Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

1.

 Everyone has a dark web.

Like Taeyung said, a visible tip of an iceberg, and underneath it, a bottomless abyss. Everyone carries that kind of darkness. Hong Woojin simply had a little more of it than most. Well, to begin with, his first dark web was his childhood.

His father, a bronze medalist in boxing, was a strict man. It would've been fine if strict were all he was. He had high expectations for young Woojin, the boy had his father's long limbs, his broad shoulders. As a kid, Woojin had been sensitive and soft, surprisingly. Liked drawing. Liked novels. Then one day, when he was in sixth grade and still soft in ways boys weren't allowed to be, his father threw him a pair of gloves and hauled him straight into the ring. He'd been hit by those gloves before. There's nothing weird about it. But that was the first time he'd ever worn them. Woojin put them on without a word. The sound of his father knocking his gloves together was sharp as a blade.

 "Guard up."

At those two words, Hong Woojin raised his hands the way he'd seen his father do, covering his face. That was the beginning.

 Naturally, Hong Woojin found himself on the path of boxing, and he can't say he regrets it. He had the talent for it. Enough that he stopped even glancing at things like drawing and books and to be fair, he genuinely enjoyed it. It was the first time he'd ever been exceptional at something. More than that, it was the first time he'd ever seen that pleased look on his father's face. The man who usually scolded him for being sensitive, noisy and frivolous. Maybe this is something I can do well. Maybe this will finally make me enough. So Hong Woojin threw himself in even harder.

In truth, his father hadn't pushed him into boxing just to carry on the family trade. There was another reason: young Hong Woojin was timid. Shocking, right? Back then, introversion was treated like something wrong, something that needed to be fixed. Nobody was stopping to consider that saying so only grounds a child's self-worth deeper into the dirt. Woojin's timidity wasn't mild. It was deep-rooted, stubborn. When anxiety touched him, even lightly, he'd start bouncing his leg, biting his nails, knocking his teeth together. He could run his mouth all day in front of his mother, but in front of strangers, he'd clamp up like a mute, and that was what his father hated the most. Didn't like him loud. Didn't like him quiet either. What the fuck is he supposed to do then? If Woojin so much as hid behind his mother, his father would shout and drag him forward. Or rather not drag. Maybe Discipline? Though discipline is too clean a word. More accurate to say: he put on gloves and hit the shit out of him. Wasn't fighting in the ring enough? There was no reason to spar with his own small son outside of the ring. Not too surprisingly, that discipline turned into poison. Woojin had already been a scattered kid, nervous by nature, easily frightened. His father's repeated violence and his repeated discipline finally taught him to shut his mouth entirely.

 He could talk and laugh fine at school, but if a teacher who had it out for him decided to put him on the spot, making him stand up and present in front of the class, his mouth would lock shut, and not one word would come out. No matter how hard he wanted to open it. No matter how desperately he wanted his throat to move. Nothing. Same with his father. If Woojin got into some small trouble and came home to his father demanding an explanation, he couldn't explain. Couldn't defend himself. His mind either went completely blank or completely full, his throat sealed itself shut, his lips pressed together like they'd been stitched, and nothing came out. Every time.

And every authority figure, fathers, teachers, men like that, always said the same thing when faced with a child cornered into silence. "What, you talking back to me right now?" Sir, could you not have seen me not talking? Like they couldn't see he was terrified. Like they'd gone blind. All of them, the same thing, day after day. Then they'd roll up their sleeves. Take off their watches. His heart would pound like mad. His throat would flutter. The more cornered he became, the tighter it closed. He couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Nobody understood those symptoms back then. He was just a strange kid. A brat. A coward. That was Hong Woojin. His father, in particular, liked the coward explanation. Why he shoved him into boxing in the first place was to fix that timid streak. As his father put it, it was already bad enough that the boy sat around like a girl, drawing pictures and reading alone in his room.

 Boxing didn't open Hong Woojin's mouth.

His mouth worked fine in ordinary times. Boxing just gave him something to use instead of words when it didn't. A fist, in place of a voice. And that turned out to be pretty useful.

Not long after starting middle school, some high school seniors grabbed him off the street and threw him into an alley. Up until then, Woojin had been the kind of kid who got hit sometimes, had his lunch money taken, got pushed around.

"You the one? The Guppy?"

What a lame nickname, he remembered thinking. Fucking uncool. All because he couldn't answer when a teacher called on him - apparently that was interesting enough to become gossip. The seniors who were twice his size, crowded around until they blocked out what little sunlight reached the alley, and the fact that fear was making his mouth shut again only pissed him off more. At this rate I'm just proving that I am the guppy. Even thinking that, his eyes shrank, his heart raced, his hands trembled, and his lips opened and closed soundlessly like a fish.

"Guess it is," one of them snickered. He shoved his hands into Woojin's school jacket, yanked out his wallet, pulled out the some money his mother had given him, then dumped his bag out on the pavement and asked if there was anything else. By then, Woojin was genuinely angry. There had to be a limit.

"Hey. I said, anything else?"

The senior swore and slapped his cheek a few times. Woojin glared back instead of flinching, and the senior laughed in disbelief, rolling his neck to the side. Then came the gesture. Rolling up his sleeves. Taking off his watch. Without thinking, Woojin's eyes fixed on the senior's ribs as his arm came up. The spot where fabric, skin, and bone pressed close together, there was nothing much to protect it. A weak point in boxing. An opening. And once he saw it, he couldn't not hit it. So he did. Fast and hard. His fist slammed into the boy's side and snapped back. The senior dropped to his knees before he could even cry out. Woojing was thinking, Oh. This is getting interesting.

"You fucker!"

The others shouted and charged. Woojin wanted to shout out, What! But the words wouldn't come. His eyes, though, could see every opening perfectly. And Woojin was too fast to let those slow, stupid punches land, so he moved. His small body darted between them, quick and light, fists flashing. They didn't go down like leaves in a storm, but one by one they crumpled, managing to land maybe a few glancing hits. "Ow, what the hell—" He watched them tear up and rub at the spots he'd hit. He dusted off his fists, dusted off his clothes, bent down to pick up his bag. "You're dead!" One of them shouted at his back. He wanted to say, "Whatever!" But his lips twitched uselessly, so he said nothing. Just slung his bag over his shoulder and walked away. Then, without meaning to, Woojin smiled to himself.

That was the first time he realized that he was stronger than he thought.

And that if he didn't want anyone to notice he couldn't speak, all he had to do was use his fists instead.

2.

 Not that his childhood had been as satisfying and exhilarating as that.

He lived among blood and bruises. Some from sparring. Some from street fights. Some from his father, inside their own home. In all of those situations, Woojin's mouth still fluttered open and shut from time to time, but fortunately, as the years passed, the symptoms slowly faded. When he was under real stress, he either threw a punch or removed himself from the situation entirely. As he got older, he came to understand that walking away was usually a much better choice than swinging first.

They'd probably call that avoidant behavior these days. Woojin wasn't exactly an avoidant person, but he avoided things often. If a situation looked like it was heading somewhere stressful, he'd just leave. If something seemed likely to turn into a fight, he'd rather step away. Once in a great while, truly once in a while, his temper got the better of him, and he'd do something reckless enough to make everything worse, but in his own way, Hong Woojin was a man who preferred peace.

 In any case, the deepest abyss in Hong Woojin was that Guppy period. His first dark web. But lately, as if a black hole opened just once and began swallowing everything in sight, as if an iceberg was melting and the water it shed slowly consumed the whole world, his dark web had started to grow. Spreading until it was large enough to eat through even the bright, ordinary surface of his life.

What does that mean?

It means,

the Guppy had come back.

3. 

Guppy, why did you come back?

4.

 The Guppy's grand comeback happened three months after Baekjeong and his little crowd of evil had finally exited the stage for a while.

Woojin's life was slowly returning to something like normal. The house was quiet. Warm. It smelled like food. And most importantly, Kim Gunwoo, his eternal brother, his closest friend, was safe. So was Gunwoo's mother, who had somewhere along the way become a second mother to Woojin. The broken windows were fixed. The CCTVs worked perfectly again. Everything else had been restored, but the problem was that the hearts of the people living inside that restored house hadn't.

 Kim Gunwoo was, in every sense that mattered, special to Hong Woojin.

Before Gunwoo, Woojin couldn't have honestly claimed he'd been a good person. He'd been decent, maybe - but he hadn't lived a good life. There had been periods when he'd walked a road not so different from the kind of men who had wrecked his life and taken the people he loved from him. There had always been a dark web crawling through the deep places of his heart. But Kim Gunwoo was a sun bright enough to blot it out. That boxing kid, so kind and pure it felt almost unreal, sunlight given human shape, had led Woojin back toward the right path. Had overturned his life from the roots. Had become a place for him to settle when he was estranged from his parents and drifting without real friends or anywhere to belong. Hong Woojin could do anything for Kim Gunwoo and his mother. Because they were everything to him. Because somehow, in only five years, that's what they had become.

And because they were so precious, so sun-like, it was agony to watch them begin to grow dark webs of their own. They'd survived the first ordeal. Then came the second, and after that they began to change, slowly, visibly. Watching it happen hurt more than he could stand. Their sun-bright hearts were being damaged piece by piece. Gunwoo had nightmares. His mother couldn't sleep well. And all the while Woojin kept thinking the same thing: If only I'd been a little stronger. He'd become Gunwoo's coach for their sake. He does not regret it for a second. Woojin knew he'd never become the strongest in the world, but Gunwoo truly could. He never regretted that choice. But he hated that he couldn't fight beside Gunwoo. Hated that he'd failed to protect his mother. Hated that his own weakness had handed his beloved people a dark web that would never fully disappear.

So he worked hard. Not just coaching, but training too. Gunwoo did the same. If more evil came for them, then next time no one would get hurt. No one would be lost. They'd get stronger for that day. Gunwoo helped him through it all. But, infuriatingly and heartbreakingly, his body wouldn't cooperate. Woojin was still weak. The wounds on his hands had healed, and the scar on his abdomen had faded a great deal, but the body remembers hits, and the body remembers time. When they trained together, Gunwoo would already be far ahead while Woojin fell behind. He'd stand there staring at Gunwoo's back, fighting down the tightness in his ribs, tasting blood, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth, and in those moments his father's voice would find its way back to him. Weak little bastard. He could hear the sound of sleeves rolling up. A watch being taken off. No, Father. I'm strong now. And with that, Woojin would beat the punching bag until his arms shook. I'm not weak anymore. He'd run up the hill until he couldn't. And still, he was always the one standing behind Gunwoo. He can't stop thinking about it. Their mom was taken away. Woojin was the one who collapsed. And Gunwoo had to protect his weak older brother. Weak little bastard.

 "Hyung, are you okay?"

At Gunwoo's voice, Woojin jerked his head up. He didn't even know how long he'd been lost in thought. When he turned, Gunwoo stood there in training sweat, watching him with open concern. Woojin dropped his gaze to his hand. The bandages around his fist. A bead of sweat slips from his hair and drops onto the white wrap. Act natural. Don't make him worry. So Woojin did what he always did. He folded the corners of his eyes, pulled his mouth into a wide, easy grin, and answered.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

At that smile, Gunwoo grinned too - wide, simple, and real. Gunwoo had always been like that. Woojin smiled, he smiled. Woojin cried, he cried. So in front of Gunwoo, Woojin had to smile. He couldn't stand to make Gunwoo cry.

They finished training and went home. While Woojin showered, Gunwoo helped his mother set the table. While Gunwoo washed up, Woojin finished laying out the dishes. "Come on, let's eat." When his mother lifted the lid off the stew with that bright smile of hers, both of them answered the way they always did: "Thank you for the meal!" and picked up their spoons. This was their daily life. Warm. Gentle. The rice vanished in an instant. The rolled omelet was demolished. The stew was scraped nearly clean. Afterward, they sat together in the living room, watching TV, chatting about nothing and everything, and when his mother went to bed first, Gunwoo and Woojin cleaned up quickly and headed upstairs too. Before sleep, they always talked. Sometimes about nothing. Sometimes about everything. Woojin would sprawl out on the lower bunk and chatter without stopping while Gunwoo sat next to him, perched on the edge, or crouched small, smiling back at him. Yeah? Really? Ordinary responses, but Gunwoo always meant them. Eyes bright. Nodding. Clapping once. Frowning in outrage at exactly the right moments. And the conversation would keep going even after Gunwoo climbed up to the top bunk. That was their life. Usually Woojin fell asleep first, but sometimes Gunwoo beat him to it. Tonight was one of those nights. Woojin blinked up at the ceiling, lying on his back. It was, without question, the life he loved most in the world. A day that could not have been better.

And still something felt wrong. His heart was pounding. His throat fluttered. His fist flexed, over and over. What's the problem? he asked himself. Gunwoo is safe. Mom is safe. Their lives have gone back to normal. He tugged at the collar of his shirt because all of a sudden he forgot how to breathe. He rolled to one side, then the other. But once the thoughts started, they wouldn't stop. Gloves. Sparring. Kim Myunggil. Hospital. Baekjeong. Fists. Ring. Mom. Kang Inbeom. There was noise in his ears, he couldn't tell what kind. Maybe whispering. Maybe a roaring crowd. Maybe his father shouting. Father. Watch. Dark web. Knife. Screams. Pain. Blood. Fists. Kim Gunwoo. Guppy.

What's the problem?

Hong Woojin was fucking weak. A coward.

He was the goddamn problem, fuck.

 But don't worry. I, Hong Woojin was very, very used to crying without a sound.

His family was safe. Their lives were peaceful. And still Hong Woojin hated Hong Woojin with a ferocity that made him sick. That was his second dark web. Hong Woojin, who liked people easily enough, had only one person he truly despised: himself. Hong Woojin only knew how to exist through fighting. So what was a Hong Woojin who couldn't fight, couldn't box, couldn't protect his family? The only being in the world he sincerely wished would just disappear was himself, and that was a bit of a problem.

The self-loathing bursting up from his chest came out not as curses but as tears, slipping past his temples to soak into the pillowcase. Don't cry, for fuck's sake. You're a boxer. No matter how many times he shouted it inwardly, the tears kept leaking out like he was a child again. Weak bastard. Stop crying. He pressed his lips together and covered his eyes with his fist, breathing hard. He was terrified Gunwoo might notice. Because when Hong Woojin cried, Kim Gunwoo cried too. And anyone who made Kim Gunwoo cry was an asshole. Hong Woojin could be a little bastard. but he had no wish of being an asshole. He pulled the blanket over himself and took another shaky breath. Times like this, sharing a room felt profoundly unfair. Woojin squeezed his eyes shut, clamped his mouth shut, and started counting. Dark web, please go back to being dark. I want to stay above the iceberg.

Woojin begged.

And begged again.

5.

 Morning came sooner than expected.

The night had surely been long, but he didn't remember much of it, which was lucky. Days like that happened sometimes. Even Hong Woojin, the invincible marine southpaw, can't be all bright and witty every single day. The morning light was dazzling. The room, as any room lived in by two grown men tends to be, was a little stuffy. The sheets were damp. Wait. The light was too bright. And Woojin and Gunwoo usually went for a run at dawn. His eyes snapped open. He leaned out of bed and looked up at the top bunk. Gunwoo's spot was already empty. He must have seen how deeply Woojin was sleeping and left him there. Under normal circumstances, he would've woken him. He must have looked completely wrecked.

 Woojin sat up, raking a hand through his messy bed hair and rubbing at his swollen eyes. The memory of crying the night before was already dim, and all he could really feel was hunger. Being a bit stupid had its uses sometimes. He was sitting there blankly, shaking off sleep, when footsteps came down the hallway and the door opened. Gunwoo walked in, toweling the sweat from his neck. His black hair hung just above his brows. His face, still young in certain ways, had picked up enough time to look solid now, dependable, like a real young man. Under his black T-shirt, his body was wide and thick. To other people, there might have been something intimidating about him. But the moment he saw Woojin sitting on the bed, all of that softened. Those long, slanted eyes - catlike at rest,  curved shut as he smiled like a puppy.

 "Hyung, you're up. Sleep okay?"

This is why Kim Gunwoo was Hong Woojin's sunlight. Just looking at him made something in his chest go warm. Feeling that warmth loosen something inside him, Woojin smiled back without thinking. He opened his mouth."Yeah. You?" That was what he should have said, softly, easily. Because that was who Kim Gunwoo and Hong Woojin were.

But his mouth didn't open. No, that wasn't right. His mouth opened. But nothing came out.

He forced his throat, but all that came out was a faint exhale - air moving in and out and nothing more. What the fuck? As Woojin's lips moved without sound, Gunwoo's expression hardened instantly. Ah. Shit. Five years of knowing Hong Woojin up close had taught Kim Gunwoo, dimly, that Woojin carried a dark web where less than half of it ever reached the surface. Because of that, Gunwoo had developed the habit of worrying and hovering close any time Woojin seemed off or low. He was doing it again now.

 "Hyung, what's wrong?"

Carefully, Gunwoo set the towel down and bent forward, placing a hand on Woojin's shoulder. That heavy, solid hand closed around him, but instead of easing anything, it only made his throat tighten further, as if it were strangling itself from the inside. At this rate he felt like he'd stop breathing entirely. Woojin shot to his feet before he could think. Smile. Smile. The way he always did, eyes folded warm at the corners, mouth pulled up wide and easy. Like nothing was wrong. He gave Gunwoo's shoulder a light slap, brushed past him, and slipped into the bathroom. He could feel Gunwoo's eyes on his back, but first things first. This was bad. Get away. Run.

Woojin shut the door hard and stood in front of the sink. The Hong Woojin in the mirror had hair sticking out in every direction and eyes swollen almost shut. Ridiculous enough already. Watching his lips open and close like a fish's made it worse. No way. Fear began to rise slowly inside him. He was suddenly afraid that if he tried again, nothing would come out, and that fear itself made him hesitate. His lips moved without purpose for several seconds before he finally forced his throat open and tried a small sound. "Ah-" Thankfully, a rough, sleep-scraped voice slipped out. He heard that voice every day, but it felt absurdly precious right now. Woojin let his rigid posture collapse and shut his eyes, breathing out long and slow. He must just be tired. He'd cried too much last night. That was probably why his throat was hoarse. He met his own gaze in the mirror for a brief moment, then looked away. He didn't want to examine himself any more closely than necessary. He splashed water on his face, then forced the corners of his mouth upward again. It's fine. Really, it's nothing. Nothing is going to happen. Wearing that smile, he opened the door and stepped out.

Downstairs, he could already smell soup simmering. Eggs frying. Gunwoo was setting down chopsticks and spoons at the table, and when his mother saw Woojin coming down the stairs, she looked up with a bright smile and called to him in that same gentle voice.

 "Good morning, Woojin. I made some stew today-"

Warm, as always. Kind. Those voices kept him alive. At that, Woojin should have answered brightly "I love your stew, mom!" and headed to the table. The way he always did. But again, he couldn't. His lips parted to say it, and the sound never followed. Like someone had glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Like Kang Inbeom had wrapped a hand around his throat. So the thought he'd had in the bathroom had been wrong. Something is going to happen. It was not fine. Woojin froze for the briefest instant under his mother's gaze, then nodded hard as if everything were perfectly normal and went to sit down. Steam curled from the bowl of kimchi stew. The side dishes gleamed with the careful attention of his mother's hands. Fresh rice sat warm in its bowl. Gunwoo came to sit beside him naturally, and his mother took the seat across from them. She pushed the rolled omelet toward them. Woojin felt like he's gonna cry.

 "Woojin?"

 His mother set the ladle down mid-pour and looked at him. Gunwoo's mother, who had - before either of them really noticed-  become his mother too,  was as kind and gentle as her son. Her gaze was so warm it always reminded Woojin of his own parents. Or rather, of what he had never received from them. He'd felt that warmth from this family too many times over the last five years to mistake it for anything else.

 "Did you stay up late last night? You look tired."

Here, Hong Woojin was supposed to say: Couldn't sleep well. But I'm fine as always. Smiling, like every day. That was all it needed to be. Talking had always been one of the easiest things in Hong Woojin's life. Smiling had always been one of the things he did best. And yet again, everything caught. Woojin only blinked. He had the insane urge to pry open his own lips with his fingers. Hong Woojin could not become a burden in this house. He was already an outsider who'd inserted himself into the perfectly good life of a mother and her son. He couldn't force them to deal with this version of him too. The Guppy.

Only a few seconds had passed, but the air at the table had already shifted. Gunwoo stopped mid-motion, spoon hovering above the rice. His mother was staring at Woojin now too, that worried expression settling in. The eyes waiting for his answer were gentle and harmless and full of love. He knew that now, knew it too well. So they shouldn't have frightened him. But his heart began to pound wildly. A teacher asking a question. Young Hong Woojin not knowing the answer. The eyes of the whole class on him. His father's burning voice demanding he explain himself.

I'm not talking back. It's just that the words won't come out.

The child he had once been - the child who couldn't even defend himself because no sound would come - rose before his eyes again. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck.

Guppy. Please. Just go away.

Hong Woojin begged with everything he had. But his lips only opened and closed without sound, and no voice came. Fuck.

Chapter Text

6.

 The places where runaways hide always have that same smell of their own.

When faced with danger, animals instinctively hide in places that are remote, quiet, and dark. Humans are not much different from them. That is why places fit for hiding always smell faintly of mildew and damp decay, with dust drifting through the air to tickle the nose, layered with the scent of whatever had already claimed the place before you. A pool hall is no exception. The old dust ground into the carpet, the coffee residue stuck deep in the cracks of the floor tiles, the cigarette smell soaked into the old wallpaper, all of it mixed together. To people who have spent a long time hiding there, it would probably smell natural, maybe even comforting. To Woojin, who had come back to a pool hall for the first time in a very long while, it felt a little unpleasant. But not unfamiliar.

Woojin, too, was very used to a life of hiding and running away. Places like this, especially, did not drive out the people who slipped inside them. No one would pay you any attention, no one would ask where you came from or what you've been doing, no one even would give you the chance to pretend you are just fine like others. They simply would pass you cue sticks back and forth and kept their focus on the brightly colored balls rolling across the table. How convenient?

 So Woojin sat buried deep into the corner sofa beneath wallpaper whose once-gaudy pattern had blurred and stained with age. His long legs sprawled carelessly, and he spent his time doing nothing but fidgeting with the phone he had long since set to silent. New notifications kept rising on the screen, but Woojin did not dare look at the growing stack of messages. Gunwoo’s missed calls, which had come in like mad until that morning, had stopped, but his mother’s worried texts kept coming one after another. Ignoring messages from the kind woman who had taken in someone else’s son as if he were her own made him feel unbearably vile, but even so, he had no ability to tap the alert, check it, and reply. The moment he read them, he knew he would collapse and yearn to run straight back to their big, warm house. In the end, Woojin simply did not have the courage to go home. Yes. He did not have the courage to go back and become a burden beneath the worried gaze of the two people he loved most in the world.

 Right. Hong Woojin was a burden right now.

 On an ordinary afternoon, at an ordinary lunch table, how many minutes could it possibly have taken for the problem with the southpaw to become obvious when he suddenly could not force out a single word? Not even a few seconds. The moment Woojin said nothing, Gunwoo and his mother panicked. Are you sick, are you upset, are you hurt? Questions and worries piled endlessly one after another. Maybe it was genetic; both of them had those beautiful, wet eyes, shining with nothing but worry and affection as they looked at him. And Woojin could not answer either of them. This was not a figure of speech. He truly could not say a word. Unable to laugh, unable to cry, Woojin finally gave up and just kept stuffing food into his mouth, until at last he fled upstairs as if escaping. Even when he went into the bathroom and tried to force out sound, not even that small, low ah from earlier would come. That frightened him even more. Damn it. His first dark web had risen to the surface. The very shame he had wanted to keep hidden from the only two people who mattered was slowly revealing itself to them. While Woojin pounded desperately at his chest, straining his throat until tears filled his eyes, trying to wrench SOME sound out that would not come, he could hear his mother downstairs calling a doctor she knew and asking about his symptoms, while outside the bathroom door Gunwoo’s worried voice continued. Hyung, are you okay? The more Gunwoo asked, the more desperately Woojin wanted to answer him, and the more tightly his throat closed instead. It was not easy to resent Gunwoo. But right then, he did. Please, just be quiet for god's sake. Woojin covered his ears. He wanted to scream, if nothing else, but even that would not come, and it was enough to drive him insane.

 Following Taeyoung’s advice after Gunwoo called her, Gunwoo and their mother took Woojin to a psychiatric clinic. For people who had gone through all they had and still never once thought of getting therapy, going to a psychiatric hospital felt more serious than expected. For the first time, Woojin sat quietly in the back seat, being taken somewhere like a helpless child, his shoulders curved inward as he silently watched Gunwoo and their mother in the front seats. Gunwoo drove with a stiff expression, checking Woojin over and over in the rearview mirror, while his mother trembled with anxiety, searching one thing after another on her phone. It was not a good thing for Hong Woojin to keep becoming the dark web of both of them. It was so bad that he was passing his darkness onto them.

“It looks like traumatic mutism. It’s a condition where, after a shocking event or severe psychological stress, a person temporarily loses the ability to speak. Have you experienced anything similar recently?”

Gunwoo’s gaze, seated beside him, fixed itself on the right side of Woojin’s face. Woojin did not dare look back at him. In moments this serious, they always looked at each other first. Sometimes that gave them comfort. Sometimes it gave them strength. Sometimes it only deepened the worry and fear. But whatever the situation, the two of them always looked at each other first. That was the way Gunwoo and Woojin lived together. That was the way they got through things together. But not today. As far as Woojin was concerned, Gunwoo did not need to get through this with him. This was Woojin’s burden. Something Gunwoo did not even need to waste concern on. And so Woojin could not bring himself to meet Gunwoo’s worried gaze. He turned away to the very end, quietly took the pen the doctor handed him, and scribbled in the notebook in handwriting that was clumsier than usual.

 [A few months ago, there were a few days when I couldn’t really speak.]

 There had been a time when his mother was kidnapped because of him, and for days afterward, he had not been able to speak properly. He had gone to the hospital to see Gunwoo, cried weakly for hours in his younger man's broad arms, then passed out into sleep, and when he woke, all he could do was let tears stream down his face while that mouth that normally never stopped running did not even try to move. He felt guilty that he was here in his mother’s place, and every ordinary act of living, such as laughing, talking, eating, simply continuing on, felt revolting to the point of horror. He did not deserve to live. What value could the invincible southpaw Hong Woojin possibly have if he could not fight? If a man who had lived his entire life in the ring could not protect even one precious person, and instead had to crawl around uselessly and become someone else’s burden, what value could that person possibly have? Wrapped in that vile self-loathing, Woojin remained locked inside his own head, abusing Hong Woojin over and over until Gunwoo was discharged and they returned home. He replayed his fight with Kang Inbeom again and again, and every time Inbeom hit him, Woojin cheered. Yes. That’s right. Every time his father’s gloves came down across his back, he felt relieved. Weak bastard. Maybe that was where he belonged. A person without the right to exist.

 Kim Gunwoo did not know these deranged thoughts of Hong Woojin’s. If he saw the horrible things being committed inside Woojin’s head, maybe even sun-bright Kim Gunwoo would run away, unwilling to be contaminated, unwilling to get filth on himself. Fortunately, those terrible thoughts never leaked out thanks to Woojin’s tightly sealed lips and frozen expression, and then Mina, Yoon Taegeom’s daughter, came to visit their house, and somehow Woojin naturally began speaking again. Perhaps the child’s pure affection and embrace had silenced the noise in his head. After that, as everyone already knew, life moved on, and that incident passed naturally. At the time, his head had been too full, and he had been too overwhelmed to spare even a fragment of thought for his self-loathing or depression. But now, looking back, it seemed the Guppy had already been warning of its return even then.

“And before that? You’ve never experienced anything similar?”

At the doctor’s next question, Woojin hesitated, then let his eyes slide sideways and glanced at Gunwoo beside him. Gunwoo was staring at nothing but Woojin’s face, without the slightest movement. Stubborn bastard. Solid bastard. Sometimes Woojin resented him. Standing next to Gunwoo had a way of making him feel small. It was not that he begrudged the place of the friend beside the protagonist, but neither was it unnatural for a friend to feel jealousy or admiration toward the protagonist. Woojin loved Gunwoo just as deeply, even though Gunwoo loved him without a single twist in his heart, but it was exhausting always showing only the surface of the iceberg. Trying to exist truthfully in front of someone you never wanted to show the underside to was tiring. Tap, tap. Woojin had been anxiously tapping the end of the pen against the notepad, but at last he tightened his grip. Showing what lay below the iceberg was too humiliating.

[I had selective mutism as a child.]

That was what his ugly handwriting wrote. “I see,” the doctor said, and continued his explanation. Woojin knew. He knew Gunwoo was staring fixedly at his handwriting. He knew too well how much worry and affection must be packed into that gaze. So Woojin never once turned to look at him. If he met that gaze, it would feel as though the truth, that the problem in this house was entirely Hong Woojin, would be exposed to the whole world. And if that happened, it felt as though Gunwoo and their mother would cut Hong Woojin out like one cuts away a sprout of evil, drive him from the house, and cast him out of their lives. So Hong Woojin avoided Kim Gunwoo’s eyes. Selfishly, because he wanted to remain by their side a little longer.

7.

 That had been three days ago. Unable to bear a whole day of Gunwoo and their mother’s loving, worried glances even after they returned home from the hospital, Woojin slipped out of the house before dawn as if fleeing. Wasn’t it absurdly contradictory? That he wanted to remain by their side, and yet chose to run from their side. His chronic habit of avoidance had returned. He had no right to receive Gunwoo and his mother’s concern, he did not want to pass his darkness onto them, and yet he also had no confidence he could survive them cutting him off, so Hong Woojin simply chose to run and hide. A postponement of choice and consequence. Fortunately, unlike Gunwoo, who could count his close acquaintances on one hand, Woojin had lived all his life noisily before meeting Gunwoo and had more than enough people he knew. When he sent messages to random names in his contacts, they all replied warmly, and so for the past two days, he had been eating, sleeping, and loafing around in the cramped, filthy sofa of a pool hall on the outskirts of Seoul run by an older guy he knew. There was a sauna upstairs and a Chinese restaurant on the first floor; there could hardly have been a better place to hide.

 “If you’re not even gonna play, why’d you come here?”

At the older man’s question, Woojin only shrugged as if to say he did not know either. The man, who had found Woojin’s text declaring he was in silent retreat ridiculous but had accepted it anyway, let out a disbelieving laugh and hurried back to the counter to greet a customer who had just come in with the little jingle of the door. Ha. Letting out a shallow sigh, Woojin slowly leaned back until his whole body rested against the sofa, then blinked up at the ceiling.

Running away and hiding were not unfamiliar concepts to Woojin.

 His childhood escapes had always taken the same shape. The dull sound of sleeves being rolled up, a watch being removed and set down somewhere, and after that, the world seemed to go distant. To Woojin’s ears, the sounds before the beating always lasted longer than the beating itself. The approach of violence was more terrifying than the violence itself, and once the violence truly began, enduring it was easier. Woojin had always had a high tolerance for pain. Or maybe not. Maybe tolerance for pain is something that gets trained into you. If so, his had been trained thoroughly from childhood onward. From the moment his father’s heavy metal watch clunked down onto the glass table, Woojin knew exactly where he would be hit, how many times, what medicine his mother would put on afterward, and what she would say as she did. “Explain yourself.” He knew he would not be able to answer. He knew that wordless answer would only make his father angrier. Why are you ignoring me when I’m talking? Are you rebelling against me right now? At some point Woojin had begun escaping inside his own head, because he already knew there was no use wanting to explain himself, no use feeling wronged, when explanation itself was not possible.

The first time he truly ran outside instead of only inside his own head was on a rainy day. Sometimes his father wore gloves when he hit him, and sometimes he did not; Woojin generally preferred the days with gloves. At least then it was masquerading as a boxer’s discipline, and the dull throbbing ache was far better than the sharpness of a bare strike. After Woojin started boxing, his father did not even bother restricting the blows to places hidden beneath clothes. Even if Woojin showed up with bruises on his face or a split lip, everyone just laughed and said he ought to go easier in sparring. That did not benefit Woojin.

That day his father wore no gloves, was in a very bad mood, and beneath the buzzing fluorescent light the blows simply kept coming. He endured it for a long time, running away inside his head, but reality kept dragging him back. By then, in high school, Woojin was already known at school as a fighter, to teachers as a delinquent, in the neighborhood as a thug. He never picked fights first in any of those places, but apparently it was easier for people to misunderstand his fists, his words, and his silence than to understand him. Because of that, a Woojin already thoroughly seasoned in fighting knew very well that the only reason he was simply taking his father’s blows was because he himself was choosing to. If he truly wanted to fight back, he had more than enough ability. No matter that his father had been a bronze medalist, he was past forty. A young high school boxer in his prime could have beaten him if he really tried. But like one of Pavlov’s dogs, Hong Woojin’s body only curled inward, blocking and softening the rain of blows, while his frightened limbs had no strength left in them. A perfectly trained dog. A beast that trembled at the sight of a club.

No. I’m not weak, Woojin muttered. Fuck, I can’t do this anymore. Curled up with his arms shielding his face, he suddenly lurched to his feet, kicked his father in the shin, and scrambled away on the floor. “You little shit!” his father roared like thunder, clutching his shin, and Woojin somehow forced strength back into his unsteady legs and hauled himself upright. Gulping in ruined breaths, he bolted from the room. His mother, who had been waiting in the living room, sprang up and called his name in a wet, shaking voice, but Woojin did not look back once. He flung open the front door and ran from the house, escaping his father who came after him. He kept running even when his breath was ragged at the edge of his throat, even when his struck ribs and cheek throbbed, and only after a long time did he finally stop, finding himself standing in the loud, brightly moving street in the middle of winter wearing nothing but a thin short-sleeved shirt and shorts.

With nowhere to go, Woojin spent the night crouched beneath the playground slide until late. He waited all night for his mother to come looking for him, but no one came, and at dawn he returned home on his own. Fortunately, whether his father had admitted to himself he had gone too far or simply calmed down in the meantime, he did not finish the violence he had left unfinished, and Woojin was able to wash up and go to school. Running away was perhaps an excellent option.

After that, instead of going home, Woojin spent nights at the gym with his duffel bag for a pillow, crouched beside a vending machine in front of a closed stationery store smoking through pack after pack of cigarettes which he had quit now, and leaned with his back to the cement wall behind a church storage shed, kicking stones until the sun went down. Outside was always cold, his clothes were never enough, and some part of his body was always rattling loose, but still, outside was better than inside the house. At least no one followed him there demanding explanations, demanding answers. When he was alone, no one asked him, “Are you okay?” And then, at last, the throat that had been fluttering like mad slowly began to loosen. Running away, hiding, waiting, those became his own way of driving the Guppy out.

And then he met Gunwoo, and he liked thinking that the Hong Woojin of childhood had come back, all except for the Guppy.

A kind and sensitive Hong Woojin, but also a loud, mischievous one. It was almost like the completed form of the iceberg above the surface. The perfect older brother for Gunwoo. When Woojin joked, Gunwoo laughed louder than anyone. When Woojin smiled, Gunwoo always smiled with him. When Woojin lost his temper, Gunwoo never knew quite what to do, but still gathered him in. He purified Woojin’s ugliness and maximized his goodness. Beside Gunwoo, Woojin did not want to run away the way he once had. His sharper temper probably came from that desire. Fighting more, cursing more, throwing his body in harder. It was not just older-brother pride or bravado. To Woojin, it was a kind of vow. No. I’m not weak. I’m not that childhood Hong Woojin, some kid beaten like a dog, some boy running away in ruins, some beast hiding in the dark. I’m Kim Gunwoo’s damn dependable hyung. I’m going to protect the people precious to me, just like Kim Gunwoo does. So I have to become stronger too.

And yet, in the end, look what happened.

The one who got hurt was Hong Woojin. The one who ran was Hong Woojin. The one who hid was, once again, Hong Woojin.

8.

 Woojin closed the eyes that had been fixed on the ceiling and simply laid a hand over them, blotting out his vision. Pathetic bastard. Almost two decades had passed, and Hong Woojin had not improved one bit. Fucking bastard.

 Then the little bell above the pool hall door gave a faint jingle. Sitting on the sofa directly across from the entrance, Woojin did not lower the hand covering his eyes. He did not need to look to know. That footstep was too familiar. The heavy weight pressing into the floor, the sound of sneaker soles scraping against tile, the rhythm of someone striding in without hesitation and then turning careful only in the final few steps. It was Kim Gunwoo. Woojin could tell from the sound alone. Even with his vision blocked by his hand, he could feel the light of the fluorescent lamps dim as the person standing before him cut it off. I told you earlier, didn’t I? The moment violence approaches is more terrifying than violence itself. This moment terrified him. Woojin had never once seen Kim Gunwoo angry at him. That was one of his greatest achievements. The people around him had always found him irritating as hell. Lasting five whole years without making Gunwoo angry had to be a tremendous success. Had he failed now? Was Kim Gunwoo finally angry with him? What would he say about all this?

Contrary to Woojin’s expectation as he lay there waiting for Gunwoo to speak, Gunwoo said nothing. He stood there for a long time simply looking at Woojin, then moved carefully and sat down beside him. Instead of pressing close like usual, he awkwardly folded his large body onto the very edge of the sofa. That clumsy attempt not to crowd him was so thoroughly Kim Gunwoo that it was almost funny. He sat there all scrunched up, making no movement and no sound except for the faint rustle of his jacket, until at last Woojin gave up first. Slowly he lowered the arm that had covered his eyes and rolled his head to the side.

Gunwoo was not looking at him. Wearing that familiar jacket, he sat upright facing forward, his expression as mild as a puppy’s. He looked as though he were afraid Woojin might be angry. Just as Woojin had been waiting for Gunwoo to speak, Gunwoo too was waiting for Woojin to speak. The two of them worried over each other, each waiting only for the other to get angry. What the hell are we doing? The thought made a small laugh slip out of him. Woojin laced his hands together and rubbed the broad edge of his thumbnail, forcing down the corners of his mouth before turning his gaze back to Gunwoo. Gunwoo’s foot was moving anxiously up and down. His clasped hands, resting on his knees, would not stay still. Woojin hated seeing Gunwoo anxious. Kim Gunwoo deserved nothing but happiness.

Woojin stared at Gunwoo’s hands for a moment, then slowly stretched one of his own out and laid it on the sofa between them, palm turned upward. At that small movement, Gunwoo glanced over, then simply stared at Woojin’s long hand resting on the sofa. Suddenly self-conscious, Woojin turned his gaze away toward the pool tables. None of the people playing were looking in their direction, but it felt as though the air flowed only over the sofa where they sat. Other sounds went quiet, other scents faded, and only each other remained.

Soon Gunwoo’s hand came down slowly over Woojin’s. Woojin drew in a slow breath, then let it out again just as slowly. Their callused hands fit together loosely, rough and almost absurd, but the warmth of one did comfort the other. They could not exchange words, but perhaps it was a mercy that they were the sort of people who understood each other without them. I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I made you run. Thank you for finding me. Thank you for coming back. If Woojin had not been the Guppy, perhaps those were the things they would have said aloud.

Feeling the warmth covering his hand, Woo-jin looked at Gunwoo. Gunwoo’s dark brows were drawn down, his lips pressed tightly shut, and the brown eyes beneath those cat-stretched lids glistened with moisture. He looked exhausted, as though he had spent days searching for him, but he did not look angry. He looked hurt, relieved, grateful, all at once. Hong Woojin was a bastard. He had made Kim Gunwoo cry again.

As Gunwoo’s eyes began to turn wet, Woojin instinctively tugged up the corners of his mouth. His naturally upturned lips stretched wide to the side, and the drooping corners of his eyes curved downward until they seemed almost to touch that smile. Let’s go back. That was what Woojin wanted to say. Fortunately, it seemed Gunwoo understood. When Woojin cried, Gunwoo cried. When Woojin smiled, Gunwoo smiled. Gunwoo’s face loosened; the faintest smile touched his mouth, and his brows returned a little closer to their usual angle.

The two of them sat there holding hands for a long while, and then at last slowly let go and rose to their feet.

Your short runaway is over, Guppy. We're going home.

Chapter Text

9.

Even if a person loses their voice, life goes on.

Several weeks had already passed since the mouth of Hong Woojin - the noisy little trickster who could never stop talking - had shut like a locked safe. Contrary to Woojin’s fears, he remained Hong Woojin even without a voice, despite how he had been more afraid than death itself of his dark web rising to the surface. In other words, their house was still his house. Towels hung out in the sun still came back smelling of sunlight, light still filtered through the soft white curtains and stretched long across the floor, and the rice his mother had set to cook still made its gentle sounds in the pot. Woojin sat in the middle of that house, which still smelled like its people even with his iceberg rising above the water. Thank God he was stupid. His prediction had been completely wrong. His abyss had not turned the house upside down in a single stroke, and no drastic scene had unfolded in which Gunwoo and his mother threw him out. Coming back had been the right choice. If he had spent his whole life doing nothing but running away, Woojin might never have known a day like this could exist.

Even so, there was still no sign of his voice returning. Sometimes, when he was alone and happened to stub his toes against the corner of a wall, an involuntary little ah- would burst out of him like a dying groan. But the moment he noticed and tried to make a sound again, nothing came but the hiss of air. It seemed sound came only unconsciously, never deliberately. The human mind is a curious thing. In the end, the darkness buried in the deepest part of his heart was always going to seep its way out.

In any case, Woojin still could not speak, and other things had taken their place. His phone’s notes app was now crammed full of short words standing in for conversation, and because even that annoyed him, a small whiteboard Gunwoo had procured from somewhere had slowly blackened under layers of marker ink and become his new way of communicating. I’m hungry. You? I’m okay. Want to work out? Thanks. Woojin had once been the sort of person who clung to Gunwoo and his mother and rattled on endlessly about all sorts of useless things, so there was something almost funny about the way his messages kept getting shorter and shorter simply because writing by hand was a pain.

Once it had shown itself, the dark web seemed to have no intention of sinking back beneath the surface, and after that Woojin often kept throwing himself into thought and pain. When he shared a room with Gunwoo, it felt as if Gunwoo would keep trying to drag him back out of it, so Woojin spent most of his time on the terrace instead. Whenever he stood out there staring up at the spring night sky, so lost in thought he did not even notice how cold the wind was on his skin, Gunwoo would always come find him, bend down quietly, and place a pair of slippers in front of his feet. Woojin would blink wide-eyed down at him, only then realizing he had been standing barefoot on the cold floor, and smile awkwardly before slipping into the huge slippers Gunwoo had brought. Even when he ruffled Gunwoo’s hair roughly - his way of saying thanks - Gunwoo would just press his lips together in that strange way that looked halfway between smiling and crying, and stand beside him in silence, looking up at the night sky with him. Strangely, those were the moments when Woojin found it hardest to tell what Gunwoo was thinking. Gunwoo was supposed to be his little brother, the one who always lay open before him like a sheet of blank paper. So what were you thinking now?

Aside from times like that, the house remained peaceful. Without Hong Woojin’s loud chatter and Gunwoo’s laughter, it had certainly grown quieter. But it was not the silence of a funeral house. Other things had simply taken the place of words. The glances they kept stealing toward one another. The careful little gestures of hands always looking after each other. The quiet breaths waiting while Woojin wrote something on the whiteboard. There were fewer questions in the house now, and fewer answers. For Woojin, that was actually a great relief. After enough repetitions of someone asking him something only for him to sit there blinking awkwardly before fumbling for the whiteboard or his phone, Gunwoo and his mother had begun choosing to communicate with him through their eyes instead of words. Even so, conversation still passed softly back and forth between Gunwoo and his mother, and so Woojin spent those days enjoying the given quietness without feeling too burdened by it.

10.

Today was a hospital day. Woojin sat half-reclined on the sofa, checking what time his appointment was. Ever since the stabbing, the hospital had become, after home and the boxing gym, the place he knew best. Strange, really. Familiarity had not made it comfortable, but at least it no longer felt like it would suffocate him the way it had the first time. He would go, write 'There still hasn’t been any improvement today, can I go now?' for the doctor to read, come home with a pile of medication that did not seem to help much, and that would be that.

In the kitchen, his mother was washing the dishes from breakfast. She had all but shoved him away when he waved his hands, trying to say he would do it, but even as she washed, she kept glancing back at him. Under normal circumstances, she would have gone with him to the hospital, but today, of all days, she had a group reservation at the café and could not go, and it clearly bothered her. Her head kept turning while she scrubbed at the dishes. Watching her do that, Woojin finally grabbed the whiteboard -which Mina, who had come to visit a few days ago, had even tied a long strap onto either side of it for him - and wrote with a practiced flick of the marker he pulled from his pocket: What am I, a kid? Don’t worry. He held it up exactly when she turned back again. Caught peeking, his mother jolted, but Woojin only smiled wider. She read what he had written and smiled back at him. At that moment, Gunwoo came down from the loft. Drops of water fell to the floor beneath him as he rubbed at his short hair with a towel. The moment he reached the first floor, his eyes instinctively went to Woojin on the sofa. Realizing Woojin was already looking at him, his gaze faltered and slid away, and his feet changed direction toward the water dispenser. That idiot. He was doing that because he felt guilty, too.

And on the very day his mother could not go with him, Kim Gunwoo could not go either. In fact, Woojin had made sure of it.

It was convenient for Woojin, in its way, when Gunwoo took the wheel, handled reception in his place, spoke to the doctor for him, and even carried the pharmacy bag for him. But today, of all days, he could not give in. The world championship qualifier was only a week away. Even when Gunwoo insisted he could just train harder afterward, Woojin had no choice but to shut that down firmly - not as a hyung, but as his coach. No. If you come with me, the whole day’s gone. You have to keep your routine. Woojin hated writing anything longer than a sentence on the whiteboard, but he wrote all three of those sentences out anyway. And he was right. Gunwoo had spent weeks calibrating his body and life for a single day, keeping himself in rhythm without a break. How could Woojin let that rhythm be broken for his own hospital appointment? For a coach, that would have been grounds for disqualification. Faced with Woojin’s refusal to negotiate, Gunwoo had no choice but to back down. He did not say much, but the worry and anxiety showed plainly in the way his black brows arched up at the ends. It was so ridiculous that Woojin nearly laughed out loud, and only barely managed to swallow it.

Maybe he was sulking because his hyung had been so unyielding, or maybe he felt guilty instead, because Gunwoo kept sneaking glances at him. Like mother, like son. Woojin had just raised the whiteboard again, intending to show him the same line still written there, timing it for the exact moment Gunwoo turned back toward him, when the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.”

As Woojin swung the whiteboard hanging loosely at his side back toward his hip and started to rise from the sofa with a small groan, Gunwoo set his cup down at the dispenser and hurried to the door first. Watching Gunwoo’s back as he opened it, Woojin straightened his clothes and stood up.

“Aigo, my juniors-”

At the familiar voice, the smile came before anything else.

The moment the front door opened, Gwangmu’s energy came rushing into the house. His shoes hit the floor loudly, his cheerful “Ah, hello, ma’am!” was loud too, and even the way his leather jacket flapped as he moved felt too large for the quiet house it entered. In an instant, he overturned the silence that had settled there for weeks. As far as Woojin was concerned, he liked that. The corners of his mouth stretched wide as Gwangmu greeted Gunwoo and his mother and came in, and then his gaze landed on Woojin standing in the living room. “Marine Hong Woojin,” Gwangmu said first, solemnly, the instant he saw him. Still smiling, Woojin instinctively straightened up, threw one arm sharply out, and gave him a crisp salute. Victory! Even if no sound came out, the gesture surely got the message across. “At ease.” Gwangmu flicked his jacket and lifted his chin. Only then did the playful severity melt from his face. “Woojin-ah, you been doing okay?” Gwangmu said with a grin as he walked up, and Woojin went straight into his arms in return. From somewhere behind them came his mother’s fond, helpless laugh.

“Why’ve you gotten so skinny? Is your mom starving you, boys?”

Gwangmu patted Woojin’s cheek affectionately and looked back and forth between Gunwoo and Woojin. Woojin, liking the warmth packed into that rough hand, laughed silently and even leaned into it. Gwangmu was especially easy for him to be around. Even after hearing that Woojin had lost his voice, he had never become excessively careful, nor had he treated Woojin like a shattered glass. He still talked to him, still joked with him, still teased him. Beside him, Woojin never felt pressured to answer, and Gwangmu never pitied him for failing to do so. That was what made it good. In front of him, Woojin was still just a younger Marine, still just a little brother.

“You used to chatter in everyone’s ear nonstop. Bet the house is peaceful as hell now, huh?”

Gwangmu laughed as he pinched Woojin’s cheek. Woojin mouthed an exaggerated ah, that hurts, and when Gwangmu let go with the same easy affection, he grinned. The house really had become peaceful. 'Oh, sure, but now that I can’t talk, everyone’s bored to death,' he would have said, if it had not been too long to write on the whiteboard and the moment had not already passed. So instead Woojin just grinned so wide his mouth nearly split, and Gwangmu laughed along with him and turned toward Gunwoo - and for one very brief moment, Gunwoo was not smiling. Following Gwangmu’s gaze, Woojin saw it too. The expression disappeared from Gunwoo’s face entirely. His long, cat-like eyes sank ever so slightly. The upward tilt of his mouth flattened. His pupils narrowed. He had not gotten angry, had not said anything outright, but the air chilled in an instant.

Perhaps Gwangmu noticed that sudden drop in the mood, because he lowered the hand that had still been holding Woojin’s cheek and turned fully toward Gunwoo. He walked over to the younger man, who still stood there stiff and lost in whatever thought had pinned him down. “Hey, Gunwoo.” Gwangmu’s smile softened, becoming less playful, and he thumped him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s not like Woojin’s gonna stay mute forever. Don’t worry so much.” His words were rough, but kind. Their mother laughed. Woojin, who had also been looking at Gunwoo with concern, felt Gunwoo’s eyes come toward him and instinctively tugged the corners of his mouth upward. It was an unchanging law of the universe: when Hong Woojin smiled, Kim Gunwoo smiled too. Only after seeing Woojin’s smile did Gunwoo’s stiffness melt away. He smiled awkwardly, puppy-soft around the eyes, and ducked his head toward Gwangmu with a look of apology. The air that had turned cold at last returned to its place and began moving again. Woojin kept watching Gunwoo as he exchanged greetings with Gwangmu. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking now. Something about it sat badly with him. A look like that on Kim Gunwoo’s face - it had been far too long since he had seen one.

“You should get going, Woojin-ah. You’ll be late.”

His mother, wiping her wet hands on her apron, picked up the jacket Woojin had left draped over the sofa and held it out to him. Woojin did not reject the gesture and slid his arms into it. "Right. Time to go." Gwangmu grinned warmly, stepped over to his mother, bent to shake her hand, and then slung an arm over Woojin’s shoulders as they headed for the door. Woojin turned and waved both hands at his mother, who was still watching him.

“Can you call me when it's end?”

Gunwoo, who had stood there quietly watching them put on their shoes, finally spoke. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it, sir,” Gwangmu replied with an exaggerated wave of his hand. But once again, Gunwoo did not smile. He just stared at Woojin. His face looked strangely unfamiliar. He was not angry, not sulking, and certainly not relaxed. Kim Gunwoo probably had no idea what kind of expression he was wearing, either. Looking at that face - one neither Woojin nor Gunwoo himself could properly name - left behind a discomfort that was hard to explain. Gwangmu opened the front door and stepped out, and Woojin followed after him. Just before stepping fully into the bright sunlight outside, Woojin stopped and turned back. Gunwoo was still standing there, like a stone statue abandoned in place. His expression was still set, his eyes unreadable. Holding that gaze, Woojin slowly lifted the whiteboard and wrote a short line across it.

I’ll be back soon.

He turned the board toward Gunwoo. The moment Gunwoo read those four little words, his face softened just a little. His brows tilted into that worried slant again, and a helpless sort of smile rose to his mouth. It was too faint to really be called a smile, but at least it was no longer the stiff, awkward thing from before. Matching that faint smile, Woojin gave him one of his own. Then the door closed behind him. Until the very last second, Gunwoo remained standing there.

11.

The red light blinked. One hand on the steering wheel, Gwangmu tapped at it lazily with his fingers. The atmosphere had been awkward for a while now. Even when he hummed along carelessly to whatever song came on the radio, Woojin could feel him glancing over every so often. That was not very Gwangmu-like at all. Woojin kept his eyes fixed on the window, pretending he noticed nothing, but having grown up in a house where it had been necessary to read danger in every flicker of mood, his instinct for this kind of thing was too good. He knew. Pretending not to know did not make what he knew disappear. Gwangmu had something he wanted to say. He was just being careful. Awkward. Everyone was like that in front of Woojin these days. Still can’t talk? What’s hurting you that much? Those were the questions they could never quite ask. Woojin wanted to answer them. I don’t know either. I don’t know what part of my heart hurts like this. But he could not answer, and even if he could, it would not have been much of an answer at all. The light changed green, and Gwangmu eased the car forward. In the slow-moving stillness of the car, Gwangmu finally spoke.

“Hey, Woojin.” Woojin turned his head and looked at him. Gwangmu was not looking back. One hand tipped the wheel lightly while the other arm, a gold ring glinting on one finger, rested against the window frame, his hand rubbing absently at his mouth. A common gesture for someone whose words kept catching before they could come out. When Woojin kept staring at him, Gwangmu finally gave in and turned to meet his eyes.

“You’re the one who can’t talk,”

Gwangmu said, then fixed his gaze on the road again and laughed under his breath.

“So why are both of you so damn quiet?”

Woojin blinked.

Gwangmu turned the wheel. The car made a smooth left turn. The words had been thrown out lightly enough, but they hit him sharply. Both of us? To Woojin, it had not seemed so strange. He could not answer, so naturally, there was no need for the other person to keep talking.

The bowls on the dinner table. Evenings filled only with his mother’s voice. A bedroom that had grown too quiet before sleep. Gunwoo coming back from training, taking one look at Woojin curled on the sofa, and then opening the fridge without saying a word. The hand that simply placing a cup in front of him instead of saying "Hyung, water?" Gunwoo, who would once have chattered on like a child full of innocent little stories, now keeping his lips shut unless he absolutely had to speak. No. That was not right. Gunwoo did speak. Woojin had seen Gunwoo and his mother talking plenty of times. But the moment he replayed those scenes, he saw it. The last few weeks slowly turned over in his mind.

Hyung must be full.

Hyung says he’s okay.

Hyung is going to the hospital today.

Now he understood why his heart had jolted. Every word Gunwoo had spoken over the last few weeks had been a word spoken in place of Woojin. There had not been a single moment in Gunwoo’s recent life that had not circled back to Hong Woojin.

Still staring blankly at Gwangmu, Woojin only came back to himself when an advertisement started blaring over the radio. He slowly turned away. They passed through a tunnel, and light smeared itself across the window in frantic streaks. His reflection blurred there in the glass. Beyond it he could still see Gunwoo standing there until the door closed in front of him. Gunwoo’s day began with Woojin and ended with Woojin. He, too, had become quiet. And when he did speak, it was always to speak for Woojin. He was probably spending every moment worrying about him. It was not healthy. There was only one person who had lost his voice, but somehow two people had lost their words.

“Take care of Gunwoo.”

Gwangmu tossed the words out casually. Woojin jolted and turned toward him. The hospital was beginning to come into view in the distance now. Gwangmu changed lanes slowly and eased off the speed. Without looking at Woojin, he added,

“Feels like he’s so busy taking care of you, he doesn’t even know how to look back at himself.”

12.

Feels like he’s so busy taking care of you, he doesn’t even know how to look back at himself.

Gwangmu’s voice kept ringing in his ears. It stayed there through the familiar routine of checking in at the hospital, seeing the doctor, collecting his prescription, and riding back along the familiar roads under the dimming sky. By the time the car finally rolled to a stop in front of the house, that single sentence still had not left him. Gwangmu parked the car and glanced sideways at him. Instead of offering any formal goodbye, he merely jerked his chin in a gesture telling him to go inside. Woojin nodded roughly and opened the door, but just as he was about to head toward the front gate, the window came down with a soft whir. Gwangmu had leaned out, looking up at him.

“Don’t think about it too long.”

Woojin looked back at him through the open window. Gwangmu restarted the engine and smiled at him with quiet kindness.

“You think too much, you get hurt again.”

It was not exactly wrong, and so Woojin let out a dry little laugh. Gwangmu, seeing it, gave him a similarly hollow smile, then waved energetically and rolled the window back up. Woojin watched the car disappear down the road for a moment before turning away. And there, in front of the gate, stood a familiar figure. Gunwoo.

Woojin stopped where he was. Gunwoo was standing awkwardly in front of the door, looking at him. He must have been waiting from the moment the car pulled up. Maybe he had not wanted to seem too obviously desperate for his hyung to come back, because the way he glanced at Woojin and then deliberately looked away again was so clumsy it only made him look more like himself. It was a strange new thing that seeing that made Woojin ache rather than laugh. Feels like he’s so busy taking care of you, he doesn’t even know how to look back at himself.

Woojin smiled and opened the little gate into the yard. Seeing his smile, Gunwoo smiled too and reached out his hand. After hesitating a moment, Woojin surrendered the pharmacy bag into it. The bag wasn’t even heavy, but Gunwoo received it carefully, and every knuckle on the back of his hand was mottled with bruises. Idiot. Without a word, Gunwoo and Woojin opened the front door and went inside. While Woojin was taking off his shoes, his mother stuck her head out from the kitchen. “Woojin’s home?” Her voice was warm and her smile was warm, but her eyes were busy looking both him and Gunwoo over. Now that he was seeing it properly, she was not only worrying about Woojin. The realization came so late that it made him feel stupid. Woojin smiled brightly and nodded hard. While she disappeared back into the kitchen, Gunwoo moved ahead of him and set the pharmacy bag down on the table, checking what was inside as he talked with his mother. Things Woojin had always ignored with a vague it’s probably not about me anyway reached him clearly now.

“Looks like there’s one less evening pill this time.”
“What’s for dinner, Mom?”
“Kimchi stew. It’s Woojin’s favorite.”

His heart hurt. Hong Woojin’s abyss had not turned the house upside down, but things had changed all the same.

It was only now that he realized all three of their dark webs had begun taking on a similar shape.

13.

Woojin lay flat on his bed, blinking up at the ceiling, then turned onto his side, then rolled back again and stared upward at the underside of Gunwoo’s bunk.

The room was very dim, and a thin yellow glow from the streetlamp outside seeped through the half-drawn curtain. It was not even midnight yet. Once upon a time, this room had been the furthest thing from quiet at this hour. Looking back on it now, he wondered what on earth they had found to talk about all day long when they had already spent every waking hour together. Gunwoo had sat on Woojin’s bed rummaging through bags of snacks while listening to Woojin’s ridiculous stories, answering every single one of his relentless questions with complete sincerity as if he never got tired of it. Even after Gunwoo climbed up to the top bunk, their conversations never knew when to end. Their days only stopped when Woojin suddenly dropped off mid-sentence and disappeared into sleep. But now it was like this. Quiet. The sound of crickets outside was louder than the sound of their breathing.

Something shifted upstairs. Listening to Gunwoo turning over, Woojin squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and shut them once more, unable to bear the frustration. Feels like he’s so busy taking care of you, he doesn’t even know how to look back at himself. Why was Hong Woojin such an idiot? Weak, and on top of that, stupid. The moment he closed his eyes, all kinds of images of Kim Gunwoo came flooding in. Gunwoo sitting quietly beside him at the pool hall, just waiting. Gunwoo in the hospital, more anxious and frightened than Woojin himself. Gunwoo speaking in his place. Gunwoo watching him until the door closed. Gunwoo looking up at the stars with him. His head was crowded. Gunwoo definitely had a dark web too, and yet Woojin still could not clearly see its shape. The abysses of all three of them had definitely begun to resemble one another. But to Woojin it was still impossible to name.

In the end, Woojin moved first. The bed creaked softly. He turned his head and peeked up toward the top bunk, and met Gunwoo’s eyes - Gunwoo, who had opened them the moment he heard him stir. The instant he saw Woojin sitting up, Gunwoo all but reflexively pushed himself upright and spoke.

“Hyung, what is it? Are you hurting?”

Good grief. Woojin froze for a second at the sound of it. The moment Hong Woojin merely sat up, Kim Gunwoo’s first instinct was fear. Woojin did not want to be that kind of presence to him. He shook his head calmly, but Gunwoo was already halfway to climbing down anyway. Woojin quickly put a foot on the ladder and reached out, pressing a hand against Gunwoo’s shoulder. Before Gunwoo could even fully look startled, Woojin caught the bedframe, hauled himself up in one swift motion, and climbed onto the bunk beside him. Then, holding Gunwoo’s gaze, he simply threw himself down on Gunwoo’s bed.

For a second Gunwoo’s face went blank in that particular stunned way of his. That rabbit-like expression. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open, his sharp, handsome face collapsing into something thoroughly foolish. It was such a familiar look that Woojin had to silently choke back laughter. Gunwoo stared down at his hyung, flustered, while Woojin patted the mattress beside him twice, firmly. 'What are you doing? Lie down.' The attitude of the hyung sprawled across half his bed was shameless. Lying on his side with a faint smile on his face, Woojin widened those soft eyes at him. He had his reasons. Just because they could not talk, just because they no longer were talking, did not mean the time they spent together had to be cut apart too. Words were not the whole of a relationship. They had years behind them. They had feelings. They had presence. Surely if they could at least meet each other’s eyes, they could still say and hear something of what they meant. He had forgotten that. Part of Hong Woojin’s role, after all, had always been to serve as Kim Gunwoo’s emotional pillar. It was absurd, really, for a pillar this weak to be anyone’s support, but still - that was what Woojin was to Gunwoo. Just as Gunwoo was necessary to Woojin, Woojin was necessary to Gunwoo.

Gunwoo looked down at him for a long while, eyes wavering, and then finally lay down carefully beside him. Naturally, Woojin tugged the blanket he was lying on up over Gunwoo’s broad body. The bed was definitely cramped for two grown men. Since Woojin had turned all the way onto his side toward Gunwoo, their shoulders didn’t quite collide, but Gunwoo could probably feel Woojin’s breath brushing his cheek as he lay there stiffly staring upward. Their knees and thighs brushed. One of Woojin’s hands, left lying carelessly under the blanket, teased against Gunwoo’s forearm. Annoyed that Gunwoo was still pretending not to notice him while staring at the ceiling, Woojin jabbed a finger into his side. At that, Gunwoo turned his head awkwardly toward him. 'Hey. Turn this way.' Woojin tilted his head in what he hoped was an obvious enough gesture, and somehow Gunwoo understood, shifting over until he faced him. Now the two of them lay facing each other. They could feel each other’s breath on their skin. Under the blanket, their fingers seemed to brush from time to time.

Their eyes met. Gunwoo’s face looked a little flushed. Was he embarrassed? Of course he was probably uncomfortable. When would two grown men ever lie facing each other at such a close distance? They had slept in the same room every day at the beach, sure, but they had not shared a blanket. Watching Gunwoo glance at him awkwardly and then look away, Woojin smiled to himself and reached under the pillow to fish out Gunwoo’s phone. Since it had no passcode, he opened the notes app with a flick. Gunwoo just watched him as he tapped rapidly across the keyboard.

[Why are you so quiet?]

Woojin turned the bright screen toward him. Gunwoo frowned at the words. Have I been that quiet? He must have thought something like that. Taking the phone from Woojin, he typed slowly.

[What do you mean?]

Ha. Unbelievable. Woojin snatched the phone back and hammered away at the keyboard.

[Look at you now. Why are you typing? You can talk, you know?]

He shoved the screen right up in front of Gunwoo’s nose. Gunwoo blinked against the brightness, read the words, and widened his eyes again. He probably had not even realized it himself. It had become too natural to him. He followed his hyung when he laughed, followed his hyung when he cried, and now apparently he had begun following his hyung into silence too. Gunwoo reached to take the phone back again, but Woojin whisked it away and pressed it dramatically to his own chest. 'You say it out loud.' At Woojin’s emphatic nodding, Gunwoo furrowed his brow for a moment. Then, after hesitating, his lips parted neatly.

“It’s just...when I’m the only one talking, it feels like it makes you uncomfortable, hyung.”

At that answer, Woojin immediately typed again. [Stop worrying about me so much.]

“How am I supposed to not worry, hyung?”

Gunwoo’s eyes were wet as he said it, fixed on him. That worried expression on Gunwoo’s face was familiar. That particular light in his eyes was not. Something tingled at Woojin’s fingertips. His stomach fluttered strangely. Gunwoo was still Gunwoo, sitting there with his brow pinched and worry plain on his face, but the serious heaviness in the room and the gentleness of his tone made him feel different, too. Woojin stared at him blankly for a while, then forced his gaze back down to the phone. His fingers felt weak on the keys as he typed.

[What are you so worried about?]

The screen glowed. The cursor blinked after the question mark. Gunwoo’s eyes remained fixed on the sentence. Time stretched out strangely. The phone screen dimmed to black, but before Woojin could lower his hand, Gunwoo’s hand came down and covered it. Even after he set the phone down on the bed, Gunwoo’s hand stayed there over Woojin’s. It had probably been unconscious, but Woojin’s heart started pounding oddly all the same. It was strange. It felt as though only this bed remained in the whole world. Only Gunwoo’s gaze remained, fixed on him. Gunwoo’s darkened eyes held nothing but Woojin as he slowly opened his mouth and let the words he had kept locked away spill out, half-rotted from being held too long.

“If a person can’t speak...how much pain do they have to be in? For someone like you, hyung, who always manages to endure everything—if you’re hurt enough for this to happen, how scared must you have been?”

“I’m scared of that,” Gunwoo said, voice thick and layered.

“I’m scared that what I know about your pain isn’t even half of it. I’m scared that you’re the one hiding it.

That’s what worries me.”

The hand holding Woojin’s tightened just a little.

There was no smile meant to smooth things over. No forced grin. The two of them simply stared at each other. The sound of crickets grew louder and louder. The ticking of the clock’s second hand rang in Woojin’s mind. Their breaths were hot. Their hands stung. Their skin itched. His heart felt heavy and electric at the same time. Woojin wanted to speak. 'Me too.' But when he opened his mouth, all that came out was the soft hiss of escaping air. Instead, he shifted his body forward a little. The space between them grew even smaller. Gunwoo flinched, but did not move away.

Now there was only a handspan between them. Curled half into Gunwoo’s arms, his black hair brushing the underside of Gunwoo’s chin, Woojin stared at the broad chest filling his vision. Gunwoo could smell his shampoo. Gunwoo smelled like sweat and fabric softener. Weird. Weird, and yet his heart eased. Yes. This was what they did. They became each other’s sturdy supports. Gunwoo, thrown into confusion by how suddenly close Woojin had come, fumbled awkwardly for a moment, then finally brought his free hand - his other one still holding Woojin’s - and laid it hesitantly over the slope of Woojin’s shoulder, on top of the blanket. Feeling that hand, as though it were trying to pat him, Woojin closed his eyes. Me too, Gunwoo. The heat coming off Gunwoo’s body was warm. Woojin prayed that the warmth rising from his own body might wrap around Gunwoo just as gently.

So am I. I’m scared that maybe you only show me half your pain.

I’m scared of that too.

Still, tonight, they were together. The iceberg had melted, the frozen mass beneath the abyss exposed, but the waves of the overflow would remain calm.

Chapter Text

14.

Even solid, steadfast boxer Kim Gunwoo has a dark web.

That is an undeniable fact - an almost self-evident one.

The life of boxer Kim Gunwoo, who had only just turned thirty, had been stitched together by a rather simple pattern of rises and falls. A boy who was not particularly clever, but kind and hardworking. A home that was anything but peaceful. Every night, his mother’s screams, his father’s shouts, and the sounds of the house being torn apart tormented him. Even shut away in his small room, even with his hands clamped over his ears, the wreckage of that broken household always found a way into his ears. Night after night, the peace of a home he had failed to protect piled up inside him.

The little boy who wanted nothing but to protect his mother began boxing only belatedly, once he had already become a young man. Whether starting late was a misfortune or whether it was a blessing that he had started at all, Gunwoo rose quickly in the field. What he had cultivated all those younger years was a stubborn patience and sincerity; what he had been born with was a sturdy body and fists like steel. Only a few years after taking up boxing, Gunwoo defeated Woojin and claimed the Rookie King trophy, and only a few months ago, he became world champion at last.

Boxing had given him all of it - honor, happiness, achievement. And yet, naturally enough, if his mother in those past days could have gone unhurt - if he had never needed to raise his fists to protect her - Gunwoo would have given up his life as a boxing champion now without a second thought. That was Kim Gunwoo. A man who could throw away everything, even his own life, for the sake of protecting someone, and who feared losing far more than he feared death itself. Desperately kind. Endlessly stupid.

And yet boxing had given him far too much. He was grateful to boxing not only because it had helped him protect his mother, not only because it had made him a champion. Above all else, it had led him to the most precious person in his life. That was the greatest reason he cherished boxing without end.

Truly, Kim Gunwoo could hardly remember what his life had been like before Hong Woojin existed in it. It must have been rather flat, simple, the sort of life that offered little real joy.

It was a terribly romantic way of putting it, but after meeting Hong Woojin, the black-and-white world of Kim Gunwoo’s life turned to color. That did not mean his old life had been especially gloomy or miserable. His life had been spring even before; it was simply that once Hong Woojin entered it, it became a vivid, high-saturation summer.

Colors glittered. The sky was clear. The heat made you sweat, yes, but summer - with the whine of cicadas and the cold water that felt like salvation - made you feel, with sharp intensity, that you were alive. That was Hong Woojin. Woojin was the lens through which Gunwoo looked at the world, the heartbeat that disturbed an otherwise ordinary graph. It was embarrassingly romantic. Gunwoo would never say such a thing to Woojin. Woojin would clutch his stomach and laugh at him. But I love spring, he would probably say.

But once a person had stepped out of a black-and-white world and begun living inside color television, it was hard to willingly return to the dullness of grayscale. That was what made it suffocating. The one who had completely upended Gunwoo’s life, Hong Woojin, always behaved as though he might leave at any moment. Gunwoo had sold off his sixth sense long ago, but even so, after more than five years spent hardly ever apart, there were certain things about Woojin that he could now see clearly.

Gunwoo hated that most of all. The way, when he went looking for him, he would find him standing on the terrace quietly staring at the night sky. The way, when Gunwoo and his mother were talking, Woojin would simply stand one step behind them, smiling as he watched. The way, if Hong Woojin - with all the richness of his past life - ran away somewhere, Kim Gunwoo, who knew almost nothing without him, would not be able to find him. He hated that. The way Woojin strode so boldly into their lives and yet always seemed prepared to step back out again, as if the choice belonged to them. When in truth, neither Gunwoo nor his mother had ever intended to let him go.

At the end of the day, Gunwoo was someone who protected. He was a gatekeeper.

But Hong Woojin was wind. A transparent fugitive slipping in and out through the cracks of the door, something no thick and heavy iron gate could ever truly keep from entering - or leaving.

15.

Hyung, get down.

Woojin was standing on the terrace. No- he was standing on the terrace railing. Gunwoo looked down at his own feet. His bare toes curled against the wooden deck. He glanced around, and though everything was vivid enough to feel real, something about it all was subtly off - the layout of the house, the sky beyond the terrace. Because of that, he knew it was a dream. Why was he dreaming this? He had no idea.

A bright laugh came drifting from above, and Gunwoo snapped to attention and looked up. There was Woojin, balanced atop the terrace railing with his arms spread wide, walking barefoot along it with dangerous ease. Every time the wind blew, his body swayed, and a clear, innocent smile spilled across his focused face. Gunwoo stood below him.

Hyung, please get down. You're gonna fall.

Gunwoo reached a hand out as he stepped forward carefully. Hong Woojin, please. Only after he called his name did Woojin’s gaze turn toward him. There was no focus in those dark eyes beneath the drooping corners, no target at all. Woojin stretched his mouth into that bright, innocent smile. He was saying something, but Gunwoo couldn’t hear it. What? Gunwoo asked back, and at that instant, only the sound of air escaping came from Woojin’s mouth. I can’t hear you, hyung. The moment the words left him, he bit them back. As though mocking Gunwoo for being careful even in a dream, Woojin pressed his lips together, gave him that clean, easy smile of his, and in the next second tipped backward.

No- Gunwoo shouted, but his feet would not move. It was as though they had rooted themselves into the wood. Unable to catch him, he remained frozen like a statue, staring endlessly at the terrace railing where Woojin had disappeared. His heart thundered in his ears. His chest pounded wildly, cold sweat ran down him, and something hot welled in his eyes. All he could do was gasp and blink through the sting gathering at his lashes. He could do nothing. He could neither go to the railing and look down nor collapse where he stood.

Hyung.

He had let Hong Woojin slip away. He was going to lose him. He was not going to protect him. It was all his fault.

16.

At the heavy pounding in his chest, Gunwoo woke with a sharp gasp.

Cold sweat had left heat and chills swirling through him at once, and the heart that had been thrashing violently in his sleep was still punishing him. You would fail to protect. Gunwoo sat up roughly, unable to calm down, dragging in ragged breaths again and again. The whole world spun in darkness, as though there were nothing left in it but him. Then a solid hand came down around his shoulder. It was warm enough, slightly rough with calluses, and unbearably gentle in the way it patted him. Little by little, the rhythm of that patting drew his heartbeat back into time with it. Thud. Thud. The sound of his breathing slowly softened. Only then did Gunwoo turn his head to look at the owner of the hand. Someone had climbed up to the top bunk and was kneeling beside him, soothing him. In the dark, with black hair fallen over his forehead, he was hard to see clearly, but Gunwoo would have recognized him anywhere by the scent of shampoo, of blankets, by the soft aura of kindness he carried with him.

The person he had failed to catch in the dream - the most precious person in his life.

Woojin was still watching him with a worried expression, patting his shoulder over and over. The moment Gunwoo saw him, he let out a breath of relief and set his own hand over the one resting on his shoulder. Only after he felt the warmth of Woojin’s hand in his grasp did his mind begin to turn again, after being blank and white as paper. Are you okay? The voice he should have heard did not come, so Gunwoo opened his eyes and turned to look at Woojin. Are you okay? Woojin mouthed the words soundlessly. Oh. Only then did Gunwoo remember.

He really had failed to protect him.

It was his fault.

17.

By now, nightmares themselves had become an ordinary part of Gunwoo’s life over the last few months. The contents? Always more or less the same. His mother was hurt, his mother was gone, his hyung was hurt, his hyung was gone. The two of them were hurt; the two of them were lost. The forms those losses took were endlessly varied - far more varied than he would have believed his own imagination capable of producing.

Gunwoo pounded at the punching bag. There was no better cure for emptying the mind than using the body. Every time his fist, thickly wrapped in handwraps, drove into the stiff surface and the dense weight within, a muted pain echoed through his bones. After hammering away at it for a long while, Gunwoo flicked a glance over his shoulder. In the corner of the gym, curled up asleep on the small sofa there, was Woojin. Gunwoo had said he wanted to stay and practice a little more before the match the day after tomorrow, and Woojin, as his coach, had insisted on staying to help. He had watched Gunwoo’s form until late into the night, then declared himself tired, sat down on the sofa, and promptly fallen asleep. Gunwoo lingered on the sight of Woojin collapsed there with his black hair sticking up in every direction, then drew in another breath and raised his fist again. Thud.

Stop hitting her.

Gunwoo was standing squarely in front of his father. He was tall now, broad-shouldered, heavily muscled; his old father looked pitiful by comparison. “How dare you-” the man shouted, raising his hand, but Gunwoo did not even blink as he caught the arm. The force of Gunwoo’s grip made the man’s whole body lurch. “Gunwoo-” his mother sobbed from behind him, but Gunwoo did not turn. He focused only on glaring at the man in front of him. He knew instinctively that he could not show weakness now. This was the moment when the order inside the house was finally changing - the moment when he was finally claiming the right to protect his mother.

Under the hardness of Gunwoo’s stare, the man whose arm he held faltered with a stupid expression. “Shit,” he spat, wrenching his arm free with all his strength before throwing the door open and storming out. Only after watching his back disappear did Gunwoo turn and gather his mother into his arms. I protected her at last. That was what he thought. How many years had he failed to protect her? How many years had he covered his ears and drowned in despair? He had finally grown strong enough to protect his mother from his father’s violence. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Had he ever really been strong?

“Gunwoo.” A gentle voice dragged him out of that thought. Gunwoo loosened his hold on the mother in his arms. But when he lifted his head, it was not his mother looking back at him. It was Woojin. Woojin was smiling. His face was covered in bruises. Hyung? Gunwoo asked, but instead of answering, Woojin’s mouth flooded with dark red blood.

Gunwoo’s fist slammed into the punching bag. He shook off the remaining image violently. It felt like dreaming with his eyes open - like living inside a nightmare every day. I can tell you, it was not pleasant. Gunwoo ripped the wraps from his hands and threw them down roughly. His ribcage heaved with every breath. Wiping away the sweat dripping from him, he picked up a dry towel, scrubbed at his hair, and turned back toward the sofa. Woojin was still asleep there, his large body folded into that far-too-small couch. Fortunately, the only thing coming from his mouth was the steady sound of easy breathing, not dark blood. He was not standing on the terrace railing either.

Gunwoo knelt carefully in front of the sleeping Woojin and laid a hand over his forearm. Woojin’s eyes slowly fluttered open. Perhaps he had been sleeping deeply, because the crease of his eyelids looked darker than usual when he woke. Watching him blink around in a dazed little stupor, Gunwoo let out a small, helpless laugh before taking his hand and helping him up. Woojin yawned and stretched, then turned that soft little smile on Gunwoo. Gunwoo, too, folded the sharp corners of his eyes into a bright grin and smiled back.

It was time to go home.

18.

The result of the match was, in a way, predictably Gunwoo’s victory.

It was only a qualifier, not the title match itself, so the outcome had been expected, but that did not mean they neglected to celebrate. Following his mother’s suggestion that they go out for a proper meal for once, the three of them drove to a nice restaurant and had a pleasant dinner. They ate well, drank coffee, strolled through the park a little, and went home together. It was a quiet, warm ending to the day.

And yet, after showering, Gunwoo stood there staring blankly up at his top bunk. The sound of water from the bathroom where Woojin was showering spilled faintly through the door, and though his body was sore and throbbing from the qualifier, and though he ought to have been sleepy, the bed felt farther and farther away from him, like some impossibly tall building. It was as if the constant nightmares had conditioned him, Pavlov’s dog-style, into a strange fear. If he slept, he would dream. If he dreamed, then he would lose either his mother or his hyung. No matter how much he knew it was only a dream, the terror and despair he felt inside it were real. If he had to see his mother or his hyung - especially Woojin - die, be hurt, or leave him one more time in a dream, he might choose never to sleep again. So Gunwoo could not help but hesitate before climbing into the top bunk to battle nightmares yet again.

As he stood there staring up at it, the door behind him flew open. Only then did he remember that the sound of water falling down had stopped. Woojin came in with a towel draped over his head, stopping naturally at Gunwoo’s side. Following Gunwoo’s gaze up to the top bunk, Woojin’s eyes held no question or confusion. He simply looked at the bed for a long moment, then glanced at Gunwoo, and abruptly walked back out of the room to throw the towel into the laundry bin.

When he came back, Woojin rubbed lotion over his face like he was getting ready for bed, then flopped down onto his own lower bunk. Right, time to sleep. Gunwoo let out a faint sigh and reached for the ladder to climb up when Woojin’s face suddenly appeared over the edge of the bed. While Gunwoo looked at him in confusion, Woojin rolled over toward the wall, opening up a space beside him naturally. Leaving a perfectly good top bunk empty to sleep together downstairs sometimes, upstairs other times. Gunwoo stood there staring at him. Woojin yawned hugely and waited there with shameless patience. Gunwoo had no way to refuse that.

Accepting Woojin’s silent offer, Gunwoo carefully lay down on the lower bunk. As before, Woojin tossed the blanket over Gunwoo’s body and tucked him in. Apparently, with nothing much to say tonight, Woojin was already closing his eyes and shifting around, and Gunwoo simply lay there staring at him.

Naturally, Gunwoo did not fall asleep right away. Part of it was fear of the nightmares, but the larger reason was the state of wakefulness brought on by a heartbeat he could not seem to control. Unlike him, Woojin fell asleep almost at once, and his sleep habits had never been good. After tossing and turning endlessly, his hyung finally settled only once he had draped one arm and one leg over Gunwoo’s body like that was the only position he found comfortable. No matter how precious his hyung was, having half the body weight of a tall adult male -a former boxer, no less- thrown over him was another matter entirely. The arm across his chest made breathing difficult, and the leg looped around his thigh left him with no room to move. Fine. Up to that point, somehow, he could bear it.

The bigger problem was that Woojin’s face was much too close. It was as if Woojin had decided to use Gunwoo as a pillow, wrapping himself around him completely, and while searching for a more comfortable position, the coach shoved the sharp line of his jaw directly into Gunwoo’s collarbone and wriggled his way deeper into sleep. So Woojin’s breath brushed across Gunwoo’s skin, and the black hair already sticking out in every direction tickled his cheek and jaw. His hyung smelled of shampoo. Gunwoo caught himself, unconsciously, breathing in the faint trace of skin-scent mixed between that shampoo smell, and his eyes shifted awkwardly. What was he doing against his hyung? He let out a small, self-mocking sigh. At the sound of it, Woojin shifted, let out a tiny grumble threaded with annoyance, and pulled his leg away from Gunwoo. Careful not to wake him, Gunwoo finally turned his head and looked down at the round back of Woojin’s head.

This was not okay. Whenever he looked at Hong Woojin, his heart kept slipping beyond his control. The agitation and excitement that should have settled in Woojin’s presence only grew larger instead. It was a pity that he knew perfectly well what it was and still could not tell whether the force making his heart lurch every time he looked at the person who had turned his life into summer, into color, was love or fear.

Gunwoo took a slow breath and closed his eyes. The steady thud of Woojin’s heart against his forearm traveled into his own body. Warm, soft, gentle. Like Woojin’s voice. Gunwoo focused on that heartbeat, and little by little, the world began to drift away from him. Somewhere through the darkness, blurring into sweetness, it almost felt as if Woojin’s voice -Kim Gunwoo, go to sleep already- a voice he had not even heard in his dreams, brushed teasingly at his ear. Huh? Did he just speak? Before the question could fully form, Gunwoo sank into the soft blackness awaiting him.

19.

It was very rare for Gunwoo to sleep in.

At last, the long-held tension and insomnia had eased in the warmth of the person right beside him, and Woojin was hardly the type to wake him just for the sake of it. Half-opening his eyes at the light leaking in through the curtains, Gunwoo reached out blindly to the space beside him, but all his hand met was the cold wrinkle of sheets already gone cold. Woojin was so busy, so loud in his movements, that even if he had merely woken up, Gunwoo -always a light sleeper- should have woken too. Had Woojin taken such great care to climb over him and leave the room without stirring him, or had Gunwoo really been that deeply asleep? The room was quiet in a way it never was. Gunwoo pushed himself up sluggishly. After days, he had finally slept a clean, white sleep, without the cold sweat drying on him, without the fragments of nightmares breaking apart inside his chest. It was the sort of morning that made him want to hum without thinking.

Stretching, Gunwoo opened the door in a good mood and stepped out. He checked the bathroom, but Woojin was not there either. The terrace beyond the window stood empty, and the only thing vivid was the bright noon sun pouring fiercely into the house. Gunwoo bounded down the stairs. The house was neat and brightly lit, but there was no sign of anyone. Only a few damp dishes sat lined up in the drying rack. It looked as though the two of them had eaten first and gone to the café already. The clock on the wall showed the hour hand well past one. Damn. Delivery. Thinking of the two of them struggling at the café without him, Gunwoo rushed off to wash up as quickly as he could.

.

His motorcycle rattled to a stop in front of the café.

Fortunately, the café looked quiet. Gunwoo took off his helmet, hooked it over the handlebars, and went inside through the cheerful little jingle of the bell. “Mom!” At the sound of his voice, his mother looked up from where she had been washing dishes in the kitchen and smiled brightly.

“Good afternoon, son-”

Gunwoo folded the corners of his eyes into a grin and walked toward the kitchen. Normally, there would have been two people in there. Now, only his mother was visible. His gaze automatically slid past the curtain toward the storeroom, but the familiar sight of Woojin’s head bent over coffee beans or supplies was not there either. Something about that felt wrong. Uneven. He tore his gaze away from the dark little storeroom and turned it back to his mother, who was taking off her rubber gloves. “Where’s hyung?”

His mother looked at him with round brown eyes, utterly puzzled. Something squeezed tight inside his chest. He would fail to protect him. He was going to lose him.

“Wasn’t he with you?”

It was all his fault.

20.

Woojin did not answer his phone. He probably just stepped out. Maybe a friend came by. Maybe he went shopping. Gunwoo tried to calm himself with thoughts like that, but it would not work. For the past few weeks -no, the past few years- he had dreamed thousands of nightmares about losing someone, and now the someone had actually disappeared. Those thousands of possibilities all came flooding before his eyes like a flash of images at death’s door. Woojin had once proudly explained something he’d seen on TV; that the montage people see before death is the brain rifling through every scrap of gathered memory and information, searching for some way to survive. That was exactly what this felt like. With Woojin gone, it was as though his head was tearing through every bit of information it had in order to find him.

Calling Woojin over and over, Gunwoo sped toward the gym on his motorcycle. The manager said Woojin had never come there. So Gunwoo turned around immediately and rode straight to the pool hall where he’d found him once before, but it too was empty. He called Gwangmu. Gwangmu had no idea. Taeyoung didn’t either. Why can’t he look at his phone? Is he unable to use his hands? Did he collapse? Is he hurt? Since he can’t even cry out, it would be so easy to drag him away if someone kidnapped him. It didn’t matter that Woojin was a former boxer, even if he was a coach now - Gunwoo’s mind reached for that fear first. His fault. He had failed to protect him.

The engine roared under him, wind battering hard against his clothes as he turned onto the roads he knew by heart. His heart hammered against the muscles of his chest. In truth, Gunwoo knew what the most likely possibility was. He skidded to a stop and practically threw the bike aside as he bolted back into the house. Hyung had left. The color that had always acted as if it could leave at any moment, the summer of his life, had finally gone and emptied his side of the world.

He had lost Hong Woojin for good.

There had once been a day when little Gunwoo came home from school with a bag nearly as big as himself and opened the door to their shabby basement apartment to find the house dark and empty. Silence was foreign to his home. Usually, either his mother was there, stepping out into the sunlight with a smile and asking warmly, “You’re home, son?” or there were his father’s shouts, screams rising between crashing sounds of things breaking - one or the other always rushed out to meet him the moment the door opened. But that day it was neither. The dim little house was neat, and there was no trace of his mother anywhere inside it.

Mom?

Gunwoo called, but no answer came, though his voice echoed through the rooms. There was no sign of either his mother or his father in the bathroom, the bedroom, anywhere. An ordinary child might have simply enjoyed the house to himself. But Gunwoo was never an ordinary child. He was very far from one. To a child raised between the wish to protect and the conviction that everything was his fault, the conclusion came like an answer already written in advance. The bell rang in his head. His mother had left him. And he had no right to resent her for it. If she could escape that house, then escaping it -even if it meant leaving behind her young son- was the right thing to do, or so Gunwoo believed.

“Hyung!”

Maybe Woojin had come back in the meantime. Gunwoo flung open the door and shouted, but no answer came. Idiot. How could he expect one? His hyung had lost his voice because his ordinary life had been shattered by all of this. Gunwoo tore back up the stairs and into their room, threw open the closet, and searched wildly for any clue to what Woojin might have taken with him. Watching someone being beaten was horrifying. Seeing the pain of someone he had failed to protect, because of his own fault, made Gunwoo want to die.

Back then, his mother had eventually returned from the marketplace carrying bags full of food. When she opened the door and came in smiling brightly, what she found was little Kim Gunwoo with his eyes swollen shut from crying, sobbing aloud. Losing someone precious because of his own fault - that was what terrified Gunwoo more than anything in the world. Whether they left, or whether they were hurt, it was all Kim Gunwoo’s fault. He tore through the drawers so hard that the strength of a boxer, far gone beyond reason, made wood splinter and crack. Woojin had taken nothing. His favorite fleece, his jacket - everything was still there, untouched.

Hyung, I think I’m going crazy.

As he ran and stopped and ran again, his fingertips grew colder and colder. The sunlight pouring down was warm, but inside his body, everything was cold. He searched all over the neighborhood. Looking back on it, it was ridiculous. He had not lost a child; only a grown man had gone missing and failed to answer his phone for a few hours. He could have gone to a movie, or could have been busy eating with a friend. But Gunwoo’s numbed mind ignored all of those simple possibilities and repeated only the worst possibilities it had seen in nightmares over the past months. The montage again. Hyung jumping from the terrace. Hong Woojin hiding himself away completely. His coach being dragged off again. A corpse gone cold. Those horrible, obsessive, maddening images his brain insisted on producing.

Only the words I failed to protect him rang like an alarm.

“Hong Woojin! Woojin-ah-!”

The way he had first gone around here and there calling out hyung turned into desperate cries of Hong Woojin, and by the end into a yell cracked with tears, Woojin-ah.

His bangs, mussed up, tickled his brows. Veins stood out in his neck. Exhausted, shouting his way through the streets, he drew people’s stares. None of that mattered. None of it was necessary. Then he turned into the park, toward the playground. The creak of a swing reached him. So did the sound of a child laughing.

Only then did Gunwoo’s steps slow. The voice that had risen to a desperate pitch lowered again, and his mouth finally settled back into something like its usual shape. There, in the sand of the playground, a little girl in pink sneakers sat building something in the dirt, chatting happily. It was Mina. Strength drained from him all at once. In front of her, crouched down, was the unmistakable back of a man he knew. Unstyled black hair stuck out in every direction, broad shoulders hunched down into softness before the child, an old pair of shoes -ones Gunwoo himself had once proudly gifted him in thanks for his excellent coaching- now shabby with time, crumpled and dusted over with playground sand. Only after seeing that did the breath he had been holding as if he had lived without air finally burst out of him. Gunwoo dropped his head and screwed his eyes shut. At last, the thoughts tormenting him began to clear like fog lifting.

“Uncle Gunwoo!”

The child spotted him and threw one hand high into the air with a cheerful grin. Only then did Woojin turn and look back at him. His bangs fluttered coolly across his eyes in the wind. The easy smile he had been wearing for Mina faltered the moment he saw the ruined state Gunwoo was in.

The strange thing was that only then did Gunwoo finally smile.

I didn’t lose him.

The boxer who had, until just moments ago, torn through the neighborhood bellowing his coach’s name like a madman now felt relief and exhaustion rising from his heart together, and made no attempt to control the bizarre way his face muscles moved of their own accord. As Gunwoo let out a drained, helpless smile, Woojin dusted the dirt from the seat of his pants awkwardly and got to his feet. Now the two of them stood facing each other at eye level. Gunwoo couldn’t stop the smile and laughter welling up in him. And the look on Woojin’s face as he watched him was strangely unreadable.

Even solid, steadfast boxer Kim Gunwoo has a dark web.

That is an undeniable fact - an almost self-evident one.

21.

For a gatekeeper like Kim Gunwoo, the thing he feared most was not violence battering down the door.

It was a loss disappearing from within it.

And Hong Woojin was the wind that slipped quietly through the crack beneath the door, only to vanish one day without a trace. That was Kim Gunwoo’s stupid dark web.