baektobaek | 2014: harbor (1/3) (for certainangles)

For:

certainangles
From: ANONYMOUS until December 30, 2014

Title: harbor
Rating: (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17)
Pairing(s)/Focus: Baekhyun/Kyungsoo
Length: 77,000 words
Summary: 'titanic' is overrated, baekhyun thinks. dreams crashing into an iceberg of solid friendship is a better (and more tragic) story to tell.
Warnings: underage drinking and sex, discussions of minor character death, mentions of infidelity involving a minor character, mentions of blood because they're gutting fish?
Notes: sophie sophie sophie! first of all, i'm so sorry that this fic exploded into A Big Thing. but thank you so much for the wonderful prompts! they were such a pleasure to work with. i hope you have fun (fun? fun!) reading the fic! writing it was such an amazing experience. :D to the usual suspects – best oppa, my favorite fruit, my pillar of support, and my sunshine – thank you so much for the support, the fic advice, and the hand-holding. ♥

Kyungsoo is drunk. More like Kyungsoo is close to passing out on the sand and Baekhyun's having too much fun with his phone. Baekbeom has just given it back to him since Sooneung is already over. It's only fair – he'd snapped a few photos of Jongdae goofing off earlier, burying his face in sand then emerging with the worst scrunched face ever. Chanyeol's contribution to the growing photo collection was of him pressing a peace sign to his best sobered-up face while poking Jongdae's too pink cheeks. Kyungsoo had the least incriminating shots – bottle pressed to his cheek, then lips caught mid-laugh and mid-scowl as he squinted one eye in an attempt to not get any of the alcohol Chanyeol had 'accidentally' sloshed in his face in his eyes. Chanyeol had tentatively named that picture something obscene but Baekhyun quickly (gingerly) changed it back to IMG013.jpg (after Kyungsoo trapped him in a head lock). Then there's a selca with Baekhyun, red eyes and all. Another with the sand as the backdrop, their red cheeks pressed against each other. The last one's with Chanyeol and Jongdae biting their heads off.

"Seungsoo-hyung will kill me," Kyungsoo says now, groaning. He hasn't gotten up yet from lying down on the sand for the past ten minutes. He sounds hoarse but his voice is steady, unwavering, like he hasn't had too much alcohol to drink. The drawl of the last syllable isn't lying, though.

"He'll be proud," Baekhyun says, then scoots closer. The sand wraps around his arms, warming him up a little. Then he feels the strong pull on his eyelids, the fatigue wearing down on his eyebrows. The last time this happened was when they were studying the night before. Kyungsoo poked him in his side until he opened his eyes wide again and said, 'Look. If you're planning to get some rest then at least do it elsewhere, not with all of us here slaving our assess off–'

His body gives a tiny jerk as he feels his grip on the neck of the bottle loosen. He feels Kyungsoo's elbows pressed to his side, digging into his skin. Kyungsoo has one hand secure at the base of the bottle, but soon he's relinquishing control to Baekhyun, handing it over before Baekhyun can drift off again.

Baekhyun gives the bottle a quick shake. The alcohol inside sloshes. There's enough for two. "Wanna split?"

Kyungsoo grunts, shrugs. Mumbles a soft apology when he almost hits Baekhyun's nose with his shoulder. "Chanyeol made me finish half of his and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to–"

Baekhyun sits up a little, propping his upper body against his arm. He runs a finger along Kyungsoo's jaw, nonetheless, and says, "Open up."

They manage to empty out the bottle after a few minutes. Chanyeol's incessant babbling in the background has been drowned out by the waves already, which can only mean that he's finally fallen asleep. Baekhyun looks up, cranes his neck a little, and finds Jongdae passed out close by. They're the only ones awake now, save for the waves that haven't ceased crashing to shore with the same amount of power as they had an hour ago. Baekhyun's tempted to make some noise, break a rule, go skinny dipping in the sea at the height of autumn because who the fuck cares, Sooneung's finally over. They don't have to stay up until three in the morning to study anymore, or put off eating because 'I have to finish this chapter, just one more before I take a break–' They can go see a movie again, maybe in Chuncheon-si? The last time Baekhyun went to the capital was three years ago, at the start of high school. He and Baekbeom were looking for a nice cram school with affordable rates that time. They ended up going to Gangneung-si for that and found a private study hall there, as well.

"So, what now?" Baekhyun asks. He reaches over Kyungsoo's chest and sets the bottle down there. He draws lazy circles on Kyungsoo's shirt with his finger, then. His nail catches on the material of Kyungsoo's clothes. He seethes when he feels the pull at his nail bed. "I mean, what happens to us?"

Kyungsoo chuckles. Hiccups, too. He smells like alcohol and sweat and the sea. And strawberries, but only a bit. Baekhyun can feel the goose pimples on Kyungsoo's chest through his shirt. "We wait. And sing, in the mean time." Baekhyun laughs at that. "Bro Code will still be a thing after high school, we promised."

"Bro Code," Baekhyun says, scoffing. He buries his face in Kyungsoo's side, earning a stifled giggle from the other. He smells sweet here, unlike the usual sea scent that sticks to his clothes. "Still a lame name after all these years."

"Then you admit to being lame."

"Maaaybe," Baekhyun singsongs. He can feel the shift of Kyungsoo's muscles, Kyungsoo grinning against the crown of his head. "But really, what happens next?"

"Well," Kyungsoo begins, but nothing else follows. Baekhyun holds his breath, though, because years of knowing Kyungsoo has taught him that if there really isn't anything that Kyungsoo wants to say, he won't even make a sound. He'll just shrug or roll his eyes or shake his head. Or blink, because that requires less effort than any of those three do. When ten full seconds pass without Kyungsoo saying a thing, he taps Kyungsoo's chin with his forehead. "I thought you'd forgotten by now," Kyungsoo says, then. "You've never had enough patience when it comes to waiting."

"I'm patient for things that matter."

Kyungsoo scoffs. "Really?"

Baekhyun presses one palm on the other side of Kyungsoo, then, and pushes himself up. Kyungsoo looks so much smaller from where Baekhyun is now, with the way he has Kyungsoo trapped with his knees. Thighs. It's a strange fit. "Really."

Kyungsoo looks at him, just looks at him, like he's sort of waiting for something or sort of expecting Baekhyun to understand exactly what he wants to say. Baekhyun recognizes the subtle cock of the eyebrows, the light upward tug at the corners of the lips. This fond look, but then there's too much alcohol in his mind right now that he can almost hearing it sloshing in his ears. Like the liquid in the bottle earlier, except now he can't split his mind into real thoughts and those imbued with alcohol. So he holds Kyungsoo's gaze, follows it as Kyungsoo's eyes draw a line down the bridge of his nose, the dip of his lip, stopping on the mole just above it.

"You said you'll wait," Kyungsoo whispers. "Do I have your word on that?"

Baekhyun laughs as an escape route, then Kyungsoo breaks eye contact and looks back up at the sky. "Yeah, yeah, I do. I'm not going anywhere," he says after a while, with a sick kind of confidence like he can see into the future, like he knows what's in store for them. They've already mapped out their lives ten, twenty years from now, after all – Bro Code will get discovered at one of those music festivals in Chuncheon-si. They'll get recruited by a big name entertainment company. They'll be singing their asses off until they're thirty or thirty-five, then get themselves pretty girlfriends. Get married. Chanyeol wants to have six kids. Jongdae says he's not the type to take care of little runts but, 'he totally wants them,' Kyungsoo told Baekhyun in confidence one time. Kyungsoo will always stick around because Baekhyun knows no one can tolerate Kyungsoo the way he does.

Sometimes, Baekhyun isn't sure if it's the other way around.

"Okay," Kyungsoo says, then he pinches Baekhyun in the stomach. Baekhyun collapses on him, limbs giving away. If Kyungsoo ever calls him weak, he can always say it's because of the alcohol and not Kyungsoo's tickling skills that brought him down. Or maybe the biting cold crawling under their skin. And Kyungsoo will understand just by the jut of Baekhyun's bottom lip what he really means – 'Yeah, yeah, whatever. You win.'

Kyungsoo will understand. He always does. Baekhyun buries his face in the crook of Kyungsoo's neck and hopes Kyungsoo doesn't get this one.

≋ ≋ ≋

The morning after isn't exactly the worst. None of them threw up on the beach, at least, and they miraculously made it back to Kyungsoo's house in one piece and without making much noise. No lengthy lectures on irresponsibility for them. Seungsoo's a good accomplice – he distracted their parents by taking them through this 'really weird adventure with Yixing while fishing yesterday' and their parents ate it up, asked how Yixing was doing, is he balancing university and work well, if he had arms the size of guns already. "I don't pay attention," Seungsoo had answered, and his mother gave him a long look, searching and discerning. "No, really, umma. I don't pay attention to his 'guns'–"

"They're nice," Baekhyun had whispered. Kyungsoo pushed him forward, inside his room and down on the bed. For a moment, Baekhyun contemplated adding, 'they're not guns. Maybe tiny canons. But not guns,' but Kyungsoo was already drawing the blanket up to his chest and giving the tuft of his hair a light pat.

"Get some rest," Kyungsoo had told him then, or at least he thought that was what Kyungsoo said. Kyungsoo's lips weren't moving anymore, though, and the tight press of four bodies against each other made it hard to focus on Kyungsoo's mouth and that, alone.

"I'm not awake enough for this," Baekhyun groans now, stretching his arms overhead. He can hear the alcohol in his brain sloshing around. Half of his body feels sore and the other half feels like jelly. So this is what being hungover feels like, he wants to say, but he can't hear himself over the crashing waves in the distance. They've just started their walk to the foot of the beach and already he feels like throwing up (in his house, not Kyungsoo's) and just staying in (in Kyungsoo's house this time, because Kyungsoo's mom makes the best gamja ongsimi; Baekbeom can't cook for shit).

"Just think of your precious Yixing-hyung and you'll be fine," Kyungsoo answers. It sounds more like a groan than anything else.

Baekhyun looks to his side and spots the big pimple on Kyungsoo's cheek. And then Kyungsoo's eye bags and the swell of his lower lip. He gulps hard – this will be a long day.

It takes much faster to get to the market than the usual, though. The residents of Sokcho-si get up as early as four in the morning for breakfast then hang out the fish in the air to dry, but the community is awfully quiet at seven in the morning. Baekhyun's not complaining – the lack of noise makes it easier to lug around liters of alcohol in his brain and a lethargic Kyungsoo who has a heavy arm around his shoulder. That, and the lack of activity in the market makes it easier to spot Yixing taking a good haul from his boat and handing it over to one of his assistants.

"Oh hey, if it isn't the–" Yixing furrows his eyebrows, looking at the two. "Just you two? I thought you were always the tres amigos plus the other… guy…"

"We're the ninja turtles," Baekhyun replies. "And the other two turtles are still in their shells. Asleep. Drunk… ish."

Yixing cocks an eyebrow at them. "You four are legal now?"

"Just for the end of Sooneung," Kyungsoo replies. After a while, he adds, "I'm Leonardo. He's Raphael." He takes a step forward to catch the lone fish falling off the net. Yixing offers a bright smile in return. "Or he can be Shredder. He's a pain in the ass."

"And yet–" Yixing begins, holding Kyungsoo's gaze. Baekhyun waits for the catch, but it never comes. Instead, Yixing continues with soft laughter and a shake of the head. "And yet…"

"And yet you two are bullying me," Baekhyun groans. "I'm leaving. I'm going to Gyeonggi-do and not helping your fisher dudes here in the market–"

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow at him and a ghost of a smile appears on his lips. "Oh, really?"

The not-helping thing is mostly a joke. He loves going out into sea and catching fish. Something about waiting in the stillness of the water appeals to him. The rush of having to battle it out with the strong waves when it's windy keeps his adrenaline pumping and makes him feel more alive, as well. Besides, it's in their blood – his grandfather was a fisherman and so was his dad. Baekbeom was, for a while, until he decided that he needed to earn money faster and in a less dangerous environment if he wanted to finish university on time. Baekhyun had considered going into the fishing business, but he can't go out in the sea alone even if he wanted to. Sometimes, the silence and stillness overwhelm him. Then he'll have difficulty paddling back to shore, coming home.

The leaving thing… That one isn't happening soon, or any time for that matter. He'll never leave Sokcho-si. Or maybe he will, but he'll stick to a place in Gangwon-do. The sea has raised him, turned him from a flimsy sand castle into a rock-solid structure. Still made out of sand, sure, but stronger. Besides, you can't take the sea out of the beach boy. It's like taking the fish out of the water and expecting it to live forever even with the rays of the sun prickling its skin.

The waves will always bring him back to this shore. There's no escaping this place, and he loves it.

"Yeah, really," he says after a while. He follows Yixing and Kyungsoo to the boat, nonetheless, and hits the sea with them.

There isn't much to do in Sokcho-si on weekends. One can only walk along the beach and climb Seoraksan so many times, so something as uncertain and changing as catching fish sits well with Baekhyun. There's a strange kind of excitement in waiting, waiting, waiting for when the fish finally bites the bait. That, and Yixing tells them the weirdest, funniest stories.

"Thought I caught a mermaid last week. I mean!" He scrunches his nose and frowns, but the dimples on his cheeks make it look more like he's struggling to keep the laughter inside than anything else. "It was heavy and had a long tail and I thought I saw long hair–"

Baekhyun chuckles. The boat gives a light jerk, probably because of the waves. The winds are getting stronger. He can see Kyungsoo's knuckles go white as he grips the edge of the boat tighter. "And then?"

"And then," Yixing continues, then brushes the damp hair on his forehead away with the back of his hand. The light catches on the contours of his muscles and shit, the boat's really rocking now. Baekhyun can feel the heavy thumping in his chest. They're in for a good catch, Baekhyun can feel it. "Then it turns out the hair was sea weed and I caught some kelp and big fish in my net." Yixing chuckles. "Funny, yeah?"

Funny is when Yixing looks at them with a glimmer in his eyes and a child-like smile on his lips. He's not much older than they are, but the light paints him in a way that makes him look three, five years younger, not the Yixing who's been worn out by years of fishing and servicing people in the market. Not the guy who scours the shoreline for kelp to tide the residents of Sokcho-si through long periods of bad hauls. He looks so… happy, carefree, like the waves are washing away every inch of fatigue in his body and lifting him off the surface for everyone to marvel at with waves of varying intensity.

The boat gives another jerk. Kyungsoo laughs this time, suddenly caught unaware by the motion. Yixing hits him on the arm and Kyungsoo doesn't seem to care about Yixing getting fish scales on his shirt. Baekhyun feels his insides turn and his heart try to leap out of his chest. Mission failed.

"Yeah, very," he says after a while, chuckling. He shifts in his seat so that he can get a better view of Yixing, the way light catches on his eyelashes and filters down on his cheeks like light-pained tears, a light-brushed flush.

They return to shore with a heavy catch. There's kelp and miyeok in there, somewhere, too, a few bundles that they dumped in the boat on their way back to the market. Yixing takes care of cleaning them, saying, 'you need expert hands when it comes to these tiny buggers,' so instead they take two basins nearby and dump the fish to be cleaned in one of the basins. Kyungsoo leaves for a while but returns soon after with another container. Soon, they're sitting beside each other, working simultaneously on gutting the fish and tossing the cleaned ones in the untainted basin in front of them.

"Sometimes, I feel like we're stuck here," Kyungsoo whispers as he slips his thumb under the gill, the runs water on the underside while pushing out the blood that has collected inside. He pinches the part just near the junction of the gill cover and the throat, then pulls out a tiny lump of blood as well. Kyungsoo isn't even looking at the fish, eyes fixed on Baekhyun's own, instead. "Forever. Sokcho-si is a wonderful place but I can't help but wonder – what's out there? In… Gangneung-si after Sooneung? Or west of Seoraksan?" He runs his hands over the skin for one last rinse, then tosses it into the basin filled with clean fish. Baekhyun whispers a low 'and it's a three' under his breath, just loud enough for Kyungsoo to catch. "And don't say more houses."

"Didn't even think of that until you mentioned it," Baekhyun answers. He picks up another fish, starts removing the scales with the blunt side of the knife he's holding. "I wouldn't say stuck, though. Just… not sailing? But hey, Sokcho-si is nice. Pretty quiet. It's good if you're trying to stay away from city noise. Pretty boring, too, but eh. If you're looking for an adventure then there's always the beach." He snorts after a while, and that's when Kyungsoo elbows him in his side.

He meets Kyungsoo's gaze, eyes narrowed a little, then wiggles his eyebrows. He'd clamp a hand on Kyungsoo's shoulders if he could but his fingers are filled with fish scales. Even he is mildly grossed out by that. "Look, it's okay if you feel redundant staying in a place that's exactly like–"

Kyungsoo picks up his own knife and holds the sharp side up in Baekhyun's direction. He doesn't say anything, but the smile on his lips speaks of the laughter he doesn't let out. He kicks Baekhyun in his side, though, and that's when Baekhyun groans, "I'm just saying!"

The banter dies down after a while, with Kyungsoo dumping three more pieces of fish in Baekhyun's basin as a form of revenge. He ends up cleaning all three, though, because Baekhyun gets a cut on his finger and, "Don't taint the pure souls with your filthy blood." Baekhyun offers to do the last rinsing and Kyungsoo denies him even that one, so he tucks his chin on Kyungsoo's shoulder, humming a soft tune and drumming his fingers on Kyungsoo's thigh as if saying, 'come on, you can't deny me this, too.'

Kyungsoo doesn't shrug, but he does roll his eyes. They stay like that for the next few minutes, long after they've finished washing all the fish, watching the red-crowned cranes fly just feet above the water. "The durumi are stuck here until spring," Kyungsoo whispers, voice so soft he could just be breathing, but Baekhyun can feel the movement of Kyungsoo's mouth against his cheek. He isn't imagining things, and the durumi have been circling the same area for five minutes already.

Only when Yixing calls out their names to tell them that there's free chicken waiting for them in Miyoung's stall do they rouse from where they're seated. They carry the basins to Yixing's other stall at the other end of the market, then bow to him. Baekhyun stares a little longer at Yixing's face, takes in the warmth of his smile, and takes a deep breath. The warm press of Kyungsoo's lips on his skin still stings.

≋ ≋ ≋

Lunch is at the beach, with Jongdae and Chanyeol promising to 'take care of the setup' way before the other two arrive. It's a pretty long walk from the market, but without the heat of the sun beating down on them it's more bearable than the usual. Miyoung has bestowed upon them a big bucket of fried chicken and six cups of rice because, "He said you two worked hard and your friends will give you a hard time later. You spend too much time in the market. Go out, have fun!" Or at least that's what Baekhyun thought she said because half the time, he'd been too busy admiring the gentle swell of her cheeks, the upward curl of her lips. Miyoung isn't just pretty – she's pretty and charming and, this one takes home the bacon, makes the best fried chicken marinade. The reason Daepo market became famous for fried chicken? Well, that's not her, but the first wave of fried chicken vendors were from her family. It only made sense for her to be just as good, maybe even better. Baekbeom says it got ten times tastier when Miyoung started to take over the business.

"You two have a type," Chanyeol comments before snatching one drumstick from the bucket. Baekhyun makes a sound of protest and Kyungsoo quickly takes the bucket from Baekhyun's hands so Baekhyun can jab Chanyeol on the arm. It almost feels like reflex. "What, I'm just saying! Baekbeom-hyung likes cute and quiet girls and you like cute and quiet guys."

Baekhyun aims one last kick on Chanyeol's knee, hard enough to make Chanyeol shiver but not so hard to make him yowl. Kyungsoo starts distributing the rice wrapped in thick layers of kim, then looks up at Chanyeol. "Baekhyun likes cute and quiet guys?"

Baekhyun gulps hard. Holds his breath right there, where his chest feels the fullest. Kyungsoo turns to look at him, then presses the warm bundle of rice to his cheek. "Yeah. So?"

Kyungsoo cocks an eyebrow. A blink of an eye and then it's gone, replaced instead by a small smile on Kyungsoo's lips. "Hmm. I didn't know that."

"You don't have to know everything about me," Baekhyun grumbles. He sinks his teeth in the drumstick. If heaven had to be just one dish then this would be it.

"You've never kept secrets from me before."

"It's not–" Baekhyun stares at his now empty hand, then looks up at Kyungsoo. "Ya–"

"Bro Code states that we shouldn't have secrets. You wrote the stupid code, yourself," Kyungsoo says. Baekhyun can make out a fraction of Jongdae's horrible (giggling, like so-red-in-the-face giggling) face beside Kyungsoo's own, but only just. If he turns his gaze to the side then he'll be able to see better, but Kyungsoo's looking at him in the eye. Holding his gaze, inching closer. He can smell the scent of oil and chicken marinade and his stomach gives a tiny lurch, but it's not from hunger. Or maybe it is, but of a different kind. Kyungsoo takes a bite and peels off the layer of meat right in front of Baekhyun as if taunting him, 'let's see what you can do now, Byun.' He can grab Kyungsoo by the wrist and yank the drumstick from Kyungsoo's grasp. He can let it go because come on, it's just a drumstick. Or he can move closer, meet Kyungsoo halfway, and rip the meat with his teeth until there's nothing between them, their warm mouths, but a chicken bone.

Kyungsoo is too close. Chanyeol and Jongdae are watching them with careful gazes, he can feel it. He bites the inside of his cheek, then, and goes for option number two. He rolls his eyes, makes sure to give Chanyeol a light nudge with his foot when he reaches over to get another drumstick. "Forget it. It's stupid," Baekhyun mumbles, and Kyungsoo only replies in kind. Offers him his third drumstick because, "I can't finish it, anyway. Would've been a waste just to throw it away."

"And could you throw away Miyoung-noona's chicken? Really?" Jongdae says. He's not talking about the chicken, though, not with that twinkle in his eyes. "Because if I were you–"

"Yeah, I get it, chicken is precious."

Kyungsoo laughs a little. "Baekbeom-hyung said the same thing."

Baekhyun blinks a few times, then says, "You remember that?"

"I remember everything," Kyungsoo replies. "It just doesn't seem like it."

Baekhyun wants to say more, wants to ask what Kyungsoo means by that, but Kyungsoo has turned to face Chanyeol already, addressing Chanyeol's severe lack of skill when it comes to eating in a neat fashion. So he looks down at the drumstick between his fingers, the rice wrapped in kim, then at Jongdae just a few inches away. He squints one eye at Jongdae when one side of Jongdae's mouth curls up in response. He feels the light shift of Kyungsoo's thigh muscles against his own in the tight press of their bodies. Kyungsoo isn't looking, though, still slapping Chanyeol's messy fingers away from the bucket. It's as if half of him is stuck in this moment and the other half is reprimanding Chanyeol.

There's enough space for all of them. Kyungsoo can easily inch away and he can, too, but what's wrong with a little heat? It's autumn. Everybody needs some warmth, and Baekhyun is sure Kyungsoo needs that, as well.

≋ ≋ ≋

'Bro Code' is a shitty name for a band, but that's what they're called.

If anyone asks, they'll all say, save for Chanyeol, that it's Chanyeol's idea. "The bro code states that we have to, well, y'know." Chanyeol had scratched the tip of his nose then and continued, "Be 'in' on each other's bad ideas. And forming a band is a bad idea." The band is Baekhyun's fault but, then again, it was a long time coming – they all loved music, singing and making it. Chanyeol had a long-running relationship with his guitar, and Baekhyun, Kyungsoo, and Jongdae had been taking singing gigs for community events, singing with the waves crashing behind them. During the first few gigs, they took hwaleo hoe as payment. Six months after, they started charging because hey, it's hard for high school students to be doing mini concerts at the height of Sooneung preparations. Three years after and here they are again, in their humble practice room in Baekhyun's house.

"Do I have to wear my headphones now or something?" Baekbeom asks when he takes a peek at them through the door. Baekhyun whispers a faint 'please and thank you' in his general direction, and he responds with a wink. "Don't break windows. And do not set anything on fire."

"Just Baekhyunnie, hyung!" Jongdae calls out. Baekhyun kicks him in the ass and ends up with his toes tucked between Jongdae's butt and the cushion. "You can count on it!"

Chanyeol tunes his guitar, playing one of their unfinished songs from a year ago. "Could've been a hit," Kyungsoo comments from behind the drums, then adds to Chanyeol's strings, placing a bit of percussion to the beat. They play the intro on repeat, again and again until Chanyeol begins to play more confidently, feeling his fingers again. Soon, Jongdae adds to the harmony of instruments, playing his electric guitar, and suddenly it only feels right to hum along. They stick to the introduction until they find a nice harmony, like they're feeling around for each other's voices. It isn't until Kyungsoo's voice comes in, low and velvety, that Baekhyun feels the stretch at the corners of his lips and remembers the words to this song.

Then the memory hits him – an hour-long bus ride to Seoraksan, climbing the path to Heundeulbawi and posing for pictures there before getting back on track. Chanyeol almost missing a step and Jongdae catching him by the waist. Baekhyun extending a hand in front of him and somehow finding comfort knowing that Kyungsoo's wearing pants with belt loops and not his usual track pants. Balancing themselves on the narrow path of rocks at Ulsanbawi and marveling at the view below. There's a city to their right and Sokcho-si to their left. Their city looked so small then, from a height so great. He could even see the port from where they were and they didn't usually see it from their houses in Sokcho-si, not even if they squinted really hard.

If Baekhyun closes his eyes now then he'll be able to picture sailing a boat with Kyungsoo, waiting for a good catch. He'll hear Kyungsoo singing a familiar song and he'll find himself thinking, what if we set sail and never dropped anchor? What if one drowned in the sea? And then Kyungsoo will pull him out of the water, grabbing him the by the hair. Then he'd see Yixing's relieved smile, hear Miyoung's soft but choked laughter, and–

"You missed the chorus by half a beat," comes a familiar voice. Baekhyun's body gives a tiny jerk. When he looks up, he finds Kyungsoo's gaze, heavy and deliberate, on him. "You need more practice."

It's the first time we're practicing in months, he wants to say. Cut me – no, us – some slack. Slipping back into an old habit after forming a conflicting routine isn't as easy as breathing. It's like breathing underwater and then being asked to rescue someone else. Someone who doesn't know how to swim, like Kyungsoo and Jongdae and Chanyeol who know nothing but to flail in the water.

Kyungsoo reaches over from his drums, but only the tips of his fingers touch Baekhyun's skin. Baekhyun gets it, though – the apology, the vote of confidence. So he says. "Sorry. One more time, from the top." Locks his arms behind his back, then reaches for Kyungsoo fingers. The slide of their hands against each other is familiar. He promises, "I'll get it." He carries it through to the day of their performance, Monday the following week at seven in the evening. The waves around them rush to shore with so much force that it drowns out the sound of their instruments for a while.

"Sorry for the crappy sound!" Baekhyun says into the microphone, and he's met with the cheers of the crowd. He feels a familiar rush of heat to his cheeks, his stomach, loud thumping in his chest. He feels the hair at the back of his neck stand at attention, until Kyungsoo reaches up to rub slow circles on the back of his ear. This is for show – Kyungsoo's the unassuming master of fanservice, after all – but a part of him translates it into an offer of support and comfort. A silent, 'hey, don't fuck up. But if you do, we're right behind you.' "We're gonna need you guys to, well, make some noise to help us battle the waves behind us, okay? Can I get a hell, yeah?"

Kyungsoo's fingers twitch. Baekhyun grins. He manages to draw the mic away from his mouth before he starts laughing a little. "I can't believe this shit still works," Kyungsoo comments, but he mumbles a 'hell, yeah' under his breath, nonetheless.

Beyond Kyungsoo's shoulder, Jongdae and Chanyeol are tuning their guitars, humming a familiar tune under their breath. Baekhyun shoots them a look, both eyebrows cocked as if asking, 'you really want to start with that?'

Jongdae responds with a wink; Chanyeol, with a thumbs up. Kyungsoo verbalizes the sentiment, saying, "Why not?", and takes his position behind his drum set.

Baekhyun takes a deep breath and grasps the microphone in his left hand. Just like old times, he tells himself, waves crashing behind them and all.

Kyungsoo taps his drum sticks thrice, then Jongdae's guitar comes in. Two verses, sixteen counts each, coupled by the light drumming of Kyungsoo's sticks on the cymbals, then Chanyeol's guitar comes in. Baekhyun can feel his head bobbing – it's not deliberate, but more of an answer to the music. The crowd begins to cheer, voices soaring above the instrumentals, then dropping when Baekhyun pulls the mic close to his lips. He can feel his throat tighten, but it loosens soon after when he gulps hard. Words slip from his lips like a habit, singing and rapping at the same time, and he unmounts the mic from the stand right after the first verse. He walks to the left side of the stage, waving his arm in the air, urging the crowd to sing along. Kyungsoo's voice, low and faint, comes in, and Baekhyun can hear it, the laughter threatening to fall from Kyungsoo's lips. He's fucking excited and Baekhyun doesn't have to look over his shoulder to know that. Baekhyun does, though, and catches the shit-eating grin on Kyungsoo's lips just before he holds his drum sticks up.

Baekhyun sings a-capella for a few seconds, then Chanyeol and Jongdae's voices come in. The lights around them aren't those fancy stage lights, just simple yellow ones, but damn does it do its job well, warming Baekhyun up and keeping his spirits high. This is it, Baekhyun thinks, this is what he can be doing for the rest of his life here in Sokcho-si, grooming a small crowd of fans and maybe going international once a big-shot CEO of an entertainment company sees them performing. It won't be much of an impossible dream if they branched out a little, went to Seoul and did a few shows there but… this is their stage. The entire Sokcho-si is their stage and the people here are listening to their music. This could be the future they've been working on, and they'd be their own promoters, and they'd pull in more tourists to visit Sokcho-si and make it boom and–

He sees familiar faces in the crowd – Seungsoo, Jongdeok, Yura. Baekbeom waving his arms in the air, ever the supportive brother. Yura's mouthing something at him that can either be 'we've got booze' or 'they have boobs'. Either way, Baekhyun knows the post-concert party will be fun. Wherever Yura is involved, something exciting follows. It's a shame Chanyeol never got that from his sister and carried around long legs with him, instead.

The crowd's singing loudly come the first chorus up until the second. Chanyeol's guitar sound fades out, and the harmony of Jongdae's electric guitar and Kyungsoo's drum blend with Baekhyun's vocals. Quiet and slow singing, words tumbling from his lips in a languid manner, and then Chanyeol's playing again until the percussion picks up. The party resumes. There are more familiar faces in the crowd, people from school who Baekhyun would never think are interested in seeing their shows. They're grinning from ear to ear.

If he must go right now then this is how he wants to be remembered – the lights washing him out, the people jamming to their music and screaming their name. 'Bro Code' has never sounded like such a cool name.

The crowd is screaming by the time they end. He looks over his shoulder, grinning. Jongdae's wiping the sweat under his eye bags but whatever – he's probably crying. He's blinking too much and really, Baekhyun knows him well enough by now to know what that and the red nose mean. Chanyeol's hair is a mess, which only means he's had the grandest time of his life for the first time in so long. And Baekhyun can see Kyungsoo's teeth chattering through the small parting of his lips, the upward tug at corners of his mouth reaching his eyes. The spotlight hits Kyungsoo in a flattering way and there's nowhere to hide anymore – Baekhyun can see Kyungsoo's fading dye job. It looks nice on him. It brings out the twinkle in his eyes and even the pimple on his cheek. And his lips are the brightest shade of red, a bit chapped, like he's been worrying them throughout the performance because Kyungsoo has never been the best at slipping back into old habits.

And Kyungsoo is shining. And Baekhyun chokes on his own spit or his own breath; he can't tell at the moment. All he knows is that behind Kyungsoo, the waves rush to shore. The sea foam adds a weird sort of sparkle in the air. All these things add up to a twisted kind of magic that makes Baekhyun's stomach lurch and his cheeks burn.

Kyungsoo tilts his head a little, and their gazes finally align. Kyungsoo nods at him, and one corner of his mouth pulls up in an awkward yet genuine smile. Kyungsoo looks ugliest when he's smiling. Baekhyun likes him the best when he looks weird.

Five beats, and then Kyungsoo's dropping his gaze back to his drum sticks. Five more, and they're moving onto a new song.

The post-Sooneung concert turns out to be one of the best shows they've had in a while. They take a couple of requests from the crowd, genres ranging from pop to metal and then RnB. Jongdae takes over main vocals for songs with impossibly high notes, and Kyungsoo and Chanyeol slip into a harmony entirely different from that of their previous songs'. It takes very little effort, like they have each other's voice caught on each other's tongue already, a second tone in their vocal chords. Meanwhile, Baekhyun takes charge of working up the crowd, urging everyone to sing and even interacting with them at ground level. It's thrilling, to be singing along with these people who have turned what's supposed to be an hour-long performance into a three-hour show. The good kind of fatigue and dull ache in the throat.

"That's almost as long as those concerts by big shots. Those…" Chanyeol bites the inside of his cheek, like if he doesn't a smile will violently tug at the corners of his lips. He loses the battle and Baekhyun loses it, too, turning away from the crowd when he giggles. "International acts. We're on their level now."

Chanyeol's eyes glimmer. It's the lighting, Baekhyun thinks. Or maybe it's just this moment, because Kyungsoo's looking away with a thin sheen of something in his eyes.

"Maybe," Baekhyun says. It's his best attempt at not keeping his hopes too high. He's never been comfortable with heights; he's anchored to the sea, forever floating here. "We're… we're on our way there."

Jongdae smiles. He extends his arm in Baekhyun's direction, palm facing the floor. He takes a deep breath, then says, "We'll get there."

Chanyeol places a hand on Jongdae's own. Baekhyun soon follows. Kyungsoo just sort of stands there, staring at the hands at the middle, so Baekhyun circles an arm around Kyungsoo's waist and gives his side a light pinch.

"Fucker," Kyungsoo mumbles. He joins the other three, just the same, placing his hand atop Baekhyun's own. His fingers feel cold against Baekhyun's skin. Baekhyun shivers a little, but it's a good shiver, the type that doesn't make his stomach coil but makes his insides do a funny tumble. Just that.

One last cheer, a cry of their battle theme, then Baekhyun asks, "Let's play the new song for the encore?"

A corner of Kyungsoo's mouth tugs up in response. "Why not?"

Jongdae switches guitars, then starts plucking at the strings. Some quick tuning, and then Chanyeol starts playing, a light strum along the strings. Jongdae maintains the rhythm of his plucking and Baekhyun takes a deep breath before stepping closer to the microphone. If this song was like any of the ones they'd performed in the past then he won't have to have second thoughts, but they've just polished the lyrics recently. He isn't even sure if he has the melody memorized yet, but his body seems to know the song more than he does. The lyrics tumble from his lips, unrehearsed, so he keeps going, singing with his eyes closed.

The crowd has fallen silent. The sound of Kyungsoo playing the triangle comes in, and Baekhyun starts bobbing his head.

This song reminds him of that time when Seungsoo had allowed (relented) them to use his car for a quick trip to Gangneung-si. They were in the middle of preparations for Sooneung then, already burned out and to the crisp. "We just need a change of scenery," Chanyeol had reasoned then. Yura backed him up unwittingly and said, "Why not?" Seungsoo had been teaching Kyungsoo how to drive for at least a year already, after all, and even if they preferred traveling using public transport, there's no denying the charm of a road trip – four friends, one car, the sun setting in the horizon.

Chanyeol had taken control of the radio, then, blasting Dave Matthews Band songs on loop. Halfway through the trip, Kyungsoo started singing under his breath. Then Jongdae followed. Chanyeol, too, when he finally stopped skipping songs after thirty seconds of play time. So it only made sense for Baekhyun to sing along, slurring the lines whose words escape him and then singing the ones he knows loud and clear.

Baekhyun remembers Kyungsoo pulling over at the side of the road closest to Naksan beach. He remembers Kyungsoo reaching over in Baekhyun's direction to pull down the windows. His hair smelled like strawberry and mint. And a bit of smoke, but then there wasn't much pollution in Sokcho-si. The winds coming from the sea made it easy to sweep away everything that's bad in the city. So Baekhyun buried his hair in Kyungsoo's hair and thought, 'Could we stay out? Could you drive a little slower?'

"We can take the long way out," he sings into the microphone, looking in Jongdae's direction. When he spots Jongdae not singing, he looks over his shoulder and finds Kyungsoo's lips parted in song.

Nearly two decades down the line and he still hasn't memorized Kyungsoo completely. He laughs to himself, then takes a deep breath, preparing for the next verse. Kyungsoo's drum beat is the signal; Baekhyun's response, his song.

≋ ≋ ≋

It turns out that the drinks are for the elders and not for the 'kids', Baekhyun finds out after the concert. Kyungsoo mostly doesn't give a fuck, warm and bundled up in three layers of clothes to use the biting cold as an excuse to drink, but his eyes do glimmer when Seungsoo hands him a bottle of soju. "Use it well," Seungsoo tells them, and Kyungsoo cocks an eyebrow at him for a moment before turning back to face the rest of the group. Chanyeol snatches the bottle to examine it, checking if it's Chamisul and not Jinro, then hands it back to Kyungsoo for him to open.

"Faster, c'mon!" Baekhyun calls out when Kyungsoo struggles with twisting the cap.

"You're having too much fun with making me open a bottle."

"Only because you're the cutest and the youngest," Jongdae singsongs, then laughs a little. He slides next to Kyungsoo, draping an arm around his shoulder, then gives Kyungsoo's arm a quick squeeze. Kyungsoo doesn't flinch, or at least that's how it looks like from where Baekhyun is. Chanyeol's blocking his view with all ten thousand feet of his limbs, but it isn't enough to make Baekhyun miss the way a corner of Kyungsoo's mouth curls up or even the way he sinks into Jongdae's touch.

Let it go, he tells himself. They're all running on post-concert adrenaline and Kyungsoo's feeling a bit more indulgent than the usual. He is, too, entertaining the tumbling sensation at the pit of his stomach. He shakes the thought away, then feels the cool press of the bottle on his cheek. The condensation leaves an ugly pattern of water droplets on Baekhyun's cheek, but at least Kyungsoo's in front of him now, looking at him in the eye.

"You're spacing out again," Kyungsoo says.

"Nah, just thinking."

Kyungsoo snorts. It isn't one laced with condescension; Baekhyun knows because he's been on the receiving end of Kyungsoo's many snorts for so many years now. "Is 'thinking' some code for 'something's bothering me' now?" he asks, then, and pulls the bottle of soju close to his chest when Baekhyun doesn't take it. He uncaps the bottle, lips wrapping around the mouth before he tilts the bottle up to take a long swig. "You've been pretty off recently. Distant." Kyungsoo rubs the underside of his nose. "Detached."

Baekhyun scoffs. "You're the one who's always been detached."

"Well, I'm here now so–" Kyungsoo stretches his arms in front of him at the same time that Baekhyun goes for a lunge, snatching the bottle form Kyungsoo. "Throw the pitches at me. I can take it."

"You make it sound as if I have… I dunno, grievances against you or something."

"Do you?" Kyungsoo asks. "Have grievances, I mean."

"A couple," Baekhyun says, then takes a few steps forward. The sand keeps him from moving any faster, trapping his toes in the warmth of the granules. Kyungsoo isn't moving any faster, though, like he's giving Baekhyun time to escape. "And by that, I mean a lot."

There's a certain ounce of truth to it. All friends have something against the other, at a certain point in their relationships. Kyungsoo is so quick to judge when people arrive late for a meeting, but he almost always makes Baekhyun wait at least ten minutes when they meet up. He moves too slowly, especially in the morning. It makes trying to get to school early with Kyungsoo sleeping over in his house impossible. Kyungsoo snores and disrupts Baekhyun's healthy sleeping habits, as well, and it's come to a point when he had to keep Kyungsoo sleeping on his side one time by hugging Kyungsoo close to his chest. He hadn't been able to sleep then. He'd blame Kyungsoo's sticky hair for it but hey, who is he kidding? Kyungsoo has the best hair among them four. And Baekhyun likes the combination of strawberry and mint in shampoo fragrances.

And then there's Kyungsoo's bad habit of biting his bottom lip too hard all the fucking time, and the fact that he's stubborn as hell. Won't sleep earlier than twelve midnight because there's always another chapter to be studied, more materials to read through. Underlined twice, at the top of the list – Kyungsoo's fondness for touch, albeit understated, and how soft his hands are.

Baekhyun parts his lips to speak, but nothing comes out. Soon, he feels the cool press of the bottle's mouth on his lips and hears Kyungsoo saying, "Drink."

Baekbeom pulls him out from the group after a while, asking if he could 'borrow his brother' for a moment. Baekhyun doesn't put up a fight, but he doesn't make it easy, either – he challenges Baekbeom to a drinking game before giving in. FIrst to down five shots in succession wins. That means the first to get drunk with five shots is a sore loser and has to listen to the other rant about life. Either way, they both lose. Chanyeol offers to be the judge, but Yura tells him, "Honey, we all know that among all of us, you're the worst drinker. I bet you're already drunk." She says it so sweetly that Baekhyun almost misses the sharp undertone, the light cock of the eyebrow, the way her lips curl up in a predatory smile.

So Seungsoo and Yura serve as the judges for tonight's drinking showdown. It could've been Kyungsoo and Yura, but Seungsoo had said then, "You can't not play favorites. You'll let the younger Byun win." Baekhyun doesn't think too much about it. Instead, he focuses on the five shot glasses in front of him and thinks to himself, I'll win this.

"Ready? Okay." Seungsoo cracks his knuckles. "Three, two, one, and–"

Baekbeom's a lost cause after the third shot, wheezing and wincing because 'soju fucking sucks balls' and his lips hurt. Baekhyun presses on and wins, but goes with his brother anyway. They're closer to the shoreline now, the waves reaching the tips of their toes, but they can still hear Chanyeol's voice from where they are. Baekhyun catches something about plans after Sooneung, going to university, getting a girlfriend. Moving away from Sokcho-si to attend university in Gangneung-si or maybe even Gyeonggi-do. Maybe even Seoul.

Baekhyun shakes his head and regrets it soon after. Alcohol makes the pulse in his temples throb so hard. He never learns.

"What did you want to talk about, hyung?" he asks. He scoots closer when Baekbeom doesn't reply. "Hey, don't pass out on me now–"

"Appa called on the day of Sooneung," Baekbeom begins. There's still a good distance between them, a couple of inches of sand, and Baekbeom starts tracing patterns there – waves, stars. A fish. Clouds. "Said he finally saw umma and that she has… a new family now." Baekbeom snorts. "At first, I thought, wow, she's already moved on. What's her secret? But then–"

Baekhyun gulps down hard. His chest feels heavy; his throat, tight and dry. "But then what?"

"But then… It's only been three years." Baekbeom takes a deep breath and reaches for this toes. He holds onto them and stretches. Baekhyun can hear the sound of Baekbeom's bones cracking. "And she's had us for what, more than a decade? Family isn't just something you throw away so easily. I can't believe she's dating someone new now when the case hasn't even been settled yet."

The case. Baekhyun snorts to himself and props his back against his arms. The time his father caught his mother cheating on him with his cousin, his father threw a fit. Broke all the vases at home and almost wrecked their sofa. It was that bad. And it was also nearing winter then. It made a bit of sense because not having a fondness for the cold weather seemed to be hereditary and what better way to share body heat than to make out in the bedroom without your husband around, right? While he's picking up the children from school because your legs are too tired from working in the market all day? Baekhyun can still remember what his father said then: "Baekbeom, Baekhyun, you two play outside for the time being, okay? Appa just has to take care of a few things–" A scowl, then, "Appa will pick you up from Seungsoo's house, is that alright?"

Baekhyun remembers nodding, then looking up at Baekbeom before swatting Baekbeom's hand away. He'd soon hold Baekbeom's hand, though, because the sound of things crashing against the floor and screaming was too much for a kid like him to handle.

"I forgot about that," Baekhyun says. Confesses, because it's true – since he started preparing for Sooneung, he'd flushed out all the negativity out of his system and decided to just focus on studying and nothing else. When his father left for Seoul, he kept a straight face and didn't cry even when his father said that he was going to seek justice and win their mother back. When his father returned for Seollal without his mother, he didn't cry either. He did feel a dull ache in his chest, though. So instead of focusing on that, he powered through three chapters of history for the exam next week. One can never be too prepared for tests.

Then on the day of the exam, the memory of his mother kept haunting him. It was a miracle he scored good marks for that test.

"Did you, really?"

Baekhyun lets out a long sigh. "Tried to. Failed miserably." He rubs the tip of his nose. "How's appa, though? Surviving and stuff? Is he even eating at all?"

Baekbeom unfolds and mimics Baekhyun's position. "Says he misses us. And that he knows you'll score high in Sooneung. And yes, he's been eating. I heard work's slowed down for him a bit but he's expecting things to start picking up again come second week of December. You know their schedule."

"Yeah. Second week of the month is hell week." Baekhyun chuckles. "But hey, at least he's having fun doing his art stuff. He looked so miserable in his corporate job in Chuncheon-si."

"He's actually been better since he left Sokcho-si. Judging from his stories, at least." Baekbeom shifts in his position, folding his legs under his weight and facing Baekhyun. "I guess the change in environment did him well. He had so many bad memories here in Sokcho-si."

But we're here, Baekhyun wants to say. They're not bad memories, are they? So he counters, "He also has a lot of good memories right? The fishing club, teaching us how to ride a bike, taking us to Seoraksan for the first time–" Meeting their mother in the port. Catching fish with her. Building their family then watching it come down in shambles because of one cold, winter night, one mistake.

He worries his bottom lip and looks up, hoping to find comfort in Baekbeom's eyes. He sees nothing but the night sky and the water in Baekbeom's gaze. That, and himself, and he looks awful with his cheeks a dull shade of pink and his already sullen, half-mast.

"He wanted to start over," Baekbeom says. "Going to Seoul was worth a shot."

He also means, 'leaving us to find himself again was a risk worth taking'. Baekhyun keeps his lips pressed thinly together.

A thick blanket of silence wraps around them soon after, weighing down on their shoulders. Baekbeom still has his mouth slightly agape, so Baekhyun doesn't leave yet, gives Baekbeom a few more minutes to say what he has to say. Baekbeom's lips are always a bit more loose than the usual when there's alcohol in his system, after all, so anything he says tonight, no matter how raw and harsh, is his honest opinion on things. Maybe he should ask Baekbeom on the course he can take for college, Baekhyun muses. Maybe this is the perfect time to consult with him because Baekbeom's rarely home these days. If he's not doing his thesis at school, he's waiting tables in Gangneung-si or helping out in the market, cleaning fish and kelp and sometimes even going out into sea to catch fish for extra money.

"A company in Seoul called me up a few days ago," Baekbeom says out of the blue. His eyes are fixed on the sky now, no longer holding Baekhyun's gaze. "Remember the one I worked for during internship?"

"The cement company?"

Baekbeom laughs. "Not that. The apparel brand. They're looking for someone who can handle their online marketing efforts and, well, I got training in that in university. And that was what I did for them, when I was an intern. They were pretty pleased with the output, too."

'Pretty please' doesn't seem fair for Baekbeom, though. He still remembers those sleepless nights Baekbeom had devoted to creating mock ups for idea pitches to the big bosses. He remembers watching Baekbeom pour all of his time and resources into crafting the best possible presentation that he can make just to make it easier for the higher ups to buy his ideas. And they worked. So he's not just 'pretty good' and his employer that time shouldn't be just 'pretty pleased' with his performance; they should be floored. Moved. Baekhyun has heard of idea pitches changing the lives of people forever.

'You've been watching too many movies,' Kyungsoo would probably tell him. That used to be true three years ago. These days, fishing and singing keep him busy. He still dedicates an ample amount of time to studying, but he gives himself time to breathe now. But that's the thing – movies and TV shows depict a certain ounce of reality, right?

Baekhyun gulps hard and erases the pattern Baekbeom had drawn on the sand earlier. "So you're planning to go to Seoul?" he asks. "Leave Sokcho-si to be with dad in the big city, that's it?"

"Hey, c'mon." Baekbeom nudges him in his side with his elbow. "It's not as if we'll be in two different countries or anything."

They might as well be. Sokcho-si's too close to the sea of Japan that sometimes Baekhyun feels as if he's in Japan already and not just eight, nine hours away from Seoul. The long traveling time is bad enough as it is; Baekbeom doesn't have to rub it in by going there and making Baekhyun feel the distance.

"Yeah, but–" Baekhyun blows at his bangs but regrets it soon after, when cool breath meets equally cool skin. His nose feels so cold and frozen that it might break off from his face anytime. "Seoul's far from Sokcho-si. Or from any city in Gangwon-do, for that matter. Hyung, you're… you're planning to leave this place for work?"

Baekbeom brings his gaze down, finally meeting Baekhyun in the eye. The look on his face is unreadable, but then the distance between them has somehow rewritten things that he knows about his brother. This is what distance does to relationships, he wants to tell Baekbeom. Distance ruins strong links and drags the anchor along the sea floor and that's bad. But they're not sailing a ship. It's just that they haven't set sail for the longest time, always watching people leave the tiny city of Sokcho-si instead of being watched.

"You're going to uni soon and you still have to pay for some things, you know. Your scholarship won't cover everything."

"Then I'll work. Let me help you," Baekhyun offers. "Hyung, you don't have to leave and go to the big city just to earn a lot. I mean–" He scratches the back of his neck. "I'm sure there are nice jobs in Gangneung-si! Or Chuncheon-si! Or even Gyeonggi-do, I guess? Seoul's too far, hyung. Don't–"

Don't leave. Don't leave me, he wants to tell Baekbeom. He's the only family Baekhyun has in little Sokcho-si and he's not about to let Baekbeom go so easily.

Baekbeom heaves a sigh, then sucks in his bottom lip. He takes a deep breath, then says, "I told them I can start early January."

Baekhyun drops his gaze to the waves, the sand, his shaking hands. He can feel his nails digging into his skin, but that doesn't matter anymore. His hands have been numbed by the cold and the alcohol. Maybe it's for the best.

"Alright," he says after a while. He pushes himself off the sand, then dusts himself off. "Looks like I can't change your mind anymore."

Baekbeom looks up at him with a soft smile, then reaches out one hand. Baekhyun takes it without hesitation and pulls Baekbeom up, back to his feet.

Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo are huddled near the bonfire when he and Baekbeom return to the group. Seungsoo and Yura are on the opposite side, hands hovering the flame, while Jongdeok's talking about something that Baekhyun can't seem to hear above the crackle of the fire and the crashing of the waves. The light isn't strong, though; if anything, it casts just the right amount of highlights and shadows on Kyungsoo's features and softens the hard edges of his mouth.

"Did I miss anything?" Baekhyun asks, settling between Kyungsoo and Chanyeol on the sand. He drops one hand on Kyungsoo's thigh, almost like routine, and rests the other on his own knee. "You guys seemed to be pretty into it before hyung and I got back."

Chanyeol raises his eyebrows for a while, looking at Baekhyun carefully. For all Baekhyun knows, though, Chanyeol might be looking over Baekhyun's shoulder and at Kyungsoo.

"Nah. Just–" Chanyeol yawns, but he keeps both eyes open. He's never done that before. Maybe they should give Chanyeol a medal for that or something. "Jongdae was talking about this girl he likes. The one who sells great chicken in the market? What's her–"

Jongdae covers Chanyeol mouth with his hand even before Chanyeol can finish, but Chanyeol still has his hands so he uses them. Acts out the rest of the details by drawing a line from the crown of his head to just below his chest. Then a band on the hair. Then Chanyeol puffs up his hair and presses his index finger and thumb together on both hands, drawing two… tubes up until his chest?

"She can give a handjob to two guys at the same time?" Baekhyun tries. Kyungsoo stiffles his laughter but loses it; his throat's extra ticklish when he's drinking.

"Well fuck you, too!" Jongdae exclaims, and soon he's tackling Baekhyun to the sand, wrapping his fingers around his neck.

Ten minutes after, once the ruckus has died down and Jongdae has stopped threatening to break Baekhyun's fingers, silence settles around them again. Jongdae's asleep on Chanyeol's lap, fully knocked out now. Most of the elders have already excused themselves, saying they still have to prepare for their part-time work tomorrow, "Don't stay out too late, kids. We're locking the front door." It's an empty threat, they all know that, especially Baekhyun who has never been locked out of his own house, not even once, since Baekbeom has taken over the title 'head of the household'. Still, he keeps an eye on his wrist watch, an old present from his father, and traces the curve of the face. One in the morning. Two more hours before the prospect of Baekbeom locking the windows and the doors becomes at least 50% real.

Kyungsoo scoots closer, until his elbow's pressing against Baekhyun's side. The bonfire's gotten smaller, so if they want to feel some warmth then they'd have to huddle, stay close to each other, breach one another's personal space. Kyungsoo hates it when Baekhyun encroaches his, but he's come to tolerate Baekhyun's inability to not drape an arm around his shoulder at the first contact of Kyungsoo's side against his. Years of friendship has taught him that, and those years have also taught Baekhyun the best way to ease Kyungsoo into contact:

Step one, wait until Kyungsoo bridges the distance and is right beside him, elbows brushing against Baekhyun's shirt.

Step two, look at Kyungsoo in the eye and wait for Kyungsoo to meet his gaze before letting his fingers dance on the line from Kyungsoo's left shoulder to the right.

Step three, wait for Kyungsoo to lean into the touch before dropping the weight of his hand on Kyungsoo's other shoulder and squeezing his arm.

"So what were you guys talking about earlier?" Baekhyun asks now that their bodies have aligned.

Kyungsoo leans his head on Baekhyun's shoulder and hums. There's still a bit of alcohol in Baekhyun's brain, so it takes longer than usual to process the action. This means Kyungsoo's too lazy to explain but that he won't lie if he's asked. Baekhyun tries to come up with a series of questions, then: "So Jongdae likes Miyoung-noona?" "Sort of. Not the way you like her but yeah, he does." "Did you tell him I claimed dibs on her?" "You make her sound like a commodity. She isn't. Try again." "You… told him I found her first?" "Yes and no, because he did make a move on her first. Or he at least asked her out first."

"That's not true," Baekhyun retorts. He bites the inside of his cheek. His entire face feels numb. Sort of. "I found her first then introduced her to the three of you and–"

"And then you went back to ogling Yixing-hyung," Kyungsoo finishes. He chuckles. "Yixing-hyung's nice, though. Easy to talk to. He makes me feel at ease."

And he has tiny canons for arms, Baekhyun wants to add, but he doesn't. Kyungsoo doesn't have to know that. Or maybe Kyungsoo already knows, in which case Baekhyun doesn't have to state the obvious. Besides, there are other things that he can say about Yixing. The problem is, they don't have time for his long list of 'Things I Like About And Like To Do With/To Yixing-hyung'. So instead, Baekhyun says in summary, "He's cute."

"That's it? 'He's cute'?"

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. "You're changing the subject."

Kyungsoo laughs. He sounds sick, voice low and scratchy, but maybe it's just the cool temperature and the evening sucking all the magic from his voice. So Baekhyun pulls Kyungsoo closer, snakes the hand he'd placed on Kyungsoo's shoulder up Kyungsoo's neck, then up until he can cup Kyungsoo's cheek with it. "There's nothing to talk about," Kyungsoo replies, then, voice barely above a whisper, so Baekhyun doesn't ask, doesn't push. Instead, he stays there, lending Kyungsoo some of his heat, and buries his face in Kyungsoo's hair until he can catch a scent of the weird mix of sweat, the sea, and strawberry in Kyungsoo's scalp.

They fall asleep like that, facing the extinguished bonfire and the waves crashing feet away from them. When they wake up, there's a dull ache in Baekhyun's shoulders. Then Kyungsoo looks up at him, wearing his lazy smile, and whispers, "Hey. G'morning," and the pain is gone, replaced instead by heavy pounding in his chest. A thundering pulse in his hand matched by Kyungsoo's own when Kyungsoo's hand finds his in the sand, fingers linking together.

"Good morning," the words stumble from his lips without much difficulty. Kyungsoo looks as if he wants to say more, like 'where's the coffee' or 'what do you want for breakfast', but instead he sneezes and laughs a little as he rubs the tip of his nose. Baekhyun sort of wants to kiss him, but that's gross. He'd never do that out of his own volition. Not in public. Not when Kyungsoo's awake.

≋ ≋ ≋

Regret feels like the veins in his temples throbbing and eyelids too heavy for him to open his eyes wide. He almost peels the potatoes the wrong way while trying to prepare clear soup, so Baekbeom helps him with that. Together, they cook in the kitchen, a stove each dedicated to what they're planning to serve for breakfast. For Baekhyun, it's the staple gamja ongsimi – it's the cure to everything, after all, or at least that was what their grandmother told them before. Baekbeom, meanwhile, tosses some pork into the pan, steals some of the leftover chopped vegetables from Baekhyun's preparation and adds them to what he's cooking. Baekhyun makes a sound of protest, but only just. His head still feels too heavy and whatever from all the alcohol he's had last night.

"Remind me never to trust you with alcohol, hyung," Baekhyun mumbles when the broth comes to a boil. He adds the potatoes first, then waits a few more minutes before adding the chopped vegetables. He glances over his shoulder and finds the table already set up and Baekbeom with a shit-eating grin on his lips. "Or with anything, for that matter."

"Hey, I kept the gochujang in the fridge. And I didn't eat all the kimchi from Seungsoo's mom," Baekbeom counters, still smiling. Baekhyun knows that his brother is aware of what he's talking about, though – waking up to the sight of Jongdae's face trapped between Chanyeol's thighs isn't exactly the best thing to see at an early hour. "Okay, fine. For the record, I was pretty shocked when I saw that. I didn't know they were–"

Baekhyun snorts. He turns to his side and coughs away from what he's cooking. "Should've seen it coming, though," he whispers. "I mean, they've always been a bit–"

A bit too close, Baekhyun would say, but then aren't he and Kyungsoo a bit too chummy, too? Jongdae and Chanyeol hold hands when they're nervous, exchange meaningful glances for whatever reason, or nuzzle each other's neck out of the blue. Not that Baekhyun pays attention, but the details are too hard to miss – the glimmer in Jongdae's eyes whenever Chanyeol looks his way, or the way Chanyeol just relents to whatever Jongdae asks from him. 'Hey Yeol, think you can come with me to Gangneung-si this weekend? Need to pay some hagwon fees and stuff' or 'Chanyeollie will keep me up the whole night so I can finish all three chapters for the history exam, right?' Chanyeol never stood a chance.

But then Kyungsoo's a bit too relenting to Jongdae, too. The joke about Jongdae being Kyungsoo's favorite friend? Baekhyun believes that sometimes. It makes him feel like throwing up. It makes him sick because he found Kyungsoo first. If Kyungsoo's playing favorites the he should be in Baekhyun's team.

"–weird," Baekhyun finishes.

"–normal," Baekbeom says. He gestures at the soup boiling in the pot, then, and Baekhyun turns his attention back to what he's cooking. "You know teens: they're always hormonal and horny. Maybe they're going through this experimental phase. I mean, it happened a lot during my time. Sometimes jacking off just doesn't cut it, you know?"

Baekhyun seethes when the soup scalds his tongue. He looks over his shoulder, then, and tentatively raises an eyebrow at Baekbeom. There are a lot of things that he wants to ask – so what are your recommended techniques, hyung? Who do you practice with and why? And why are they talking about this at ass o' clock in the morning?

"Oh yeah?" he asks, instead. He tries to taste the soup again, avoiding the nasty burn on the left this time. It's pretty damn good.

"Yeah," Baekbeom says. Stays silent after that, but doesn't break eye contact for the next few seconds. Baekhyun feels around for the knob of the stove and turns it to the left, putting out the flame. The slow-forming smile on Baekbeom's lips is disconcerting, like he's testing Baekhyun. Like he's taunting his brother, saying, 'I could tell you but where's the fun in that? So, are you up for a challenge? Or maybe you'd like to find out on your own–'

"Soup's served," Baekhyun declares, then sets the pot on the table. He takes Baekbeom's bowl from the set up and pours him some soup, making sure to give him an ample amount of potatoes and dumpling. "And school's a twenty-minute walk so spill, hyung."

Baekbeom blows at his bangs and sinks in his seat. Baekhyun grins at him, teeth baring. "Fine. But first, breakfast!"

Sipping gamja ongsimi takes on a different meaning when Baekbeom talks about different techniques and experiences, those he's shared with Seungsoo and Jongdeok. It's when Baekbeom mentions Yura's eagerness when it comes to reading 'reference materials' on different positions to them out loud that Baekhyun loses it, choking on the piece of potato that gets stuck in his throat. Baekbeom only watches in amusement, grinning as Baekhyun strikes his chest in an attempt to get rid of the blockage in his throat.

"By the way, gagging? Not nice," Baekbeom teases. Baekhyun dips his fingers in the soup, heat be damned, and takes one peeled potato. He hits Baekbeom square on the nose when he throws it at his brother. "But I think you'll enjoy pain play. You'd be into that."

"Hyung, just–" Baekhyun shakes his head. "No kinks. No more techniques or whatever. I just want to eat my breakfast in peace."

"You did tell me to spill. I just did as I was told."

The weirdest mental image of Baekbeom flashes in Baekhyun's mind. "Fuck. No," he groans, and rests his forehead on the table. "Why are we brothers again?"

Baekbeom hums, then starts dishing out the bowls. There's a tentative pause before he picks up Baekhyun's utensils, like he means to ask if Baekhyun is okay, but then they've never been that kind of brothers when sober. So Baekbeom keeps mum and Baekhyun stays there, forehead pressed to the table as he feels the pull of a splitting headache in his temples and a sinking sensation in his stomach. There's the alcohol again, reminding him of that stupid mistake last night and the previous nights. Not even legal and he's already drinking too much. In his defense, Baekbeom's been involved in all those drinking instances and not once has Baekhyun ever come home drunk and puking at their doorstep.

Kyungsoo's involved in all of those, too, the image of his weird, lopsided smile before Baekhyun had passed out on Kyungsoo's shoulder or the other way around. The thought makes Baekhyun's stomach turn all the more so he shakes that off, pushes it to the back of his mind and pulls up a memory with Baekbeom. One night sitting beside each other on the sand, talking about the future. Eyes fixed on the sky as Baekbeom said, voice barely above a whisper, 'A company in Seoul called me up a few days ago.'

"Hey, get up." Baekbeom gives Baekhyun's arm a light pinch. Baekhyun winces in response. "Come on, you can't be late. Not on my watch."

Then an image of the waves rushing to their feel, numbing their toes. The biting cold reaching their knees. Kyungsoo's warmth pressed to Baekhyun the only thing that's thawing him out and keeping him warm. The last few flames in the bonfire burning before it goes out completely and Baekbeom disappearing from Sokcho-si–

Baekhyun pushes himself off the desk and straightens out his clothes. Baekbeom's still there in front of him, here at home, not in the busy city of Seoul. He passes Baekbeom by and pinches him in his side. "Take me to school, hyung?"

Baekbeom doesn't question him, and only smiles. He makes his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

≋ ≋ ≋

The campus is buzzing with news on representatives from different colleges all around South Korea visiting their school for a career talk. Baekhyun's heard the seniors before them mention it before, but Sokcho High isn't easily reachable through most modes of transportation. Besides, winter has already started – nobody travels long distances in a weather such as this. Only the locals and maybe some foreigners would frequent Seoraksan for skiing and sight-seeing. City people like these Seoul representatives won't dare brave winter in Gangwon-do on a normal day.

"Well, it's not a normal day," Kyungsoo says beside him. He adjusts his jacket and shivers a little. Baekhyun looks to his side and slips an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulder. "You should pay attention. There might be other schools you'd be interested in applying for aside from Kyungdong."

"What's wrong with Kyungdong? Kyungdong's great."

"Kyungdong has nice sports facilities," Chanyeol offers, grinning. "But weren't you planning to get into music or something? Sound engineering?"

Baekhyun tears his eyes from Kyungsoo's own and fixes his gaze on his shoes. They're worn out already. He should consider unearthing his durable boots, the ones he only wears during the latter part of winter. "Broadcasting, but Kyungdong has music courses, too. I checked their catalogue or something."

Jongdae cranes his neck. From where Baekhyun is, he can make out the push and pull of the tiny smile on Jongdae's lips and the furrow of his eyebrows. It's as if he wants to give his opinion on things but has chosen not to, because– "The thing's starting. Behave, kids," Jongdae whispers.

Kyungsoo gives Jongdae a quick look, then rolls his eyes. There he is again, Baekhyun muses, playing favorites. There should be a clause against that somewhere in the Bro Code.

"You behave," Baekhyun mutters under his breath. He's not sure who it's directed at. Maybe he's saying it to himself.

The representatives talk about their schools per district. Gangwon-do goes first, being the host and all, followed by Gyeonggi-do. Time passes without much notice, and Baekhyun finds himself getting engrossed in the talk about their futures and the universities that can help them achieve their goals. Kyungdong University is Sokcho-si's best bet against Seoul's vast roster of universities, but even then they're not offering anything like those cool broadcasting and communications courses in Seoul.

He catches Jongdae mentioning something about wanting to take a stab at applying for Yonsei and Korea University, and Chanyeol expressing interest about KAIST. Chanyeol has always been a bit in love with the sciences, after all; it's the perfect time for him to pursue a science course that he'll enjoy for next five or so years.

"Dr. Park Chanyeol– Wow." Chanyeol lets out a long sigh during the switch in speakers. He sinks in his seat and throws his head back, closing his eyes in the process. A huge grin spreads across his lips and tugs up at the corners of his mouth. "I can be saving lives ten years from now. Saving lives–"

Jongdae turns to his side to meet Chanyeol in the eye. One of his eyebrows is raised, along with a corner of his lips. "So, KAIST?" It sounds more a confirmation that anything else, or light teasing. There's laughter there, too, brimming on Jongdae's lips, threatening to spill anytime. "Dream school?"

"Top priority," Chanyeol corrects. His lips quiver and a sliver of laughter escapes them. "I mean, we have med here in Kyungdong but… I dunno, man. KAIST is different. It's KAIST."

Baekhyun snorts. "You make it sound like some magical place that only tough people get into. We all take exams to get into schools here. No biggie."

"Isn't it, though?" Chanyeol answers. There's hope scrawled on the cracks on his lips, in the way his cheeks tug up at the mention of KAIST and his dreams. Baekhyun's throat tightens – he almost feels like an asshole for talking shit about Chanyeol's dream school, but–

"To be studying in the best science university in Korea, that's pretty magical," Chanyeol continues. "They've got a rigorous training program and tie-ups with great institutions in Seoul and–"

"–that's probably the same as what they have in Kyungdong. So chill, man. Sokcho-si pride, c'mon!" Baekhyun nudges Chanyeol in his side with his elbow, as if in an effort to earn light laughter from his friend, but to no avail. The smile on Chanyeol's lips falters and turns into something more neutral, a press of the lips against each other, tight and resolute. Baekhyun heaves a sigh. "Okay, sorry. I didn't mean to attack the school or anything. All I'm saying is that you don't have to go too far to try to achieve your dreams. What do they have there that Kyungdong doesn't have, huh? Fancy shmancy facilities? Awesome equipment?" Baekhyun scoffs. "It's not in the tools, Yeol; it's in the person using them."

One side of Chanyeol's cheeks hollows out as he bites the inside of his cheek. "I get the point, but what's wrong with branching out? Trying something new?" He laughs a little. "What if there's something better for us out there? Not that I'm saying that Gangwon-do's tons behind Seoul or anything in terms of innovations or what, but… Hey, it's not as if–"

It's not as if we'll be in different countries – Baekhyun has heard that before, just last night. He doesn't have to hear it again without alcohol to blur the thought, or numb him from the dull ache in his chest. So he surrenders, saying, "Okay. I said I'm sorry." He presses his thighs together and keep his eyes glued in front of his as the words Korea National University of the Arts flash on the screen in front of them. "For being an asshole. You'd be a great doctor. Just… try not to get into accidents all the time."

Chanyeol chuckles. Part of Baekhyun feels lighter, but the other half feels oddly hollow. "You stay out of trouble," Chanyeol says. "I don't want to see any of you guys in a hospital bed, okay?"

Jongdae laughs a little. Kyungsoo does, too, one of his weird breathy laughs that sounds more like him choking more than anything else.

"Yeah, we'll be immortal," Kyungsoo mumbles.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes and joins in the laughter party. "Yeah, you do exactly that."

There's a thick wave of silence for a while, broken only when Jongdae gets up to talk to one of the representatives from Yonsei. Chanyeol cranes his neck, following Jongdae with his gaze like he wants to walk alongside him. Or maybe he just wants to talk to one of the KAIST representatives beside Jongdae. It's a toss-up between the two. Baekhyun keeps his eyes glued to Jongdae for a while, trying to read his lips. 'What are library hours in Yonsei?' 'How are the dorms?' 'Tie-ups with big corporations?' He seems to be into it, nodding as the representative explains things to him, convinces him to attend university in Yonsei.

"We'd be glad to have you with us, Mr. Kim," the guy says, or at least that's what it looks like. Brainwash, Baekhyun wants to say. They just want Jongdae for his money. Seoul doesn't know Jongdae the way Sokcho-si does.

Kyungsoo moves closer until Baekhyun can feel Kyungsoo's elbow pressed to his thigh. Baekhyun doesn't turn his head yet, keeping his eyes on the shadow of Jongdae's figure. "K-ARTS has great communications programs," Kyungsoo mentions. "Joonmyun-hyung's took up broadcasting there. Maybe you'd want to ask him about it."

Baekhyun looks up, then, his body giving a tiny jerk as he meets Kyungsoo's gaze. A corner of Kyungsoo's mouth is tugged up in a grin that makes him look more ugly than attractive. Baekhyun knows this look, though – amusement, that's what he's filed this as in his catalogue of Kyungsoo Things in his mind. He waits for the light cock of the eyebrow and finally, there it is, the go signal to come up with a retort.

"You just had to mention him, didn't you?" Baekhyun groans. "And I could ask Yixing-hyung, y'know. He… used to study in K-ARTS. Majored in dance."

"Of course, you'd know."

"Because we're friends."

Kyungsoo shrugs. "Suit yourself. It's worth a shot, though. Ask either of them about life in K-ARTS."

Baekhyun blows at his bangs. "I think Yixing-hyung returning to Sokcho-si says a lot about life there already."

Bullshit, a voice at the back of his mind says. Everybody knows that Yixing returned to Sokcho-si from Seoul because he had to continue the family business. Fulfill his dying grandmother's wishes before she passed away at the age of 83. Yixing doesn't have regrets, though, or at least that's what he tells everyone. If there's ever a tinge of it in his system, wedged in his heart, he doesn't let it show. It doesn't even show in the quality of work he renders everyday. Yixing's that kind of guy – tough on the outside, even tougher deep inside. The type who'd willingly cast aside his dreams to fulfill someone else's.

Baekhyun sort of wants to be like that, someone so selfless that he can convince himself that he wants whatever someone else wants for him. That he's okay with Baekbeom going to Seoul for the sake of earning more for Baekhyun's future. That he's fine with Chanyeol and Jongdae expressing interest in attending university in Seoul, some ten, twelve hours away from Sokcho-si. That he's completely comfortable with staying in Sokcho-si, all the barriers of the city closing in on in from all directions – Donghae to the east, Seoraksan and Gyeonggi-do to the west. The military demarcation zone to the north and Chungcheongbuk-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do to the south.

Kyungsoo rests one hand on Baekhyun's knee and that's what brings Baekhyun back. "Bullshit," Kyungsoo whispers, voice so soft he could have been breathing. The tentative half-smile, half-scowl on his mouth gets the message across, though. "Just say it: you don't want people to leave because you don't want to leave Sokcho-si. Everybody deserves a chance to try something new, though."

Baekhyun blows at his bangs again, but all he achieves is blowing hot air on the underside of his nose. He shivers a little. "Everyone but me," he whispers. "And anywhere but Seoul, really."

Three taps on the microphone, and then the emcee is calling everyone's attention and telling them that the program will be resuming in five minutes. "Please go back to your seats." Baekhyun shifts in his position, but the firm and steady hand on his knee keeps him in place. So he looks to his side, looks Kyungsoo in the eye, and tries to ask without saying anything, 'Are you? Going to leave me, as well, I mean.'

"Don't be silly," Kyungsoo mumbles. Baekhyun isn't sure if it's a response to his question or a comment to what he said earlier, Either way, it keeps him where he is, anchored to the sea floor. He hears the crashing waves in the applause when the next speaker walks up on stage, hears the gentle humming of the waters rushing back to the sea in Kyungsoo saying, "Stop staring. The K-ARTS rep is speaking. Listen." He closes his eyes and takes in the sounds around him – the speaker's voice, Chanyeol and Jongdae's low chatter to his right, Kyungsoo drumming his fingers on Baekhyun's thigh on his left. After a while, he resurfaces and takes a deep breath.

K-ARTS' logo glares at him through the six-foot display on the wall. Baekhyun shakes off the water in his ears and slips his fingers between Kyungsoo's own. The stirring in his stomach hasn't stilled yet, so he takes long and measured breaths to the rhythm of Kyungsoo's even breathing.

He listens.

≋ ≋ ≋

Winter hits harder and earlier in the northern part of the country than the rest of South Korea. It starts as a trickle of white flurry, and the next thing Baekhyun knows the colors of autumn painting Seoraksan have already been replaced by a thick blanket of white. He shivers and pulls his blanket closer to himself, then steps back inside the house. No way in hell is he going to school in this kind of weather. And at this hour, even, he muses as he checks the time. It's only five in the morning and Baekbeom doesn't have class until ten. Baekhyun doesn't have to drag his ass all the way from the front door to the kitchen to make breakfast for them right now.

The wind howls, and he quickly shuts the door. There's the distant sound of someone screaming at the back of his mind. He shakes that away and yawns, waiting for his ears to pop. A heartbeat and then the dissonance is gone, replaced instead by the whistling of the winds outside.

Class doesn't get cancelled, though, and Baekhyun leaves the house earlier than he should just so he can get to the campus on time. Snow makes traveling more of a chore than a normal daily activity and numbs Baekhyun's legs. He shucks the snow clinging to the part where his boots get cut off, drawing a white circles around his pants legs. He keeps the bonnet on and zips himself down just a little – being indoors doesn't make the weather any less cold than it should be.

"Move," comes a familiar voice. He looks over his shoulder and smiles a little when Kyungsoo's figure comes into focus. "Stop hogging the space."

"I could use a hug."

Kyungsoo looks up from fixing his pants and laughs a bit. "Yeah. Hug your jacket or something," he replies, but he slings an arm around Baekhyun's shoulder anyway. Kyungsoo hates the weather just as much as he does; it's a bit comforting. It sort of makes him feel warm.

"Breakfast?" Kyungsoo asks after a while, as they make their way to their classroom.

Baekhyun rubs his eyes. "Just soup. I overslept."

"You're shaking all over."

Baekhyun shrugs. "I'll live, don't worry."

"Not worried," Kyungsoo says in defense. His hold on Baekhyun doesn't loosen yet, but the weight of Baekhyun's shoulder does get lighter. "I have some candy in my bag."

Baekhyun looks to his side, peeking from his bangs. Kyungsoo's gaze is so sharp, it can cut right through him. Maybe it already has, because he can feel a numbing sensation wrap around his right arm when Kyungsoo slides his hand down from Baekhyun's shoulder to his wrist. Kyungsoo's fingers are cold, but they don't sting. At best, Kyungsoo only makes him shiver. His touch never hurt, just left marks on his skin like he's telling people, 'this boy's mine; make no mistake'.

"Later," Baekhyun whispers in response. He presses closer to Kyungsoo until they have to get inside the room in preparation for class. "When I give you the bat signal."

"Well hello, Robin," Kyungsoo says. Before he pulls away, he slips a few pieces of candy in Baekhyun's hands. And Baekhyun just takes them, stares at his open palms for a while when he gets to his seat before pulling out his books and writing materials.

Sooneung results haven't been released yet, but various universities have begun sending Sokcho High application forms for filling out. Baekhyun takes one for Kyungdong University and another university in Gangwon-do, somewhere in Gangneung-si. From a corner of his eye, he sees Chanyeol take a handful but keep KAIST's papers on top. Jongdae has a good amount of sheets in his hands, as well, half of them from Seoul universities and the remaining half a mix of applications for schools in Gyeonggi-do and Gangwon-do. Kyungsoo has a thick bundle in his hands, as well. He even has these colorful sticky notes sticking out from the right side of the bundle, like labels for which sheet belongs to which school. "Helps me organize my life," Kyungsoo tells them when Chanyeol asks. Baekhyun's pretty sure Chanyeol was just hoping to ask for a couple of stickies, as well.

"I've got them sorted by region! How's that, huh?" Chanyeol says with pride after class. They're in the cafeteria, seated in one of the tables farthest from the entrance. Snow's falling down harder than the usual outside and they're waiting for the snowfall to be a bit kinder. "All science courses, of course, but I don't want to stick to just molecular biology for all of them. I'm thinking of getting into medicine, as well. I think I'd make a great surgeon."

Jongdae snorts. "You? A surgeon? You can't even keep your hand steady when–"

"You faint when faced with blood," Kyungsoo comments.

"C'mon, he faints when he sees cockroaches. What would you expect?" Baekhyun adds.

Chanyeol surveys them with a sharp gaze and screams, "Traitors, all of you!"

Chanyeol would probably make a great doctor, though, with the ease at which he makes people feel comfortable around him. He's good at taking care of people and making them feel hopeful, that they can be saved despite whatever tough situation they're in. Baekhyun still remembers that one big fuck up during that road trip of theirs when they thought the engine had heated up. Jongdae, despite being normally calm, was the first to panic that time. They were in the middle of nowhere and nobody was there to help them. And they weren't even legal yet. So the fear was warranted. They were still young then and maybe they should've listened to Yura when she told them to not push through with the trip and have barbecue in the backyard, instead. They were young and naive and they just needed time away from their reading materials. They didn't want to get themselves blown up.

Chanyeol had the nerve to pull off a Harry Potter joke smack in the middle of trouble. It turned out Kyungsoo just had to give the engine a rest for a while. He was driving an old Chevy Nova, after all. It was like the world was telling them, slow down. You don't have to drive too fast. Enjoy the scenery around you. Slow the fuck down and look at each other in the eye for once.

Then Chanyeol pulled out five blanket-like things, rolled one of them on the sand just near the side of the road where they pulled over. He distributed the blankets and said, "Maybe it's time to appreciate the view, yeah? We might not be able to do this again in the future."

The sound of Jongdae's light singing and Kyungsoo's steady humming is still vivid in Baekhyun's ears. And he can still remember the way Kyungsoo couldn't stop drumming his fingers on Baekhyun's thigh like he was dying to say something or just dying to get out of there that time. Dying to go home. Baekhyun's still working out the kinks until now.

He looks at the application papers in his hands, then, and spreads them out. None of the course offerings are close enough to broadcasting but hey, these will do. That way, he can still study while staying close to home. It's sort of like paying back Sokcho-si for taking care of him all these years. Maybe he should get into urban and rural landscaping or something, try to make Sokcho-si a hotter tourist spot even during off-peak seasons. Now that will truly be repaying Sokcho-si for all her love and care.

"Excuses," comes Kyungsoo's voice beside Baekhyun, and Baekhyun looks up at once. Kyungsoo turns to look at him, eyebrows raised, but Chanyeol's sound of protest draws Kyungsoo's attention away from Baekhyun. "You just really want to get into KAIST," Kyungsoo continues, then, and Baekhyun goes back to thumbing through his application papers.

Not everything's about you, he tells himself. Repeats the line in his head like a prayer or a mantra, or maybe a wish for him to get over himself. With a deep breath, he pulls a thick pad of paper and a pen from his bag and starts scribbling down information that he has to write on his application form. He can't just fill out the forms without thinking this through. He can't fuck up.

He glances at the pile of application forms that Kyungsoo is drumming his fingers on. The sheet for K-ARTS lies atop everything else.

≋ ≋ ≋

If the winds blow hardest during Sooneung according to tradition, then the snowfall is heaviest during the release of Sooneung results. It's reflective of what's inside every student's heart – sadness or happiness in the form of the heavy downpour, like a stream of tears or a dam whose water has been released in relief. Baekhyun tiptoes, craning his neck in an attempt to look for his name in the list of test passers, but to no avail. Almost all the guys in school are taller than him and it's not exactly acceptable to push girls around just to see if he made it to the list.

Byun, Byun – he scores a nail along the list of B-surnames and finds his name with a red square to its left. He looks over his shoulder and meets Chanyeol's gaze, just as confused as his own.

"Did we just almost fail or something?" Chanyeol asks. Baekhyun looks at the list again and catches his score this time, well above the minimum requirement. They couldn't have 'almost failed' or something. "But, we're us. We've never even come close to failing exams."

'There's always a first time for everything', Baekhyun wants to say, but Kyungsoo and Jongdae pointing at a different list a few feet away catches his attention. "Looks like they're just as weirded out," Baekhyun mumbles, then cocks his head in the other two's direction. "Wanna check it out?"

"Yeah, sure. I still can't help but think we almost fucked up. I mean…" Chanyeol shakes his head. "Whatever. We'll see. Let's just hope for the best."

A shrill sound, and then Jongdae's dancing in place, arms raised up high. He pulls Kyungsoo along with him in their tiny routine just beside a shorter list posted on the wall. Baekhyun stares at the performance in a corner for a while, until he catches the bright red boxes beside the top five 'items' on the list.

"The following have performed exceptionally well in the exams and are thus given the opportunity to be scholars of their desired universities," Baekhyun reads out loud. In small text, the message says, "Please get in touch with your program head on the details?" He goes through the list with his eyes, then, and feels Chanyeol press down on his shoulders with his big hands. There's Jongdae's name in the number one spot, then Chanyeol's at number two – "I'm getting a fucking scholarship!" Chanyeol exclaims at that. Third place goes to two girls named Park Sunyoung and and Jung Soojung. The school's not too big but there's a good volume of students that it's impossible for Baekhyun to know all of his batchmates.

His gaze trails south, to numbers four and five, and he feels a violent force tug up at the corners of his lips. "Do Kyungsoo and Byun Baek–" He chokes and gulps down hard, but his throat feels so dry. And thick. And heavy. He feels like screaming at the top of his lungs because he's getting a fucking scholarship, but nothing comes out. Instead, he only hears his dry heaving and choked laughter slipping from his lips.

He looks over his shoulder and meets Kyungsoo in the eye. They've stopped dancing now and Jongdae has tears in his eyes. Stars, too, because it's not everyday one scores in the 99+ percentile versus the rest of the batch. Jongdae looks like he could explode anytime and if he does, he'll burn even brighter than before.

And the dim lighting softens the hard edges of Kyungsoo's features. And for once, for the first time in a long time, the smile on Kyungsoo's lips doesn't make him look like he's deciding between really feeling happy for someone and wanting to maim said person. It's an easy smile, one that reaches his eyes but doesn't scrunch up the rest of his face. And Kyungsoo looks–

Looks at him. Just at Baekhyun, like he's the only person who matters right now. Their locked gazes are steady even as Kyungsoo pulls away from the group and approaches Baekhyun, the smile on his lips growing bigger with each step. "Not too shabby," Kyungsoo says once they're toe-to-toe, one breath away. "I'm kinda proud of you."

"Kinda? You're not sure?" Baekhyun asks. He means to frown, but the force tugging at the corners of his lips is too strong. So he doesn't fight it, lets it take control of his facial muscles. He laughs when Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. "You don't like it that I'm catching up to you?"

"Not really. I knew we'd stand on the same ground someday." Kyungsoo winks as he finishes. "I've always known you had it in you. What it takes to excel, I mean. You just need to focus and–"

"If someone wasn't such a good distraction–"

"–and have faith in yourself." The big grin on Kyungsoo's lips melts into something softer. Kyungsoo reaches out, pinching Baekhyun in the stomach. Baekhyun howls, but it isn't painful. If anything, he was just caught unaware and he doesn't like that. He hates being attacked with his guard down. And Kyungsoo knows exactly when to strike and where to aim each powerful blow for best results. "So, broadcasting? Planning to make it big in the big city?"

Baekhyun's heart plummets to the pit of his stomach so fast, he doesn't even have time to process the entire thing. Making it big in 'The Big City' means having to leave Sokcho-si, its wonderful beaches, to be parted with the waves that always, always, always rush back to shore no matter what. It means not waking up to the best sunrise and sleeping with the image of Sokcho-si's beautiful sunset in mind. It means not having hwaleo hoe within reach at all times, or not being able to help Yixing with the catch for the day. Not tasting Miyoung's yummy fried chicken and not being able to share it with his friends.

It means leaving pieces of himself behind in the hope of finding something 'better' in Seoul. And Seoul reminds him of nothing but his father's escape. An unsettled divorce case. His mother's new life. He shuts his eyes tight and opens them slowly, refocusing, recalibrating. He counts to three and tries to recall the sound of the waves as he says, "There's always those universities in Gyeonggi-do. Or those unis in Chuncheon-si and Gangneung-si. I'm sure they're offering broadcasting as a course."

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow at him. "Don't settle. You've been given a free pass to a scholarship–"

"–that I've worked hard for," Baekhyun replies. He summons his best smile but it feels awkward at the corners, like someone's pulling at them and telling him, 'smile more, just a little more. Keep smiling and maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that everything will be alright.' "So I can do anything with that 'free pass'. I can decide to study nearby and still enjoy my scholarship."

"Baekhyun–"

"We did well in the exams. We're getting a scholarship. Can't we just–" He laughs a little, but it sounds so dry and choked like a dissonance to the music. A break in the waves. Stale chicken or too much salt in the breading. "Can't we just celebrate and be happy and not think of other big things yet? Give ourselves time to process things?"

Kyungsoo doesn't say anything, but he does tilt up Baekhyun's chin with the gentle push of his finger. "Alright," Kyungsoo says. "Hwaleo hoe later?"

The knot in Baekhyun's chest loosens. He lets out a loud exhale. "If they still have those. It's already winter," he says. He knows what Kyungsoo means, though – 'let's go find Yixing-hyung so you can ogle him and maybe feel a bit better after talking to him.' Yixing's presence has healing properties, after all. Baekhyun wishes he could have that sometimes, the ability to make people feel happy with the now and make them stay.

"Or fried chicken," Kyungsoo offers.

Beyond Kyungsoo's shoulder, Chanyeol calls out, "Did someone say fried chicken?"

Baekhyun rolls his eyes. He reaches for Kyungsoo's hand to give it a light squeeze, then lets go before addressing Chanyeol. Without a hint of shame, he yells right back, "You're not invited!" Chanyeol raises a fist in the air in response but never throws a punch at him. Instead, he wraps Baekhyun in a bone-crushing hug after that.

That night, they watch the waves rush to shore through the windows of the Do residence. One wave at a time, Baekhyun tells himself as he follows the movement of the waters, marvels at the foam that catches on the shore and leaves scars on the sand. He can deal with Baekbeom's imminent departure from Sokcho-si today, then deal with college applications tomorrow. But for now, he muses as he gets pulled into the kitchen to make gamja ongsimi upon Kyungsoo's mother's request, he'll have to prepare dinner.

There's enough time, he convinces himself as he brings the broth to a boil. If not, then he can listen to the waves and try to make time slow down, matching the gentle rippling of the waters. He'll make it happen.

≋ ≋ ≋

One of the things Baekhyun hates the most about winter is having to pick up kelp along the shoreline in the fucking cold. There are hardly any fish to catch these days, and it means that they'll have to make do with whatever they can toss into the stew for flavor. And the residents of Sokcho-si love their seafood-tasting stews. Baekhyun feels a bit like a hunter, except he's on the lookout for a bit of warmth more than anything else.

He's wearing at least four layers of clothing today, and yet it's not enough to combat the biting cold. Kyungsoo has it worse – he looks like a walking ball of clothes already but he's still shivering. Chanyeol's the only one who isn't complaining, really. Even Jongdae who usually only has good things to say about everything has already begun to express hatred for the cold weather.

"My nose is gonna fall off anytime," Jongdae mumbles. He adjusts his scarf a little using his pinkies, careful not to touch the cloth with his kelp-picking fingers. "I swear to God, if I lose my nose by the end of this trip–"

"Then it'll all be for good," Chanyeol answers. "Think of it this way: you're doing this so that others may live. You're solving hunger in Sokcho-si! Every tiny piece of kelp matters!"

Kyungsoo kicks a rock in Chanyeol's direction and chokes it up to trying to restore the feeling in his limbs when Chanyeol says, "What the fuck?" Jongdae seems to thaw out a bit after that and beats them to combing the shoreline for kelp. It takes fifteen minutes to wrap everything up, and by then Baekhyun's arms are already sore from all the reaching he's done and the weight in his hands. He's sweating a bit, too.

Kyungsoo bumps his hip into Baekhyun's, and Baekhyun looks up to meet him in the eye. He looks a bit too cold, cheeks burning a bright red. His nose is flushed, too, and his lips are chapped. Probably from being bitten too much, that's Kyungsoo's worst habit. Baekhyun almost always has this insane urge to – make Kyungsoo stop? Run a thumb along Kyungsoo's lips to make sure he hasn't bruised them yet? It varies from time to time. Often, there's no good reason – it's just that seeing Kyungsoo's lips bleed makes his insides turn. The only blood he can tolerate is the one that comes with cleaning fish because that means he's one step closer to eating a good meal.

It's a good lurch, though, unlike the one he felt before taking Sooneung, or all those days leading up to the big exam. It doesn't make him want to throw up, but it does make him want to throw his arms around Kyungsoo's shoulders and frame him there, in the press of their bodies.

"Stop spacing out. I can't lose you," Kyungsoo says. It comes out as a whisper when the wind howls.

"You won't," Baekhyun promises. He quickens his steps a bit. The bundles of kelp slap against each other when their steps start falling into place. It doesn't make him shiver, but Kyungsoo's cool fingers wrapped around his wrist do. He shakes that out of his system, focusing on the road ahead, their matching footsteps, the steady rise and fall of Kyungsoo's chest.

When they get back from gathering kelp, Jongdae offers to wash the haul, dragging Chanyeol along with him. This will be a long night, Baekhyun muses as he watches the two play with the water flowing from the faucet, so he snatches a handful from the two before they can even get the entire kitchen wet. From a corner of his eye, he catches Kyungsoo craning his neck as if looking for something to do. Or maybe he's just checking if they all haven't killed each other off yet. It's a toss-up between the two.

Kyungsoo approaches them after a while, after setting a pot on the stove. The ladle's there somewhere, too. "So what time will they be done with the kelp so we can get started on cooking?" Kyungsoo asks, then taps Chanyeol's ass lightly. "You two aren't hungry, are you?"

Chanyeol nudges Jongdae in his side with his elbow and they shuffle back to their places, really getting some work done now. He snickers after a while, though, and turns to look at Kyungsoo before sprinkling water on his face. Kyungsoo's response is bright laughter and a sharp smile. Then two punches straight to Chanyeol's arm before landing a pinch to Jongdae's side. Jongdae's yowl makes it sound worse than it should, though.

Baekhyun laughs to himself. So maybe Kyungsoo can not play favorites sometimes. He stirs the still water in the bowl for a while and checks if the sheets of kelp are already soft enough for cooking. Good enough, he thinks when he feels the velvety texture of the kelp in his fingers. Kyungsoo likes it this way.

"Now if you three could excuse me–" He tries to avoid the mess that is Kyungsoo, Jongdae, and Chanyeol's bodies all wet and slick with water, but Kyungsoo is quick to grab him by the back of his shirt. He manages to set the bowl of kelp down on the counter – or maybe Kyungsoo let him do that first – before he gets pulled into the chaos, and the first thing that greets him is the warm press of Kyungsoo's chest to his back, Kyungsoo's face hovering him. The short distance between his forehead and Kyungsoo's lips. The racing in Kyungsoo's chest.

From a corner of his eye, he spots Jongdae's shit-eating grin. He uses that window of opportunity, then, to kick whatever part of Jongdae his foot can reach, then dig his elbow into Kyungsoo's gut. Kyungsoo releases him with a scowl and a promise to spike his food later, drown him in poison, "You'll never see the light of the day tomorrow, Byun Baekhyun."

"All bark, no bite!" Baekhyun calls out after Kyungsoo when Kyungsoo leaves the kitchen to answer the door. Chanyeol's speed-cleaning the living room, probably, because he was the one who left all his things lying around there and heaven knows that Kyungsoo's mother hates seeing her house in a state of chaos. Jongdae's made himself useful, chopping the vegetables a few feet away while humming one of their own songs under his breath.

The air is eerily still for a moment, then Jongdae's chuckling. "You're bothered," he says, doesn't even mean to ask. "Y'know, years after and I still find it weird when you fall silent all of a sudden. Like, more quiet than Kyungsoo. Like you're plotting my death or something."

Baekhyun snorts. "Close enough," he replies, voice still and unwavering. He adds a bit of salt to the water. "Nah, I'm just… feeling a bit out of it. Must be the weather."

"Or the season," Jongdae answers.

"Or that." Baekhyun chuckles. It's been three years. He can't keep relapsing to three winters ago, to the same night when he got home with Baekbeom and his father and found his mother getting frisky with another man in the living room. He has to move on. And yet– "Y'know what? I think it's… a post-Sooneung thing. I have so much time, I dunno what to do with all the free time I have now?"

The sound of chopping stops. The water isn't boiling yet. Baekhyun looks over his shoulder, then, and smiles when he sees the knowing look on Jongdae's face. "I feel you. You understand me on a…" He worries his bottom lip just a little. "A spiritual level."

"High-five," Baekhyun says, reaching for Jongdae's foot with his own as he swings his leg to the side. Jongdae mimics the action, but not without laughing for a good full minute first. He hasn't quite mastered the art of holding in laughter just yet.

The conversation dissolves into a discussion about universities, courses, what they see themselves doing years from now and where. "I'd be traveling," Jongdae says, facing Baekhyun now. He has his back against the counter, and he cranes his neck as if peeking at the stew. "Or at least I want to be traveling by then, doing consultancy stuff. Imagine getting paid a huge sum and being paid to travel! Just– wow." Jongdae lets out a loud exhale. "Sometimes, I think it's pretty weird to be dreaming of big things but then I realize, I'm a pretty amazing person. I'm capable of great things. So why should I limit myself to dreaming of small things?"

Baekhyun laughs a little, then covers the pot. "You're not really limiting yourself, though. You're just… I dunno, being realistic?" He chuckles. It sounds a bit throaty. Maybe he's coming down with sore throat. "I want to be a pop star but I dunno if that's… achievable. I mean, we have lots of fans here but you want to be a marketing consultant and Chanyeol wants to be a doctor. What'll happen to the band after–"

There's a weird glint in Jongdae's eyes for a moment and then it's gone, replaced instead with a light furrow of the eyebrows and Baekhyun's reflection in Jongdae's irises. "How about you and Kyungsoo?"

Baekhyun shrugs. A traitorous heat crawls down his stomach and makes his insides lurch. "Pretty sure he's taking up broadcasting somewhere." He lifts his hand to rub his nose, but quickly remembers that he's cooking. He uses the back of his hand, instead. "Somewhere near, I hope. He wants to study in K-ARTS, though."

"No, no. I didn't mean–" Jongdae rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It looks more like Jongdae doing a head bang, though, and Baekhyun squints his eyes in an effort to keep himself from getting dizzy at the rapid movement. "C'mon, Baek, it's just me. And you told me before that Kyungsoo makes you feel things–"

"Fear. Aguish. Despair." Baekhyun clutches at his shirt, trying to capture the exact emotion, but all he gets is his heart racing in his chest. C'mon, he tells himself, he can't possibly be getting nervous at just the thought of Kyungsoo maiming him or something. He was half-kidding then, the other half of him convinced that Kyungsoo has the power to elicit a fear of losing Kyungsoo so overwhelming that he'd choke on his own spit at the mere idea of it. "That counts as him making me feel a lot of things, right?"

Jongdae groans. "Fuck you, Byun Baekhyun."

Baekhyun laughs a little. His throat still feels a bit too tight and dry, though. "Nah, not interested. Sorry," he says, then sticks his tongue out at Jongdae.

"And in Kyungsoo?" Jongdae hums. "If Kyungsoo said the same thing–"

If Kyungsoo said the same thing then he really wouldn't know what to do. He hasn't thought it through yet. All he knows is that Kyungsoo takes his breath away sometimes, when light catches on his short eyelashes or the bow of his lips. He knows that Kyungsoo has this really weird and ugly laughing face but the velvety tune of his laughter tickles his insides and makes him giggle. He knows that he hates it when Kyungsoo abuses his own lips because they're wonderful, and maybe they'd feel nice on Baekhyun's own if they just took one step forward all those times when they were each a breath away and let their lips meet.

But then they're friends. Friends don't kiss. Friends don't fuck around and fuck each other. Friends don't get too intimate because there's always the risk of getting weird around each other and Baekhyun's not willing to risk that with Chanyeol or Jongdae, moreso with Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo has seen him grow from the snively kid back in elementary to this guy who's just slightly taller than him. Kyungsoo has seen him at his worst and has helped him work his way to the top to be his best again, following the nasty divorce of his parents. He's known Kyungsoo before he even held a microphone in his hands and sang into it. Stuff like that matters. It's things like those that make a difference and keep him from setting sail to the horizon and leaving the comforts of his harbor behind.

"Then I'd still say no," he mumbles, but he already has his back turned to Jongdae. If Jongdae ever calls him out on it, he can always say that he's watching the food, making sure he's not overboiling it or something. He tosses the soft tofu Kyungsoo had chopped earlier, then, and watches as the boiling slows down a little, then picks up again. "You want more gochujang in this?"

Jongdae doesn't push it. Instead, he shakes his head and gives Baekhyun's arm a gentle squeeze before starting the clean up operations in the kitchen.

There's nothing but the sound of bubbles popping in the air for the next few minutes, until Baekhyun covers the pot with the lid and Jongdae ties the plastic bag in a knot. Jongdae throws the bag into the trash bin, muttering a low 'goal!' as he watches it go inside. Baekhyun laughs a little, then, and turns down the heat before turning the stove off completely. Chanyeol walks into the kitchen soon after, the scent of the stew drawing him in, and Kyungsoo follows, a small smirk tugging up a corner of his lips.

Baekhyun clutches a bit of that heat and light close to him, left of his chest, for when winter hits him in earnest, the warmth of three other bodies leaving him. He lets it sizzle inside him, a low fire, a light to guide him home.

≋ ≋ ≋

Kyungsoo knits a set of scarves, bonnets, and gloves for the other three for Christmas. It's an uncanny gift, but Baekhyun can't say it's 'not very Kyungsoo' to create something for his friends with his hands. He'd kinda gotten an idea of what Kyungsoo was up to weeks ago, when Kyungsoo kept reaching for him for no good reason. Kyungsoo would hold him by the wrist but only make the pads of his thumb and index finger meet, then he'd hold Baekhyun's wrist up like he's checking if his fingers covering Baekhyun's skin would make a great bracelet, some 'bling'. He'd nod to himself after that, talking to himself in some language that is beyond Baekhyun. Years after and he still can't dissect Kyungsoo's brain completely, can't read all of his facial expressions yet. Just when he knows what the quirk of the lip means, or what Kyungsoo's trying to tell him with the cock of an eyebrow and a tilt of the head, Kyungsoo catches him unaware with a soft touch. The feather-light fit of their fingers in each other.

That, and Kyungsoo thinks knitting is a great way to calm himself down while waiting for college application results.

"It's only been a week!" Baekhyun exclaims when he finds Kyungsoo knitting in the living room, eyebrow furrowed. He isn't quite sure if Kyungsoo's mad at the knot he'd just tied or at Spongebob doing weird stuff on TV. He plops down beside him, then, bumping his hip into Kyungsoo's arm on purpose. Kyungsoo's arms shake for a moment, and then he's back to knitting. The stern look on his face remains, though, as he shoots Baekhyun a sharp look. "And if there's anyone who'd bomb the test and the application, I'll say this now – it's not anyone from the Bro Code."

"You kids still use that name? It sucks," Seungsoo mumbles. He chokes on the last word as he lifts his luggage and sets it down near the sofa. "You're graduating in a few months. It's the perfect time to reinvent yourself when before moving to college."

"Don't need to. I love myself the way I am." Baekhyun grins, flashing his teeth at Seungsoo, and the brothers shoot him a glance before looking away. They grimace, as if harmonizing to produce some weird condescending music. "And Bro Code's a catchy name. Get lazy and get the urge to shorten it? You can call us 'The Bros'."

"And if you want something that sounds pretentious, call us 'The Code'." Kyungsoo chuckles. "Hyung's right. It's time to change the name. And no, you are not picking out a new one for us."

"Us?" Seungsoo asks, then looks between the two. Baekhyun responds with a furrow of the eyebrows because he doesn't know Seungsoo well enough yet to decipher the smallest quirks of his facial muscles, the kinks of it. Seungsoo seems just as confused, though, an eyebrow cocked and his lips pursed in a mix of a frown and something more… neutral. "So you mean this whole Bro Code thing will go on until after high school?"

Kyungsoo scoffs. "We're not a band, hyung. We're… more than that."

The sharp part of one needle clashes against the other and Baekhyun winces at the sound. A heartbeat, then he looks up at Kyungsoo and finds him with his lips pressed together in a thin line. "You don't just disband a group of friends because they're moving onto a new phase of their lives," Kyungsoo continues. His hands are still now, and he's holding the needles parallel to each other.

Keep knitting, Baekhyun wants to tell him. He can make out the light trembling of Kyungsoo's lips. Kyungsoo will start biting them any minute now and when that happens–

"I know," Seungsoo replies. He swallows, and one of his cheeks hollows out a little when he bites the inside of it. Here they are at the standstill, silence thick in the air, and Baekhyun almost feels his ears pop. He can laugh to break the silence, or even breathe out loud just so the lack of sound won't be so deafening, but Seungsoo beats him to it when he rests his hand on Baekhyun's shoulder in a low 'thud'. "Hey Baek, think you can help me with a few more luggages? Got a couple more upstairs. Your friend here's a lazyass and won't help me with them."

Kyungsoo thaws out, parting his lips and chewing at air. He frowns at Seungsoo. "I'll get to those in a while. I just need to finish this."

Seungsoo snorts. "You said that thirty minutes ago."

"Well, I'm closer to finishing this time around," Kyungsoo retorts. "I promise I'll get to it."

Through the sliver of space between his lips, Baekhyun can make out Kyungsoo grinding his teeth. He feels a cool shiver crawl up his nape. "Hey, no biggie. I can help hyung with his luggages. Just cook us something grea–"

"Our luggages," Kyungsoo interrupts. He drops the needles to his thighs, then turns to Seungsoo with lips pressed thinly together. "Mine and hyung's."

Baekhyun takes a deep breath. He looks up at Kyungsoo, meeting him in the eye, then drops his gaze back to the needles when he sees Kyungsoo start worrying his lips. They're already too red, as it is; Kyungsoo doesn't have to scar them even more. Beside him, he feels Seungsoo's warmth and hears Seungsoo's footsteps fade until there's nothing but his heavy breathing to break the silence or at least poke a hole at it. His chest feels so… heavy. It doesn't feel like a dull ache of exhaustion from climbing Seoraksan or spending half the day scouring the shoreline for kelp. It feels weird.

He tries to swallow, but chokes even before he can start. His throat feels so cold and dry. He feels parched. He hasn't even broken a sweat.

"Hey. Look at me," comes Kyungsoo's soft voice. It's the same tone he unwittingly uses when he's drunk or close to it. Or when he's just woken up, looking up at Baekhyun with eyes still heavy with sleep and morning glory at the corners. And a bit of saliva at the corners of his lips that limit his speech to mildly coherent mumbling. He's perfectly awake, though, and Baekhyun is, too. And it makes the whole situation easier to process with his gut and not his brain. Baekhyun's stomach does this somersaulting thing. It makes him want to throw up, makes his heart race in his chest. But he can't move, can't even bring himself to budge an inch.

Kyungsoo hasn't moved closer, but he has placed his knitting materials elsewhere, some place where they won't injure anyone. "Baek, come on–" he says, almost whispering. "Don't do this."

Don't do what, he wants to ask, but his throat still feels tight and dry and he feels parched. He parts his lips to speak, but he doesn't look up yet. Kyungsoo's still nibbling on his lower lip, like he's trying to free himself from the bounds of something. Baekhyun can't look up yet.

"You didn't tell me you were going on a trip," he says after a while, chuckling. It makes sense, though – they're on holiday break and of course the Do family would make use of the little time they spend together. Seungsoo only returns to Sokcho-si during term break, after all, spending most of his time studying in Seoul and Skyping his family from the big city. But then Kyungsoo's parents left for a business trip just yesterday. They even apologized for having to miss Christmas with the kids. They didn't want to leave.

So it's not a family trip, says a voice at the back of Baekhyun's mind. Kyungsoo has always told him about his trips, how long it will take, 'don't finish all the hwaleo hoe without me, Byun'. And Kyungsoo's a light packer – he only ever brings a backpack when he's traveling. The voice nags at him again, whispering in his ear, 'it's not a family trip,' so Baekhyun flushes that out of his system. He shushes it. He looks up to meet Kyungsoo in the eye. Kyungsoo's face is unreadable, but there's a hint of something in the way he purses his lips.

For all Baekhyun knows, Seungsoo's just snatching some of Kyungsoo's things. The siblings are close enough to share things between the two of them, after all.

"Where to?" Baekhyun asks when he feel his throat relax. He swallows hard. "Relishing Seungsoo-hyung's last few days of freedom, huh?"

Kyungsoo laughs a little, but his lips are still pressed together. "Seoul," he answers. He juts out his bottom lip. "We're spending the rest of the break there while I take care of college applications."

The rest of the break– That's almost a month away from the waters of Sokcho-si. Is Kyungsoo crazy or something? He's sick in love with the sea, the beach, the mix of salt and water in the sea spray that latches onto their skin. He can't live without Sokcho-si in his system for so long. If there's anyone in this world who loves the place as much as Baekhyun does, it's Kyungsoo. He wouldn't go out to sea to help with catching fish if he didn't love the city and the people so much.

Baekhyun chuckles. "Yeah. Right. Dude, the last time you were away for a month, you went crazy."

"Because I had to see a relative die," Kyungsoo mumbles. He shakes his head, laughter coming to him more easily now. The tight knit of his eyebrows loosens and his cheeks pull down into something more relaxed, more natural. He lets out a loud exhale. "Sometimes, I wonder why we're friends."

I always do, Baekhyun wants to say. Kyungsoo hates loud people and he calls out Baekhyun on being obnoxious and loud all the time. Baekhyun hates the silence because it reminds him of the things he shouldn't be thinking of. And Kyungsoo reminds him exactly of silence, the kind that can either lull you to slumber or stir your senses and make you panic. Keep you awake. Often, it's a mix of both. Baekhyun's learned to live with a weird push and pull in his gut ever since he met Kyungsoo. So really, what's a couple more?

"But you're doing college application things while you're there," Baekhyun argues. "You're bound to go crazy."

Kyungsoo chuckles. "It's a necessary evil."

"You don't have to do this."

"And what, I'll just sit around here and wait for an acceptance letter to drop on my lap?" Kyungsoo shakes. "Good grades aren't an instant ticket to getting into a good university. They make the application process easier, yes, but they're not…" Kyungsoo rubs the tip of his nose. "If I really want to get into K-ARTS then I'll have to work hard for it."

K-ARTS. Baekhyun can picture it now, Kyungsoo playing dress up and wearing smart casual attire in his first day of class in an arts school. Eventually, he'll replace the light blazer with a K-ARTS jacket that's two sizes too big on him. Kyungsoo will be rushing from one class to another because he hates being late. And he'd probably enjoy the film classes the most, if his in-depth analyses of the movies Jongdae forces them to watch are anything to go by. Or maybe he'd enjoy all of his classes. Kyungsoo has this weird ability of convincing himself that he's 'alright' with everything around him. He doesn't have to be too thrilled about everything that life has to offer. Anything that doesn't kill him shouldn't be too bad.

He'd fit right in, Baekhyun muses. A strange fit, but a fit nonetheless. He doesn't say that out loud, though. Instead, he says, "You don't have to go to Seoul."

Kyungsoo widens his eyes, and his lips fall open as light laughter escapes them. Baekhyun frowns in response. This isn't supposed to be funny. There's the prospect of Kyungsoo leaving for a month and returning only to wash his clothes and attend graduation. And then what? If Kyungsoo gets into K-ARTS, he'll go back to Seoul and stay there for three, four years. They'll see each other during Seollal but if the whole Do family moves to Seoul, if they leave no trace of themselves here in Sokcho-si–

"Look, it's not permanent," Kyungsoo says. He takes a deep breath. "I'm not even sure if I'll get in."

"You will," Baekhyun says. It's supposed to sound like a vote of confidence, but it comes out more like a croak of uncertainty. It makes him sick. "And that's the thing – you'll get in and you'll like it there and Seoul will take you away the same way it snatched umma away from me–"

Baekhyun's breath hitches even before the last sound can leave his lips. He hangs his head low, fixes his eyes on his shoes, and inches back when he sees Kyungsoo take a step forward. His hands are shaking. He sees Kyungsoo reach out, fingers trembling a little as well, but he balls his hands into fists. At least make things easier, he wants to tell Kyungsoo. Make it easier for both of them to take a step back and turn on their heels so they can leave without having to look over their shoulder. "Don't–" Baekhyun whispers, words fighting their way between his lips. "Don't touch me. You want to leave, right? You want to make it big in Seoul and make your dreams come true there and–"

Kyungsoo takes a deep breath. "Listen to me: me moving to Seoul doesn't have to change things–"

"But it's Seoul," Baekhyun finishes. His voice lilts and shit, he sounds like a fucking whiner but– "You– You could've chosen Gyeonggi-do or our very own Gangwon-do, but no. It just had to be Seoul. You know what happened there, right? When appa caught umma with that other guy, she escaped to Seoul. And then appa followed. And then the city swallowed him whole and now it won't fucking spit him out. Or he chose to get stuck there. He promised to come back for Seollal and Chuseok but he never returned."

He gulps hard, takes a deep breath. His throat is dryer than before and breathing has become a chore. And he's laughing. At least it feels like it, because there's a sting at the stretch on the corners of his lips that doesn't belong there. "It doesn't have to be Seoul," he whispers, choked and breathy. He's laughing again, the once croaky sound smoothening out into full-bodied laughter. One that rings in his ears but doesn't quite reach his heart.

Kyungsoo licks the corners of his mouth and stars nibbling on his bottom lip again. His eyebrows are furrowed and he's frowning but there's something else, in the way his cheeks tug down. It's almost as if Kyungsoo's pitying him. Trying to sympathize, but only because he looks stupid and pathetic. Stop that, Baekhyun wants to say. Fucking stop facing me with that look in your eyes–

Baekhyun clenches his fists when Kyungsoo remains still, unmoved. "Didn't– Didn't you almost lose Seungsoo-hyung to whatever he was in during his first year in college there? Didn't the city turn him into some monster–"

Kyungsoo's eyebrows twitch. Baekhyun can make out the way Kyungsoo grinds his teeth through the small parting of his lips. "Back off, Baek. You're talking about my brother. You don't talk shit about him like that."

"Oh, now we're talking! Now, we're on the same boat!" His voice peaks, cracks somewhere in the middle. When he presses his lips together, he ends up biting a bit of them too hard. He can taste blood in his mouth. If Kyungsoo punched him minutes ago, this is how he'd end up – with a bitter taste in his mouth and a heavy heart. Fists balled and ready to throw a punch, but dropped to the side. "So this is what I have to get you to listen to me? This is what I have to do to get your attention? Is that it, Kyungsoo?"

Kyungsoo looks away, biting the inside of his cheek. He looks like he wants to say something, a lot of things, but instead he shakes his head and keeps his eyes fixed on anything but Baekhyun's own. Just punch me in the face, won't you, Baekhyun wants to say, because Kyungsoo has always been better with body language. All those times he felt the need to protect Baekhyun from those bullies, he used his body as a shield and not once did he utter a word. Only when Baekbeom was treating their wounds did he make a sound, then look to his side to reach out with his hand. His knuckles had been bruised then, much more than his face. And he held Baekhyun's gaze far longer than he held Baekhyun's hand.

Ten more minutes, and Kyungsoo'd finally asked him, 'are you okay?' Baekhyun remembers shrugging that time, words escaping him. Then he'd winced because apparently he shouldn't be making any rapid movements. He didn't know it that time. But now, with Kyungsoo's face turned away and the rest of his body screaming 'stop what you're doing right now, Byun Baekhyun, just stop,' Baekhyun can answer without hesitation, without even thinking twice: he isn't.

"Stop," Kyungsoo says. He takes a deep breath, loud and noisy, through his nose. He looks up, then, and meets Baekhyun's eyes again, but his eyes are a barricaded door. This is regret weighing a ton, pounding at the back of Baekhyun's head, urging him to look the other way. That would hurt less than seeing Kyungsoo like this. "Stop talking about my brother like that and grow the fuck up."

Baekhyun scoffs. "Well, that's another problem. We all grew up too fast, didn't we?"

It's not by choice. If they had their way, they'd still be building sand castles at this age, but time had been cruel to them back when they were ten years old. A storm hit South Korea and nearly half the population of Gangwon-do was obliterated by the storm surge. They were some of the lucky survivors, and they – everyone, including the kids – had to rebuild the community, the culture, because what is Sokcho-si without its beautiful port? What is Sokcho-si without the fish hanging out in the open to dry like flags, as if a reminder that they've survived, the city lives and will go on as long as there are people who love the place? What is Sokcho-si without the metal tree, or the beach, without the surety that when they face west, they'll find Seoraksan watching over them? What would become of them if Sokcho-si ceased to exist?

That doesn't seem to matter for Kyungsoo anymore. He's leaving Sokcho-si for Seoul, its wonderful city lights and busy streets. He's leaving them, and like the many lost souls in Seoul he probably won't come back.

"I was hoping you'd understand how much this means to me, but I guess I was wrong," Kyungsoo says. The furrow of his eyebrows softens, and he lets out a soft exhale through his lips. "And I thought you'd know how hard it is for me to leave, as well, but I guess you proved me wrong again. Now, if you think you can think straight again and not talk shit about anything or anyone, then okay, let's talk about this. But if you can't–" Kyungsoo sucks in his bottom lip. "You can show yourself out."

Baekhyun parts his lips to speak, but words fail him the same way reason had earlier. "Right. I'll– Bye," he whispers, then turns on his heel.

On a normal day, Kyungsoo would push him in the direction of the door, but today Kyungsoo stands a few good feet away, arms crossed over his chest, lips pressed thinly together. His eyes are sullen and the hard edges of his mouth have softened, but there's still this distance between them. Baekhyun hears the winds howl outside and it hits him – the space between them, the cool air crawling through the narrow opening of the door. Kyungsoo looking at him, just looking at him, and not asking him to join the family for dinner. Just waiting for him to walk out that door, not holding him back.

He looks over his shoulder and meets Kyungsoo's gaze again. Kyungsoo takes a deep breath, lips parting as if he wants to say something, but nothing comes.

Baekhyun continues his journey to the door. He wraps his fingers around the knob then gives it a twist. There's a light shuffle over his shoulder, a few feet away, but he doesn't turn to look. Instead, he swings the door forward and takes one step outside the house, one foot away from Kyungsoo and one foot closer to winter waiting just beyond the door.

He closes the door behind him with a soft click. The wind blows again, hitting him square on the face, so he wraps his scarf around his neck again. It does little to give him warmth, but it's enough to help him feel shoulders again. A traitorous cold crawls up his throat, though, makes it constrict, and pulls out the most choked laughter from him.

He can still smell Kyungsoo's the scent of Kyungsoo's shampoo in his gloves, in his bonnet, in the scarf protecting him from winter's wrath. He can still feel Kyungsoo's fingers around his wrist, dragging him as he leads the way. And he can hear Kyungsoo's voice beyond the door, saying, "I'm ready, hyung."

Baekhyun gulps hard and takes a deep breath. He takes a step forward, and then another, and another. He doesn't look back.

≋ ≋ ≋

He bolts from bed with a violent jerk of the body. There's the makings of sweat on his forehead, but it's cold enough for him to not wake up a sweaty mess. He blinks a few times, then, focusing and refocusing his vision, before feeling around for his phone. What greets him, though, is a sticky note tacked to it, one that says, I'm willing to listen when you're done being an asshole.

He feels his eyebrows twitch, on impulse and involuntary. The handwriting is so familiar that it almost makes his insides turn. It's familiar enough to trigger stimulus – he gets out of bed, rushes down the stairs, bolts out the door, all while holding his breath and trying to rub the sleep out of his eye.

He looks at the sticky note in his hand, then at the scene in front of him. Sokcho-si is covered in a thick blanket of white and if he takes a step forward, deeper into the snow and farther away from home, he'll only regret it. But there's only one way to make sure if the Do household is already empty, and that's by running to Kyungsoo's house. His best record is seven minutes, with tears threatening to fall from his eyes the moment he found out about his mother's affair; the worst is twenty long minutes, a break from studying for Sooneung, with Kyungsoo beside him and telling him, "This shit we're studying for better be worth it."

"They… left fifteen minutes ago," comes a voice over his shoulder. Baekhyun turns around, his neck cracking a little. Baekbeom greets him with lips pressed together, one corner tugged down and the other corner still caught in the crossfire between a smile and a frown. It almost looks wistful, it's stupid. But then it's only seven in the morning. It's too early to be thinking of anything, to be making sense of things. It's too early to try and interpret this quirk of the lip. So instead, he huffs and blows at his bangs. He shivers when he feels he feels snow on his feet and the winter winds tousling his hair.

"Fifteen minutes ago?" he asks.

Baekbeom gulps hard. Laughs, like he's been caught red-handed or maybe he's just realized that fresh trail tracks on the snow won't ever spell 'they left fifteen minutes ago.' "Five," Baekbeom confesses. "And Kyungsoo's right – this will come in handy."

Baekbeom moves closer, just one step forward, as he drapes something on Baekhyun's shoulder. It's soft, almost tickling when the material finds a snug fit around Baekhyun's neck. He casts a glance at it, then, and finds a yellow jacket on his shoulder, knit and smelling of strawberry and mint. He laughs, and at the same time that he does his throat tightens again the way that it had yesterday, in Kyungsoo's house.

"To match the… scarf and the bonnet," Baekbeom continues. "That's what he said, at least."

But those are aqua, Baekhyun wants to say, but his body gets the better of him. His stomach turns and his chest constricts and he feels his eyebrows twitch. And he clenches his fists. He clenches them and the material slides down as if saying, 'you have to try harder if you want to get rid of me. Come on, Baekhyun, try harder–'

"Did he, really?" he asks.

Baekbeom nods. He says nothing for a while, the only sound around them being that of the waves and the blowing winds. Two hiccups, and then, "Gamja ongsimi?"

Baekhyun looks up at him and offers a weak smile in response. Baekbeom's shit at cooking, but Baekhyun will take anything over not eating. His chest feels hollow enough; he doesn't need to hollow out his stomach all the more. So he waits – for Baekbeom to finish cooking, for the winter winds to stop blowing. For Kyungsoo to knock on his door and maybe say, "You didn't take that seriously, did you? Come on…" He waits until the soup comes to a boil, then a simmer, until he can take a whiff of the it and let the scent fill his sense.

Half of him still feels bereft. So he takes a sip of the soup, and another, and another, until he can feel warmth crawl under his skin and wrap around his throat. He looks out the window and finds nothing but the expanse of snow, no sign of a familiar figure heading to his house at this hour, no small foot prints on the sand.

Let it go, he tells himself. Let him go. Still, he balls his hands into fists on his thighs as he swallows his food, the soft knitted jacket crumbling under pressure. He lets the subtle scent of strawberry and mint fill his nostrils. He holds onto it like a lifeline.

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