s kept short, shy of her shoulders.
She isn’t conventionally pretty, either, but Sungmin’s drawn to her, this stranger he supposedly knows.
“Sung…min?”
He jerks his head, gaze shifting from her shoulders to her face, concerned.
“I…”
He doesn’t know how to start.
I was born in Goyang? I grew up there? The uni records say that, and that you’re my emergency contact?
“Is something wrong?” Sooyoung leans closer, putting her hand on his, and he jerks.
The intimate touch tells him more than any words ever could; that they’re closer than friends, maybe best friends. Maybe lovers, boyfriend-girlfriend.
She slowly retracts her hand, settling back in her seat and looking at him.
“There’s something… That’s been bothering me.”
“Yeah?” She tilts her head and smiles encouragingly, asking him, but of what?
“I’m not the Sungmin you know.”
It’s the best beginning he can think of right now and her eyes cloud over, the sudden intimacy replaced with wariness.
“What do you mean?”
“I just… It feels weird, talking to you, like I should know you, but I don’t. I feel like I should know about Goyang, because everything says I grew up there, when I didn’t. It feels like I should know, I don’t know, more about everything, everywhere, but I don’t. You… Seem familiar. In some distant way, I don’t know, but I don’t know anything about you, only your name, because apparently the university lists you as my emergency contact when I don’t. I don’t know you. I’m sorry Sooyoung.”
He looks up, and she’s smiling, her hands on the table between them, folded.
“Sungmin, your favourite bird is the nightingale, and your favourite colour; blue. You like dawn better than dusk because a new day is a new day to life, and you like thunderstorms because they remind us of how insignificant we might be. You like the cold better than the hot, orange juice with pulp and warm milk better than cold. You like chocolate pudding only when there’s melted chocolate inside served with strawberries.”
With each word, Sungmin feels like Sooyoung’s taking pieces of his soul and showing it to the world, each part stripped bare.
“How do you know this?” he whispers, and she smiles.
“I know everything about you, Sungmin. We grew up together in Ilsan and went to the same school, before both enrolling in uni here. Even if you’ve forgotten or you’re confused, I remember.”
“But- but I wasn’t even born here, I was born on an island off the coast, small and secluded.”
“You were born in Goyang,” she says, and Sungmin shakes his head.
“No, I was born on the island,” he says, trying for patience but failing miserably.
“Your birth certificate says you were born in Ilsan in Goyang. You were born there, not on some island. I know, Sungmin.”
He shakes his head again. “They’ve got it wrong. For eighteen, nineteen years of my life, I lived on an island.”
“Then what’s the name of that island?”
The breath in him rushes out in a soft whoosh, and he wonders why his mind is suddenly blank.
“I do not know.”
(Part 2.)