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The early autumn wind felt comforting on Sang-woo's skin as he sat on the roof with Gi-hun, looking out into the city. Empty bottles of soju lay next to them as evidence of what they’d been doing; and while he wouldn’t admit to being outright drunk, Sang-woo couldn’t deny feeling lightheaded. He clutched onto the grey hoodie Gi-hun had borrowed him, fighting the slight chill of the night – this fight turned out to be in vain though, as his shivers could have as well been heard from across the neighbourhood.
“You okay, man?” Gi-hun asked him, nudging Sang-woo with his shoulder. The touch startled him, and he quickly turned his head toward Gi-hun as if the boy had just punched him. He’d been lost in thought, again , and Gi-hun's habit of unexpectedly poking him whenever he found his friend in this state never found itself to be less surprising to Sang-woo. Despite this, he quickly regained his posture and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’d forgotten how cold it can get at nights,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “But I’m fine.”
Gi-hun only hummed in response, before suggesting they’d go inside and “watch a movie or something”. Sang-woo let out a scoff and huddled against the hoodie’s warmth; an answer that – in his mind at least – worked efficiently enough.
A loud snort escaped the other boy. “Ah, Cho Sang-woo... Cause of death: feeling sentimental and freezing to death,” Gi-hun declared, his arms flinging in the air like he was doing an overly dramatic monologue. “The pride of Ssangnum-dong, taken from us way before his-”
His ravings were stopped by Sang-woo pushing him away. “Shut up!” he shouted with annoyance, ignoring the undeniable smile on his face that expressed otherwise. He felt blood rush up to his cheeks and turned to look at the city again, trying to both lessen the blush and avoid further embarrassment. It wasn’t that cold anymore, at least.
A drop of rain fell on the tip of his nose, but Sang-woo wiped it off without a second thought.
Gi-hun only laughed at this, shaking his head in a sorry attempt to diffuse the situation. Placing his hand in his pocket, he pulled out a single cigarette – not to light it up just yet, but to fiddle with it instead, it seemed. Sang-woo's brow raised slightly at the sight.
“You know your mom will lose her shit if she finds out,” he reminded Gi-hun with indifference, his eyes flickering from the boy to the smoke.
His friend only shrugged, not noticeably bothered by the warning. “I’m almost twenty,” he said, giving his friend a mischievous smirk. Sang-woo couldn’t help but smile back – again –, despite his best efforts, and immediately rolled his eyes as if to deny he’d just done that. The unfortunate power of that witless grin , he thought to his hopeless self.
“-she can’t really boss me around anymore.”
...
“Please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t.”
Gi-hun gave Sang-woo's arm a friendly pat to express his thanks. The feeling of the touch lingered, and Sang-woo instinctively rubbed the spot with his hand, as if to scratch the sensation away. It wasn’t like Gi-hun's occasional nudges bothered him – he would’ve told him to “quit it” ages ago if that were the case. But the feeling felt intrusive either way, and thus it also felt appropriate for Sang-woo to push it away. He wouldn’t let it bother him. He couldn’t.
The rain began to pick up. Odd , Sang-woo thought to himself, it wasn’t supposed to rain that day . He wiped his lower face and glanced at Gi-hun, who continued to play with his cigarette like the weather hadn’t just abruptly changed. Nothing new there, still the ignorant Gi-hun. He sighed and shifted slightly, fixing the hoodie in the process.
“I still can’t believe you’re actually leaving,” he heard his friend say. “It feels like just yesterday we were kids who were... I don’t know, throwing sand in each other’s faces to win squid game or something. And now you’re leaving to become something big . A businessman . It’s weird.”
“ You were,” Sang-woo quickly corrected him, staring onward.
“What?”
“Throwing sand at my face. I never stooped as low as you.”
“Ah,” Gi-hun chuckled, placing the cigarette he’d been fiddling with for a while in his mouth and taking his lighter out. “It’s not my fault you sucked at defense.”
“I did not,” Sang-woo argued, his voice raising a pitch.
“You so did!” Gi-hun fired back, with that same irking grin on his face he had before. “’Gullible’ could have been written on the ceiling and you would’ve read it every single time.”
Sang-woo exhaled in frustration and rolled his eyes – again. His friend was right, obviously, Sang-woo did suck at defense. He was skilled at getting across the squid’s neck when attacking, but Gi-hun always appeared to one-up him in that regard. He wasn’t sure whether it was a talent of Gi-hun's or a fault of his own; that his friend could read him like an open book when it really mattered.
It made Sang-woo afraid, to an extent – not knowing when he was being obvious or not.
The rain came down stronger; Sang-woo didn’t bother to make a comment about it. Instead, he waited for Gi-hun's arguably evident yet inevitable commentary about that type of weather. “I’m freezing, can we go inside?”, or “I forgot my umbrella again,” or “I thought it wouldn’t rain today.”
Gi-hun turned out to say none of those things, and Sang-woo turned out not to care. He heard a faint ‘click’ coming from his side, and assumed it was his friend trying to light his smoke. The hoodie he wore fell into a tighter grip.
Sang-woo's fingers twitched in anticipation – he needed to hold something . His head turned toward his friend, his glance passing from him to his lighter which Gi-hun was struggling to flick open. After around ten seconds of clicking sounds followed by consistent curses, the flame triggered, and Gi-hun pulled the lighter closer to his cigarette with a sigh of relief. He leaned back, breathing out a puff of smoke and taking in the view before them. He didn’t seem to notice the rather one-sided staring contest between him and Sang-woo – a contest that the latter was undeniably winning.
Maybe he was feeling reminiscent, of Gi-hun, of their friendship and shared childhood now that he was leaving for SNU; maybe it was the rain. But Sang-woo felt as though he had something he needed to do, something he had to get off his chest before leaving Ssangnum-dong. It felt ridiculous, it wasn’t like he was leaving for forever, why did he feel so obligated to confess anything? What even was there to confess? He would be back in a few months, him and Gi-hun would act like there had been nothing keeping them apart that entire time, and things would be like they always had been. Still...
Looking at Gi-hun – that stupid yet awfully clever man playing with his cigarette lighter, seemingly nothing in the world bothering him – made Sang-woo believe there wouldn’t be another moment like that. A moment there, in the pouring rain with only his best friend. This, if anything, would be his chance. He thought about it for a moment, then two. Then...
“Hyung?” Sang-woo spoke up, his voice cracking up from the anxiety. Gi-hun turned his head toward his friend, that same oblivious look on his face he wore... all the time. By instinct, Sang-woo immediately turned back to look at the scenery, avoiding any possible eye contact.
“Can I have one?” he asked.
A moment of silence ensued as Sang-woo refused to elaborate what he’d meant by that. Gi-hun would get it soon enough, anyway.
“Hm?” the boy looked around for a while to figure out what his friend wanted, until his eyes landed on the cigarette in his mouth. “Oh, sure. I only took one, but we can share,” he said and offered Sang-woo his already lit up smoke.
Ah. Share. Sang-woo grabbed the cigarette and twirled it in his hands for a while – he wasn’t sure for exactly how long –, before he became much too aware of Gi-hun waiting for him to actually smoke it. He didn’t necessarily seem bothered by this, but his patient gaze was enough to make Sang-woo roll his eyes and put the cigarette in his mouth. It was like sitting next to a love-deprived dog or something, he thought and snickered at the mental image.
The smoke ascended effortlessly despite the midnight rain as Sang-woo breathed it out, looking out to the city. His clothes were soaked and his hair stuck against his skin, but he didn’t mind. They sat there in quiet solitude as he took a couple of more whiffs and Gi-hun in turn waited patiently, his gaze soon finding other sights to stare at. Soon enough, Sang-woo reached his hand out to his friend, ready to give back the cigarette.
Their hands touched as Gi-hun absently reached for his smoke, not paying much mind to Sang-woo; he appeared to be in his own world. Sang-woo, in turn, couldn’t help but stare at the boy.
It was like the rain had never touched him. His hair was perfect though unbrushed, and his clothes were dry although dirty. He looked beautiful. If the weather didn’t bother him, then it wouldn’t bother Sang-woo either. On the contrary, Sang-woo felt content.
And bold. This was his chance – his one and only chance.
“Gi-hun,” Sang-woo swallowed his fears and grabbed his friend’s hand, the one reaching for the cigarette. Still zoned out, Gi-hun turned to face the boy, his eyes fixed on Sang-woo’s.
It had likely been the soju. Sang-woo hadn’t been thinking too clearly for the entire night and was undeniably reaching the peak of his delusion. But it didn’t matter in that moment. Nothing mattered in that moment, except for one, screeching thought:
He wanted to know what it was like; he wanted to know what it was like to kiss Seong Gi-hun.
He reached for Gi-hun’s left cheek, forcibly closing his own eyes before slamming his face against his friend’s. It was as if the world had shut down and tranquillity took place; all of Sang-woo's fears melted away as his lips touched those of Gi-hun's. In reality, it had only lasted for a second or two; but in Sang-woo's mind the initial kiss lasted forever. He didn’t want to let go, in the fear of reality coming crashing down on him. He’d be pushed away, called disgusting or worse, and he’d lose a friend. He couldn’t lose Gi-hun – he didn’t want to.
Leaning back and holding his breath, Sang-woo did not dare to look at the other boy in the eye. He instead kept staring at their interlocked hands, waiting for Gi-hun to pull his away at any given moment.
But he didn’t.
Instead, those same hands rose up to cup Sang-woo's cheeks as Gi-hun pulled him into another indefinite kiss – not intending to let go.
He wanted this, Gi-hun wanted this, both of them had longed for this for who knows how long. Years? Decades? Sang-woo couldn’t recall and neither could he care; he was right there, right then, with the person he cared for the most. He’d gotten his moment; his one, decisive moment. The years of fleeting glances and unsure touches were over.
Taken away by the moment and undeniably full of adrenaline, Sang-woo kept his eyes shut and focused on the feeling of the kiss. It felt nerve-racking, awkward, yet so incredibly perfect . He pushed forward ever so slightly, getting some of Gi-hun's longer locks stuck in his face, but it couldn’t have bothered Sang-woo less. He had to capture the kiss, he needed to. Gi-hun's lips tasted like soju and-
...and...
...what did he taste like?
Why couldn’t Sang-woo remember?
He wanted to remember.
…
...
...
Ah, the cigarette.
Gi-hun was smoking his cigarette. Sang-woo bit his tongue and did not dare to ask for one. His fingers continued to itch. The rain felt deafening at that point, burdening down on Sang-woo as if intending to overrun him with guilt. Guilt from what ?
His eyes flickered between his hands and the smoke between Gi-hun's lips – he wanted to say something . But he couldn’t. His mind swarmed with thoughts, but his body refused to follow lead. It wasn’t the right time, he concluded, the rain beating down on him.
Why wasn’t it the right time?
Why didn’t he say it?
“Ah, my mom’s calling,” Gi-hun said, throwing the cigarette down to the road below them and standing up.
Was she? Sang-woo couldn’t hear anything.
“We should head back inside.”
But she wasn’t calling. No one was calling them.
No one is calling them now.
“Sang-woo?”
Sang-woo looked up at the boy, taking in all of his unique beauty. That dry, loose t-shirt and shaggy, ripped jeans; that long, soft hair almost reaching down to his shoulders. Those eyes that could ensure you it would be okay after you’ve just done the worst thing possible. Gi-hun had offered his hand to him, ready to pull him back up just like he always had. He’d do anything to get Sang-woo back up again. But Sang-woo didn’t deserve this. He couldn’t go back.
It shouldn’t have been raining that day. It wasn’t raining that day.
“Come on,” Gi-hun spoke up again, his hand twitching up a bit. “Let’s go together.”
But Sang-woo couldn’t move.
“Hyung.”
He wouldn’t move.
“...I’m sorry.”