Pairing: Sunggyu/Woohyun

Summary: Woohyun is staying in his granfather's country house for the summer, and somehow ends up helping Sunggyu with his kid's drama club. (Inspired by the noddy mv and this moodboard)

Genre: Slice of life, light angst

Word Count: 5,793

Note: Some knowledge is about Grease is recommended.

My heart, it is set on you

Woohyun sits in one of the plastic chairs at the train station with his elbows resting on his knees. His hands keep playing with his phone, which has no signal and a low battery, more out of habit than anything else. His red bag lies next to him, discarded, almost like melting to the ground in the humid summer heat.

His grandfather was supposed to greet him when the train arrived, but he figures the old man must be busy, or must simply have forgotten. He does not know which one is better.

He sighs, thinking of the things he could be doing with his friends back in Seoul. Playing at the arcade, going to the movies, or even hanging out at someone's house—he had been looking forward to that.

And yet his parents sent him to spend some quality time with his grandfather who lives in a town in the middle of nowhere. What a way to spend his last summer before college.

A pair of beat up sneakers appear in front of him. He looks up to find an older teen standing in front of him, his expression shadowed by the light behind him.

“You’re Mr. Nam’s kid, right?”

Woohyun nods, narrowing his eyes. Kid? He passed the 18th mark not so long ago, and the guy in front of him cannot be more than a couple of years older than him.

“Grandson.”

He seems not to listen.

“He sent me to get you,” the guy continues. “A customer came by, wanted passport pictures taken or something, and Mr. Nam got busy. I was passing by.”

Woohyun stands up, grabbing his bag. “And you are…”

“Sunggyu,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his green vest. He turns around and starts walking.

“Oh,” Woohyun replies, wondering if that is supposed to mean something other than a name.

They walk in silence along the sidewalk, trying to keep under the shadow. Woohyun hopes that his grandfather has something prepared for him to eat. The trip has consisted of nothing but waiting and waiting—in the bus, the train, the station. He’s starving.

So lost in his thoughts, he is, that he does not notice when Sunggyu stops, and bumps into him.

Before he can apologize, Sunggyu turns around. “Do you like theater?”

—

His grandfather is a quiet, gray-haired and good-humored man, who dresses formally and speaks in the same manner. Woohyun is already taller than him—which is honestly not that big of an accomplishment—but the man still carries himself with certain dignity. Or maybe that is just how Woohyun remembers him. After all, it has been years since Woohyun last saw him.

He jokes around, but every time Woohyun fumbles with one of his lenses while putting them on their case, he becomes a little more serious.

“Be more careful with that,” he says when Woohyun tries to force a fisheye lens into its case, only to have both the case and the lens falling onto the carpeted floor, right in the space formed by him sitting cross-legged. “Those are expensive.”

“Sorry,” Woohyun replies, looking down to his fingers. He is aware of his grandfather's words, but he has already cleaned and packed over 20 types of lenses and he is tired. “How did you get so many of this if they’re so expensive, anyway? Are you made of money?”

His grandpa chuckles. “I’m a retiree who could move to the countryside for his hobby as a photographer, does that answer your question?”

Woohyun nods. “But why the countryside? There are more interesting things to photograph in the city.”

“Are there?” his grandpa says in mock disbelief. “I like the quiet, the lack of a rush to do something. There are mornings where I can take a short hike uphill and look at the mist clearing from the green fields as the train approaches with a faint hum,” he pauses, letting the words sink on his grandson. “It’s magical.”

Woohyun nods, trying to remember if there is something like that in the city, something that gives a comparable feeling.

“But I’m sure that’s not very fun for a young man like you,” he adds, patting Woohyun on the shoulder. “You’ll find something entertaining these two months, I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Woohyun exclaims, remembering something. “The guy you sent to get me the other day, Sunggyu? He tried to recruit me for some kind of drama club. He was weird.”

“He’s an interesting kid. Has been coming every summer for ten years. He and his cousin run the drama club for the local kids. It’s good, you should give them a hand.”

Woohyun bites his lips. Maybe he would like to see Sunggyu again, but, “I don’t think I’m good with children.”

His grandfather laughs. “Neither is Sunggyu, I believe, but Dongwoo makes up for it. The other day I heard some kids talking about them when I was buying a Popsicle at the convenience store.”

“Grandpa, aren’t you diabetic? You shouldn’t be eating that,” Woohyun chastises him, remembering that his mother asked him to take care of her father-in-law’s health.

But grandpa Nam dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “I’ve lived this far on by my own rules, and I will continue doing so.”

—

The sign hanging in front of the narrow red door reads SUMMER DRAMA CLUB in big, colorful letters. Woohyun thinks back to when he met Sunggyu, the boy with a bored expression and dirty sneakers and a grunge vest, and decides that the piece is not of his authorship.

He knocks, and the door opens, revealing a small kid with tousled hair and ashy, almost white skin. He has the urge to ask if the child is okay.

“Are you… Is Sunggyu around?” he asks.

The kid looks back into the building and screams, “Mr. Kim, someone is looking for you!”

“Who is it?” Woohyun hears the yell in response.

“I don’t know!” the kid screams again. He turns to Woohyun. “Who are you?”

“Woohyun,” he replies, and then adds, “Mr. Nam’s grandkid.”

“Oh, Mr. Nam is cool! He buys us popsicles sometimes,” the kid says with a smile. Then, he frowns. “You're too old to be a grandkid, though.”

Woohyun debates with himself it it would be morally incorrect to insult the child, but at that moment, Sunggyu arrives.

The first thing he sees is the straw-like strands of blonde hair framing Sunggyu’s eyes when the young man greets him, a smile blooming on his equally ashy face.

Woohyun's pulse quickens, but he does not know why.

“Hey there, ready for a fun summer job?” Sunggyu asks.

“What’s on your face?” Woohyun says instead, pointing at both Sunggyu and the child.

They look at each other, and then back at Woohyun. Sunggyu rubs the ash off the corner of his lips. “Why don’t you come in?”

Woohyun steps into what seems to be a warehouse turned into a theater, with a small wooden stage and big, dusty curtains hanging from each side. Onstage, a myriad of kids are gathered in pairs, one lying flat on a mat and the other kid sitting next to them. The ones sitting engage in loud chatting while two other teens give instructions above the noise. He notes the rows of plastic chairs with bags on top of them, probably belonging to the children. Feeling the air a bit more humid than outside—the smell of the human body like a heavy coat—he looks for sources of ventilation, only to find that the only windows are situated where the walls arch into the ceiling.

Sunggyu notices him staring. “The acoustics are horrible, but it’s the only place where we could fit so many children.”

They reach the stage and Woohyun can better observe the task at hand. Some kids dip bandages covered in what he supposes is clay in a little container full of water, squeeze out the excess, and cover the faces of the kids lying down.

“Hey, Dongwoo, come here for a second,” Sunggyu calls one of the guys. To the kid still following him and Woohyun, he says, “you go wash up and get started with your partner.”

“What exactly are you doing?” Woohyun asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Clay masks! Well, more like the mold of them. After this, we fill them with pure clay, and once they're solid, we peel off the layer with the bandages and start shaping the mask with papier Mache,” the guy called Dongwoo approaches them and offers the explanation with a wide smile. “You’re Woohyun, right? Mr.—”

“Mr. Nam’s kid,” Woohyun finishes for him. Is his grandfather some sort of celebrity or does everyone in this town just know each other?

“Grandson” Sunggyu corrects with a half-smile, before a kid calls for him. “Dongwoo, do your thing and make Woohyun stay.”

“Got it, sir!” Dongwoo salutes and Sunggyu. “I’m Sunggyu’s cousin. We’re pretty much in charge of this club.”

“Yeah, he told me something like that,” Woohyun says. “Back when he had brown hair.”

Dongwoo laughs like he just said the funniest thing in the world, making Woohyun giggle a little. It is contagious, that laugh.

“Yeah, he’s acting on a fancy play next semester, and he wants to get used to the white hair,” he explains. Woohyun’s eyes wander through the stage, unconsciously setting on the young man helping a kid pull off the clay mask. He notices Sunggyu’s eyebrows furrowed, deep in concentration, and the proceeding relaxation once the entire mask is off without hurting the delicate face.

“All his hair is going to fall off before he even reaches the stage,” he says without realizing, unblinking, and Dongwoo nearly falls off stage from how hard he’s laughing. A couple of kids nearby start snickering too, much to the dismay of the youngest of the helpers.

Sunggyu looks at them. “Somehow I feel like you’re talking about me.”

“Just your hair,” the youngest teen replies without looking at them, uncapping Vaseline for a child. “Don't open your eyes until the mold is completely dry. And make sure you coat your eyebrows and eyelashes with this. Remember how Dongwoo lost his eyebrows last year?”

The girl nods, a bit worried, and runs back to her partner. The teen walks up to them as Dongwoo goes back to the kids.

“I’m Sungjong, by the way,” he says, offering Woohyun a short, but firm handshake. “Since no one else seems to care enough to tell you that.”

Sunggyu huffs. “This is Sungjong." He points, like an exhibition guide at a museum. "He’s like 15, constantly angry, and one time burned down a Christmas tree.”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

“Anyway,” Sunggyu turns to Woohyun, completely disregarding Sungjong, “we’re doing Grease, presenting at the end of the summer. We’re also going to work with masks for a while, to get the kids to explore other identities and such. You can do one too if you want, I just finished mine.”

"Right now?"

Sunggyu shrugs. "Anytime is the best time."

“And would this be like volunteering, or something? Do you belong to any community group?”

Sunggyu shakes his head. “Just us three, relying on donations from the parents. We offer no pay, but I promise you this is going to be your only source for entertainment.”

Woohyun stays silent, considering his options. He watches the kids run around the stage, causing ruckus. Perhaps they have nothing else to do while waiting for the molds that are already filled with clay to dry. It must be tough to control them, right?

But is control really what they need? Or is it guidance, a conductor for all their energy?

Woohyun glances at Sunggyu, who is still waiting for his answer, and decides it cannot be that bad. Something about the strange hair color seems to be asking what do you have to lose?

“Okay, I’ll help you out.”

Sunggyu wraps an arm around Woohyun’s neck, laughing in a kind of “ha-ha, got you” manner, and Woohyun’s lips unconsciously curl into a smile.

“Alright, everyone. The ones who are not covered in bandages, come here. This is Woohyun, he’ll be helping us out…”

—

The heat seems to decrease a bit at night, or at least once they step out of the theater-warehouse, so Woohyun extends his arms and takes a deep breath.

They wait outside while Sunggyu finishes locking everything up, a bit after all the kids are either picked up or go home on their own. Woohyun kind of dreads walking to his grandfather’s house, especially because the other three have their own bicycles and he has to cross the bridge over the creek that is near his grandpa’s place, which looks pretty scary in the dark.

Also, he can barely move.

Dealing with children is hard.

“What a fun first day, right?” Sunggyu says while patting him with unnecessary strength. “Don’t worry, you get used to it. Plus we can rest while Dongwoo and Sungjong are teaching the choreos.”

Now that he arrives with the others, Woohyun figures that they are going to leave him, but they all start walking while pushing their bikes.

“That reminds me,” Dongwoo says, “we still don’t have speakers.”

Sunggyu groans. “Right, I forgot about that. Mr. Lee sold the ones he was letting us borrow, right?”

Sungjong makes a sound in agreement. “I think my sister-in-law’s family used to own a thrift store. Maybe we could find something cheap in there.”

“Isn’t her family’s town a bit far?” Sunggyu asks.

“Well what other idea do you have? We’ve already shown them some basic steps, but we can’t do much without the music.”

“Do you happen to have the music sheets?” Woohyun asks. When he feels the stares on him, he adds, “I saw a keyboard at my grandpa’s. Maybe I could play the melody for rehearsals while you get the music?”

"You know how to play?"

"Yeah, I took courses as a kid." He offers an abashed smile. "I might be a bit rusty, though."

They mull over it for a while. “That sounds really helpful,” Dongwoo says.

“I don’t have them,” Sunggyu replies, but before anyone has the chance to become discouraged, he says, “but I could look them online at Mrs. Choi’s cyber-cafe.”

“There’s a place like that in here?” Woohyun asks, thinking back to his many unanswered conversation with friends.

“It’s just old machines, don’t get your hopes up,” Sungjong replies like he is personally offended by the fact. “Anyway, that sounds good enough for now. I’ll tell my brother if he can take us there someday. Now I got to get home. I’m starving!”

He hops into his bike with an ease that comes from a familiarity shaped by years.

“Hey, wait for me! You know how scared I get!” Dongwoo says, teetering between smiley and panicked, and throws a worried glance at Sunggyu, as if expecting him to do something about it. When the oldest of them nods, Dongwoo sort of runs and hops a couple of times, gaining speed, before he too jumps on his bike and sets off in the darkness of the night.

Sunggyu gets on his own bicycle and gives an exaggerated sigh. “Get in,” he says to Woohyun. Woohyun narrows his eyebrows, about to make a snarky comment about sitting on the handlebars, before noticing the pegs on the rear wheel.

“Oh,” he says, then giggles, a bit embarrassed at himself, as he steps on them and grabs onto Sunggyu’s shoulders.

“Sometimes we take kids home,” Sunggyu explains. He starts moving, slowly, and then huffs. “I didn’t realize you were this heavy.”

Woohyun bites his lips, crimpling the green fabric under his fingers. “Should I get off?”

Sunggyu shakes his head, the bicycle gaining speed. “It’s fine, you live downhill.”

“Do you live nearby?”

“Kind of,” Sunggyu replies, a bit out of breath.

“Then, is it okay for you to take me home? I mean, maybe you’re hungry as well and want to get home as soon as possible.”

“You’re rather talkative tonight,” Sunggyu comments as they breeze through unfamiliar houses, some of them with the lights . “I thought you were kind of quiet and annoying when I met you.”

Woohyun chuckles. “I thought you were weird when I met you,” he shoots back. “Turns out I was right.” The bike swings to the side, and Woohyun yells, startled. “Okay, I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did,” Sunggyu replies, his white fringe flying back. Woohyun kind of wants to play with it. “What did you think of today, city boy?”

Woohyun does not hesitate. “It was fun.”

Sunggyu stays silent for a while, but as they cross the bridge that leads to the street where his grandfather lives, Woohyun has a feeling that he’s smiling.

-

“I can’t believe you’ve never watched Grease. You are grounded for the next three years or so.”

“You can’t ground me. We’ve known each other for like a week.”

“Four years.”

They are going over the songs in the music sheets that Sunggyu printed a couple of days ago, hours after they’re done with the regular rehearsals, just the two of them. Woohyun makes a note in pencil when Sunggyu plays a part of Greased Lightnin’ on his phone. Adapting the songs to play in just piano is kind of difficult at times, but as it turns out, their musical knowledge combined works wonders.

“I just never got around to watch it, all right?”

Sunggyu stands up and walks to his backpack. He retrieves a script from it, which he throws at Woohyun’s face.

“You got homework,” he says, his tone authoritative. The facade dissipates rather quickly, though, when Woohyun, with an annoyed expression, plays dun, dun, duuuun on the piano to add dramatism to his words.

“Ugh, reading,” Woohyun comments, throwing the script on his bag. Sunggyu sits next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder in the small bench.

“Ugh, reading,” Sunggyu mimics in a child-like voice. “You sound like one of the kids. I accidentally recruited a kid.”

Woohyun shoves him, feeling his ears warm. He hopes they are not too red. Discreetly, he touches one. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I’m a man.”

“Ah yes, the manliest man who yells when I go a bit faster than usual on the bike.”

“Hey, men are allowed to be scared too.”

“It’s a mild hill.”

“Let’s just get done with this.”

—

He asks his grandfather for an old instant camera. The old man does not ask for what because he does not need to.

Woohyun says it's for documenting his trip for his parents, since his phone's memory is full, but Grandpa Nam knows of the pleasure of developing the photos, which one day will bring memories worth looking back on.

Woohyun takes pictures of everything: The kids rehearsing; the masks (his is a tiger); Dongwoo, Sungjong and Sunggyu riding their bikes; his grandfather making a peace sign; the four of them standing on the bridge; the sign at the theatre that is in urgent need of repainting; the land. He takes many pictures of the land.

—

“Don’t you think this play is a bit inappropriate for children? I mean, half of the songs are about . And the other half are ballads," Woohyun wonders aloud, munching on popcorn. "Some are ballads about having .”

A couple of weeks later, the four of them find themselves at Dongwoo’s house, where Sunggyu is staying as well, one hot summer night after rehearsals. Sunggyu somehow could manage to torrent the original movie at Mrs. Choi’s cyber-cafe, so they are staying over to watch it, for research purposes. Woohyun uses the scene where John Travolta is in the swing to speak over it.

Sunggyu eats popcorn while Dongwoo mouths the way-ay-ay-ay part and giggles to himself.

Sungjong shrugs. “The protagonists are usually older kids, and most of them don’t get the references, they just like to dance.”

“And their parents love to see them in 50’s costumes,” Sunggyu adds. “Which reminds me, are we going to do the girls’ skirts or what?” he asks before shoving a handful of popcorn on his mouth.

Gross, Woohyun thinks, stealing some from him.

“I already told my sister and she agreed to sew them. They’re pretty easy to make,” Dongwoo shrugs. They leave it at that.

But some time later,

(as Dongwoo grabs Sungjong, who pulls Woohyun, who drags Sunggyu to stand up and dance the part in You’re the one that I want where the main characters put their hands on their waist and take two steps back and two forward,

You’re the one that I want/you are the one I want/Oo, oo, oo/Honey—)

he realizes—if someone had told him he would be having this much fun with a group of guys he had never met, in a town in the middle of nowhere, he would have laughed. At the beginning of the summer, he would have laughed. If Sunggyu had said to him "You are going to have the time of your life dancing to Grease with my friends and I,” he would have laughed until tears came to his eyes. And now he’s here, and while he’s having fun, his heart aches, because this will end sooner than he wants it to.

He looks to his right to find Sunggyu sitting back down and huffing, pretending that that was the hardest dance move he has ever done, and smiles.

—

In the morning after, Woohyun is awakened by a soft tap on his shoulder. He mumbles incoherently, shifting away from the touch, and then feels the weight of a body on top of him.

“Get up,” Sunggyu whispers against his ear, and his voice is too much to handle for Woohyun’s half-asleep mind. “I have something to show you.”

Woohyun blinks, shoving Sunggyu aside from his sleeping bag. He sits up once the weight is off him, hoping that the tent in his pants is not too noticeable. Much to his luck, Sunggyu is already turning away from him and standing up.

“What?” he whispers when he notices that it is still dark outside. The other two are fast asleep, spread around the living room they turned into a communal bedroom. Dongwoo’s parents are upstairs, snoring. He figures that his sister is, as well.

Sunggyu puts on his shoes, donned in just the cotton shirt he used to sleep and a pair of cotton shorts, and opens the door as quietly as he can. Woohyun hurries to put on some pants, and with his tennis shoes still unlaced, runs off after him. When they are outside, Sunggyu locks the door again and walks to his bicycle, chained next to Dongwoo’s to a metal bar under the kitchen window.

“Take Dongwoo’s bike. I don’t want to take you in mine all the way there.”

“Where are we going?” Woohyun asks, rubbing the boogers off his eyes.

Sunggyu hops on his bike, his foot planted firmly on one of the pedals, and says, “You’ll find out.”

He sets off, and Woohyun follows after him with more questions than answers swimming in his head. They ride for a while through roads that have now become familiar, which is a relief. But after they pass the warehouse-slash-theatre and the houses start becoming scarcer, he is full of questions again. They reach an unpaved road that goes uphill, dawn biting at their tails. Woohyun has to concentrate more on not hitting large rocks that could damage the bike than on Sunggyu’s broad back.

Just when he starts to get a little out of breath, Sunggyu glances back. “We’re almost there.”

They reach a part of the land that is not the top of the hill, but it is pretty flat. Sunggyu slows down and then stops, drops his bike, and walks to Woohyun.

“Turn around,” he orders when the younger of the two does the same, and Woohyun obeys without question. He is getting used to the mystery.

But soon, he understands. The sight. The sight in front of him does not need a verbal explanation from Sunggyu, nor from anyone else, for that matter.

The sun rises in the horizon, its golden tips sneaking through the cotton clouds that not only surround the sky, but the land as well. Woohyun watches in awe as the mist dissipates from the fields, gray giving place to green and blue. A couple of people working the land, whom they passed on their way there, wave their arms in greeting. The cows around them do not seem to care. Next to him, Woohyun feels Sunggyu wave back.

He still cannot close his mouth.

Later, he does not know if minutes or hours, the sun rises above in the sky and the mist is gone. It feels like it has lasted a second, or as long as it took Woohyun to fill his lungs with the morning air.

“This is what my grandfather talked about,” he whispers, still a bit spellbound.

Sunggyu nods. “Yeah, he always talks about it,” he says. “I paid him a visit to ask him if he could take a couple of pictures of the play. For the parents, but also for my resume.”

“I could have done that,” Woohyun replies.

“I know, but I wanted to see him. He makes very good iced tea.”

“Very sweet, you mean.” Woohyun says, shaking his head.

“Anyway, how do you like it, City boy?”

“You keep calling me that. Aren’t you from the city as well?”

Sunggyu shrugs. “Jeonju is not Seoul.”

Woohyun nods, contemplating the vast fields flanked by mountains nearby. At times he feels like forgetting that Seoul is a thing, that after the summer, he will go back to start a new chapter of his life. The same is probably true for Sunggyu, who, as surrounded by mystery as he is, will most likely remember this period of his life as a dream once he goes back to his life. He has a life too; the white hair is proof of that. A life that Woohyun is not part of.

Sunggyu is right. There is a big difference, bigger than the physical distance between the cities, bigger than their aspirations in life.

They could very well never see each other again.

“Jeonju is not Seoul,” Woohyun repeats to himself, wetting his lips as he glances at Sunggyu. He is surprised to find the older of the two already staring at him, his expression torn between amusement and biting sadness.

He is not sure who moves first, if it is him, tilting his head, or Sunggyu, moving forward to press his soft, thin lips against Woohyun’s. Or maybe they do it in sync, like magnets attracted to each other. Inseparable. Or at least they hope to be.

Woohyun sighs into the kiss, his hands seeking purchase in the soft fabric of Sunggyu’s cotton shirt, his eyes closed, and his other senses, opened. Sunggyu rests one hand on Woohyun’s chin, and the other on his chest, incredibly tender. More tender than Woohyun could ever imagine Sunggyu, the Sunggyu who barks orders to the young performers when they’re out of place and that makes fun of Woohyun for holding too tightly onto him when they hit a bump on the road while riding together, to be with him.

When they pull apart, with soft and short kisses following before they truly break off once and for all, Woohyun feels like he cannot face Sunggyu eye-to-eye. But Sunggyu, as if reading his thoughts, holds onto his hands and presses the last kiss of the day on the tip of his nose.

—

Summer passes by like a dream. A wet, stuffy, and humid dream. A cruel dream.

Woohyun sleeps, eats and sweats theatre. Sunggyu talks about theater theory, film theory, and even crams so much literary theory into Woohyun’s head that the younger man feels like he’s taking an intensive course for free just because Sunggyu likes the sound of his own voice too much. Or maybe he wants to immerse Woohyun in his world in a desperate attempt to leave irreplaceable memories in him, so that every time Woohyun sees a movie and thinks of the three act structure, he will remember the way Sunggyu kissed the tip of his ear on a hot summer night at the theatre. But that is only a suspicion.

They do other things, as well. Go riding on their days off. Eat popsicles at the convenience store. Sleep under the stars. Play with their masks. Console one of the oldest kids for a broken heart.

(Hide in the storage room annexed to the theatre-warehouse and make out while pretending they’re hiding from the rain because the theatre is ridiculously leaky—Their bodies, moving together in synchrony, their promises of an eternal summer burned into memories sealed by kisses and first times.

And many years later, even as their paths deviated and they never met again, Woohyun would remember the exact distance between each of Sunggyu’s moles in his chest and would yearn to have that back.)

—

Three nights only.

The ‘season’ lasts for three nights.

On opening night, the seats are full, the parents all expectant to catch even a glimpse of their kids. Backstage, as they like to call the small room behind the curtain and next to the bathrooms, brims with chaos exuding from easily impressionable and exited. It’s a mixed bag, in all honesty. While some children sit quietly, getting their hair and make-up done and practicing their lines, others cannot stay still.

“Kenickie, where’s your comb?” Sungjong asks, exasperated, as he spreads a copious amount of gel to style the kid’s hair. Next to him, Dongwoo's sister and some of the kids’ moms are playing stylist as well.

“I think Kihyun had it and broke it,” the boy replies with a shrug. “But it’s okay, I can improvise.”

Sungjong sighs. Actors.

But in the end, it is worth it.

Woohyun watches from a distance as the kids finish performing the last song, the one about being together forever. He stopped playing the piano when they managed to get some decent sound, but that didn’t mean his work would end. Next to him, the display of masks shines brightly from the glossy touch they added at the end.

A smile crosses his face.

He knows that this marks the beginning of the end.

And a hell of an end. The parents all stand up to clap, cheering as wide smiles spread through the children’s faces, their laughs contagious. Sunggyu grabs his hand and drags him forward, on stage, even though Woohyun protests a bit. They make themselves some space on a corner and bow at the same time as the children. Among the cheers, he thinks he hears Dongwoo sniffling, and before he realizes, he’s crying as well.

At the beginning of summer, Woohyun would have never imagined that children were capable of such a feat. A play is built on relationships, on trust. Sunggyu’s direction and Dongwoo’s choreography would not have worked if the children were not on board with the idea. If they had not put something from their side.

Woohyun had a preconceived idea of the mess that children bring, but unlike what he saw the first day, what he witnessed tonight had proven that they were capable of controlled chaos and of putting on a cohesive show.

He bites his lips, letting sobs shake him, before rising up and facing the audience with a smile. He was part of that. He contributed to that chaos.

The kids start exiting the stage in sort of an orderly manner and Sunggyu laughs, tenderly making fun of him as they hug.

“Thank you,” Woohyun says on his ear, quietly, but he would like to scream the words so that everybody could hear. Maybe, just maybe, he wants to say "I love you."

For the first time, he feels a tremor rock Sunggyu’s body, and a sob goes by unheard by the masses but heard by him.

“I—We couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Don’t lie, you totally could.”

Sunggyu pulls away, rubbing his runny nose on his forearm. “Okay, yes. We still could,” he says. “But I wouldn’t have wanted to.”

Dongwoo decides to thrown himself between them at that moment. “Come on, you guys. This is not over yet! We have to celebrate with the kids!”

But all good things must come to an end.

—

Woohyun sits in one of the plastic chairs at the train station, with one hand tapping a series of numbers into his phone and the other one holding onto Sunggyu’s. His red bag lies next to him, filled with local goods and delicacies for his parents, courtesy of his grandfather and local old ladies.

“I can’t believe he got customers right at the time I’m leaving,” he mentions offhandedly, resting his head on Sunggyu’s shoulder.

“Maybe he wanted to give us some time together,” Sunggyu replies.

“I guess.”

“Hey, don’t be so sad,” Sunggyu nudges him. “We can still see each other and text. I could go to Seoul a couple of weekends.”

Woohyun nods, wanting to believe that.

Then, he bites his lips. Something has been going through his head for the last few days, between the last date of the play and now, when he has to go back. He wants to tell Sunggyu, and at the same time, he hesitates.

"I actually wanted to talk to you," he says at last, "about something."

Sunggyu hums. "If you're going to tell me you've been playing with my feelings all summer, I just want to say that you're a horrible person."

"You're way meaner than I imagined you to be," Woohyun complains. "But no, it's not that."

Sunggyu lets out a breath. "I was scared for a second."

"Also, I've been playing with your feelings?" Woohyun nudges him. "Your feelings? What about my feelings? I've been crushing on you ever since you dyed your hair."

"Just tell me what you were going to say."

Woohyun huffs. Oh, that.

“It’s… nothing important.”

“Is that really what you want to say to me before you leave?”

Sunggyu has a very impressive point.

“I was just thinking,” he pauses, gathering all his courage, and then proceeds, “what if this doesn’t have to end? What if it’s… only the beginning?”

Sunggyu’s expression, previously filled with mirth, slowly morphs into a neutral one, and then, his lips curl into a smile.

“Only the beginning, I like the sound of that.”

In the faint distance, a whistle is heard, and they hold onto each other tighter than ever.