Chapter Text
“Oh, here, you forgot to take these,” said Beomseok, pulling two sheets of paper from his pocket and handing them to Suho and Sieun.
They were in the cafeteria. Suho, having already devoured everything on his tray, was finishing off the leftovers Sieun had given him.
Sieun unfolded the sheet and skimmed through it. “I don’t need this,” he said.
“What? Why not?” Beomseok asked, surprised.
“I’m not going.”
“What is it?” Suho mumbled through a mouthful of food, not bothering to check for himself.
“Permission slip for the Seoraksan trip,” Beomseok explained, still staring at Sieun. “Why aren’t you coming?”
“Oh, I’m not going either,” Suho chimed in. “I have to work.”
“I don’t care,” Sieun shrugged.
Beomseok looked at them as if they’d just told him his dog had died. “You can’t be serious! This would be our first trip together!”
Sieun glanced at Suho, who only shrugged in reply. “I’ve never been on a school trip.”
“Me neither!” Beomseok exclaimed. “But I thought that now… since we’re together…”
Sieun lowered his eyes, a pang of guilt tugging at him. He had never cared about school trips, never even considered going. And yet, the thought of being there with Beomseok and Suho, camping in the mountains… it didn’t sound so bad.
“Alright,” he said.
Beomseok lit up, barely able to contain his joy.
“You’re really going?” Suho asked, meeting Sieun’s eyes.
“Suho, I’ll pay you twice what you make at work if you come too!” Beomseok offered.
“Ah!” Suho slammed his fist on the table, silencing the entire cafeteria. Then he stuck out his hand for a firm handshake. “Deal!”
Watching them grin like idiots, Sieun quietly slipped the permission slip into his pocket.
Later, when Suho came to pick him up after cram school, Sieun told him bluntly, “Don’t take Beomseok’s money.”
Suho froze for a moment, leaning against his scooter with his helmet tucked under one arm. Sieun guessed he had already forgotten what he was talking about.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want him thinking you hang out with him for the money.”
“If I skip work, I don’t get paid. And I need the money.”
“I know,” Sieun replied curtly, a little annoyed at being spoken to like a child. “But this trip is about spending time with him. If you don’t want to go, then don’t. But don’t take his money.”
Suho’s jaw tightened, irritation flashing in his eyes as he looked Sieun up and down.
“I can spend time with him in Seoul too.”
“That’s not the point.”
They locked eyes for several seconds. There was a strange tension in the air, one Sieun had come to associate with Suho. It happened sometimes, these moments where it felt like they were testing each other.
Then Suho’s hard gaze softened into a sly half-smile. “Sieun, do you want me to come?”
“What difference does it make?” Sieun could have said yes or no, but instinct pushed him to keep up the subtle challenge. Even he wasn’t sure what he wanted to gain from it.
“Don’t you want to spend time with me?” Suho pressed, stepping closer.
“I can spend time with you in Seoul,” Sieun shot back without moving an inch.
Suho burst into a short laugh and gave him that look Sieun had learned to recognize, the one that seemed to say: this guy is ridiculous. And maybe it was just Sieun’s imagination, but there was something almost affectionate in it now. Suho had come so close that Sieun had to tilt his head back to meet his eyes.
“If you ask me, I’ll go. And I won’t take a cent from Beomseok,” Suho said. “Ask me. And call me hyung.”
Sieun was once again caught off guard, and intrigued, by Suho’s way of doing things. He didn’t know how else to take that request other than as some strange kind of joke. But Suho wasn’t the type to humiliate people for fun. Maybe it was just how friends teased each other, Sieun couldn’t know… though it didn’t feel quite like that either.
Sieun felt like a lamb being asked to bare its throat, not knowing if the one in front of him was a predator. It was a disorienting feeling, one he shouldn’t have liked. And yet, when he was with Suho, when they tested each other like this, he felt a strange electricity under his skin, an overwhelming pull he had never experienced before.
That was why he finally said, blinking slowly as he studied Suho’s unreadable expression: “Suho-hyung, will you come on the trip with me?”
Suho’s face broke into an expression of astonishment, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Sieun had to fight back a smile, certain he had made the right move—as if he were the predator and Suho the prey he had just caught.
Before Suho could react, Sieun tugged the helmet from under his arm and went to sit on the scooter. The stunned way Suho watched his every move made him hyper-aware of his own body, every small gesture magnified.
He had spent his whole life trying to stay invisible, to slip by unnoticed. Whenever eyes landed on him, he always felt anxious, like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. But the way Suho’s gaze pinned him down was different. It set his body alight, sharpened every sense. It terrified him, but he couldn’t help wanting more.
“Will you give me a ride home?” he asked, secretly pleased that Suho was still too shocked to answer.
A few days later, when Sieun finally got his father’s signature on the permission slip, it was without the man even reading the paper. Sieun didn’t say anything; he knew his father would be leaving again the next day and wouldn’t notice his absence. Better to stay quiet than risk hearing him make some comment about his new social life, pretending to care only to forget a moment later.
As for his mother’s signature, Sieun forged it. He wouldn’t see her for another month and didn’t have time to wait. And even if he told her, she simply wouldn’t have cared.
On the day of the trip, Sieun woke up at three in the morning to reach the bus station by four. He had packed the night before, so he washed up, pulled on a hoodie against the crisp night air, and slipped out of the house.
Beomseok was already there, sitting on a bench a short distance from where the teachers were chatting by the bus. Other students were starting to gather in noisy clusters, breaking the silence of the night with excited chatter.
When Beomseok spotted him, his face lit up in a smile and he leapt to his feet. “Do you think we should call Suho?” was the first thing he said.
Sieun checked the time on his phone and nodded; he was sure Suho was still asleep. He let Beomseok be the one to call.
Even with the warning, Suho showed up last, just one minute before departure, earning himself a scolding from the teachers, to whom he bowed repeatedly in apology. Sieun had to bite back a smile at the sight of his messy hair and crumpled clothes.
They sat at the very back, with Beomseok squeezed between the two of them. The moment he sat down, Suho slumped against the seat and fell back asleep. Sieun had brought his earbuds and would have preferred to spend the ride listening to music while staring out the window, but the hopeful look on Beomseok’s face made him feel guilty. Forcing himself, he kept up a conversation to make up for Suho’s absence and chatter, though his words often came out as clipped half-answers, nearly strangled in his throat.
Thankfully, before long, Beomseok’s eyelids began to droop. The noise of the students filling the bus had quieted too, many of them nodding off once the rush of adrenaline faded, and outside it was still dark. At last, Sieun slipped on his headphones, thinking how hard it already was for him to fall asleep in his own bed, at home. The idea of doing it in the middle of a crowd was pure science fiction.
The bus dropped them off near the campsite, but there was still a stretch of road to walk through the trees. Suho and Beomseok walked a little ahead, chatting, while Sieun trudged behind, shoulders heavy with fatigue, weighed down by the bag digging into him. Then Suho suddenly fell back, silently took the bag from him, and just as silently went back to talking with Beomseok.
That one gesture jolted Sieun awake as if someone had injected caffeine straight into his veins. Suddenly he noticed how beautiful the trail was: the tall trees revealing slivers of bright blue sky, the birds singing in the morning, the faint murmur of running water somewhere in the distance.
A few steps ahead, Suho walked with his usual casual confidence: shoulders back, head high, stride steady, hands shoved in his pockets despite carrying both his own bag and Sieun’s, bags Sieun knew were not light. He looked around as if the park belonged to him. Brazen, yes, but in a way that was endearing, nothing like the swaggering arrogance of Youngbin and his thugs.
At the campsite, the three of them got assigned the same tent. They barely had time to drop off their bags before heading to breakfast at the nearby hotel. Suho ate everything he could get his hands on at the buffet, plus the food Sieun had barely touched.
The teachers then led them on the day’s first excursion, which lasted until sunset. They rode the cable car up the mountain and strolled through the forest paths. At lunchtime, they stopped at a picnic area and bought sandwiches from a stall.
Beomseok looked like a kid stepping into Disneyland for the first time, while Suho took everything in with the ease of someone who had lived in Seoraksan his whole life. To Sieun’s surprise, he found himself enjoying the scenery, never once longing for the dim solitude of his room and his textbooks. Sitting in the grass, watching Suho and Beomseok play rock-paper-scissors to decide something Sieun hadn’t even bothered to figure out, he felt a bubble of excitement burst in his stomach.
They returned to the campsite at dusk. Sieun ate dinner with the other two, but when it came time to head to the spa, he bowed out. Beomseok and Suho were already talking about trying the sauna, betting on who could last longer, while Sieun, dizzy with exhaustion, thought he might faint just setting foot inside.
He followed them as far as the locker rooms, clothes tucked under his arm, and announced that he would just shower and head back to the tent. To his surprise, Beomseok didn’t press him to join.
Suho, however, shot him a sidelong glance, as if confirming something for himself, then gave a small nod. Without warning, he tugged off his T-shirt, stained faintly with the sweat of the long day, revealing a lean chest, dark nipples on toned pecs, and wide shoulders Sieun had only guessed at beneath his clothes.
He did it with the same ease and confidence he did everything else, as if it were nothing. But Sieun had to snap his gaze away and focus hard on the symmetry of the tiles to steady his heartbeat. He was grateful he’d refused the sauna: fifteen minutes next to a bare-chested Suho would’ve meant risking spontaneous combustion.
He waited until they were gone before showering as quickly as possible and leaving. His classmates were starting to crowd the locker room and, though they all left him alone now that he hung around with Suho, the idea of spending time in the same room with them still irritated him.
The lamps along the trail back to the campsite had already been lit, and in the sky the sun had left behind only a faint glow, deepening the shadows beneath the trees. Sieun walked with his hands shoved into his hoodie pocket against the cold, his mind thick with fatigue and agitation, a haze that muddled his thoughts. He knew what that meant: another sleepless night ahead.
Thinking of the math book he had packed just for such an occasion, something to keep him occupied instead of tossing in his sleeping bag, he was distracted by the sound of laughter up ahead.
Four boys around his age stood on the path: three big, intimidating ones encircling a fourth, smaller even than Sieun, head ducked, glasses slipping down his nose as he stared at the gravel.
Sieun had learned to recognize this kind of scene on instinct. Disgust twisted in his stomach as he stopped to watch.
One of the bigger boys, his squashed nose dominating his face, had grabbed the smaller one’s shoulder, drawing a hiss of pain.
“What, you expect me to believe your mom didn’t give you a few won for food, Juntae?”
“N-not enough for everyone,” the smaller boy squeaked, still staring at the ground.
“Ah,” the other drawled, smirking as the others snickered, “as long as there’s enough for us.”
Sieun knew the smartest thing to do was walk away. He had no idea who these guys were, and it wasn’t his business. He wasn’t a hero, wasn’t looking for trouble. He told himself he didn’t care, tried to convince himself to move on, but before he could, he was noticed.
One of the three thugs met his eyes. “What the hell are you looking at?” he barked, drawing the others’ attention to Sieun.
Sieun clenched his jaw against the irritation. He saw the boy with glasses glance up at him, eyes shiny with desperation, and it stabbed him in the gut.
“Move,” Sieun said firmly, loud enough for all of them to hear. The boy with glasses sucked in a sharp breath, the bullies’ eyes widening.
“What was that?” the one with the squashed nose demanded, striding over in three heavy steps. Sieun tilted his head back to meet his gaze but didn’t step aside.
“You’re blocking the path. Move.” Sieun watched surprise give way to anger on the boy’s face, a process he found almost laughably slow. But then again, most bullies weren’t exactly bright.
He knew a punch was coming, and more than anything, he found it annoying. Tomorrow there was another hike, and the bruises would slow him down, maybe ruin the trip not just for him but for Suho and Beomseok too. Still, at this point, it was inevitable.
At the edge of the path was a pile of rocks. One of them was just the right size to fit in his palm, sharp-edged on one side. The moment the thug made a move, Sieun planned to grab it and smash it into his temple, hard enough to knock him out. If he was lucky, that would scare the others off. If not… well, the rock could be used more than once.
“Is there a problem?” came a voice from right behind Sieun.
“Baku!” cried the boy with glasses, rushing forward with relief.
The newcomer was another guy Sieun didn’t know, wearing a completely out-of-place smile and shoulders broad enough to take down everyone there without breaking a sweat.
“Causing trouble for kids from other schools?” he asked, still smiling.
The squashed-nose bully visibly faltered, stepping back nervously. “No way, Baku, sorry,” he muttered, even bowing. Sieun clicked his tongue in annoyance.
“Good,” Baku said cheerfully. “I promised the teacher we’d be on our best behavior this trip, so…” He clasped his hands together like in prayer, then spread his arms wide. “Go in peace.”
At that, the three bullies nodded frantically and bolted down the trail in the opposite direction, as if chased.
“They give you any trouble?” Baku asked, turning to Sieun.
“Actually, he was defending me,” the boy with glasses cut in quickly, looking at Sieun with open admiration.
“That’s not exactly—” he started to say, but Baku cut him off with a sort of whistle and suddenly lunged at him.
If Sieun had had a blunt object within reach, he would’ve stabbed him with it. Instead, he had to endure being crushed in a kind of embrace by that absolute giant, who must’ve been endowed with superhuman strength, since he didn’t even seem to notice Sieun’s frantic attempts to wriggle free.
“Baku, I don’t think he likes that,” the boy with glasses intervened.
Baku finally let go of Sieun. “Sorry, sorry,” he said in english with atrocious pronunciation, bowing. “I am very grateful. Juntae is very precious to us.” Juntae chuckled.
Sieun briefly wondered why he was speaking of himself in the plural, then concluded he was simply insane.
It was at that moment that Suho and Beomseok appeared from around the bend in the path, halting in surprise at the sight of two strangers with Sieun.
“Sieun?” Suho asked, stepping closer and scanning him from head to toe before locking eyes with him. Sieun kept his face neutral, as if to say everything was fine.
And it was, until Baku slung a heavy arm around his shoulders, leaving him speechless at the sudden contact. “Are you his friends?”
Suho’s jaw tightened, his expression sharpening as he glared at that arm like he wanted to rip it clean off its owner, tongue pushing tensely against the inside of his cheek. “And who the hell are you?” he asked. He wasn’t looking at Baku’s face, only at that arm.
“Park Humin, at your service,” Baku replied, cheerful as if physically incapable of reading the room, even sticking out his hand for Suho to shake. Suho ignored it. “Wow, if looks could kill…” Baku joked, pulling his hand back with a laugh.
Finally snapping out of it, Sieun slipped out from under his hold and went to stand beside Suho. Unexpectedly, Suho draped his own arm around his shoulders, just like Baku had, but instead of feeling uncomfortable, Sieun felt oddly relieved. Baku’s arm had felt like it weighed a hundred kilos, while Suho’s was a rather comforting weight, grounding even.
“Maybe we should go,” Juntae suggested, apparently not completely devoid of emotional intelligence, gently touching Baku’s arm. “Thanks a lot for what you did for me… Sieun, right?”
Sieun decided not to waste the energy correcting him, even if he hadn’t exactly intended to defend him. Not particularly, anyway. He just nodded and watched them walk off down the trail.
“What was all that about?” Beomseok asked. Sieun shrugged; explaining it would’ve cost more than three words, already three more than he felt like using. He glanced at Suho and noticed then that his hair was dripping wet.
“You didn’t dry your hair?” he hissed, indignant, fighting the urge to rip off his hoodie and wrap it around Suho’s head like a turban.
Suho shrugged. “Looks cooler if I air-dry it,” he said just as Beomseok added, “We didn’t want to keep you waiting too long.” His hair was soaked too.
Sieun would’ve gladly stabbed them both. He wriggled out from under Suho’s arm and strode back toward camp, knowing without looking that they’d follow. Back in the tent, he forced them to rub their heads dry with T-shirts.
That’s when they discovered Suho, who, of course, hadn’t bothered to read the back of the permission slip, hadn’t brought a sleeping bag. If Sieun hadn’t known he was juggling four jobs and school on his own, he’d have seriously feared for his survival.
“I’ll sleep in yours,” Suho said nonchalantly.
“No.”
Suho went to ask the campsite manager for one and came back carrying it under his arm. He unrolled it between Sieun’s and Beomseok’s, sniffed the inside, and grimaced.
“It stinks,” he complained, looking at Sieun, who was sitting cross-legged, charging his phone with a power bank.
“And how’s that my problem?” Sieun replied flatly.
“Someone might’ve died in here.”
“Still not my problem.”
“Let me sleep with you.”
“No.”
Suho huffed while Sieun pretended to answer a nonexistent text, just to avoid smiling. There was something infuriating and at the same time endearing about his pestering.
“You’re mean.”
“Sleep with Beomseok.”
Beomseok nodded from where he was cleaning his glasses with a T-shirt.
“Beomseok’s too big, we won’t fit,” Suho shot back immediately.
“We won’t fit either,” Sieun said, forcing himself to suppress the mental image of being completely wrapped up in Suho’s chiseled body inside the cramped, overheated sleeping bag.
“Yes, we will. You’re small,” Suho insisted.
“Not that small.”
“Sieun,” Suho said, tilting his chin up with two fingers to force his gaze away from the phone and into his own, “you’re very small. I could carry you in my pocket.”
Sieun blinked for what felt like an eternity, during which Suho’s eyes flicked down to his parted lips, and he still didn’t let go of his chin. It was a ridiculous thing to say, and yet he was so serious that Sieun had no idea how to respond, especially with the deafening thud of his own heartbeat in his ears. He just prayed he wasn’t blushing, or that at least the dim lantern light was too weak for Suho to notice.
The tent zipper opened and a teacher’s head poked in. “Everything okay, boys?”
Suho finally released Sieun’s face while Beomseok answered yes.
“Try to sleep soon and set your alarms for seven-thirty,” the teacher instructed before bidding them goodnight.
Half an hour later, the light was out. Beomseok was already snoring softly in his sleeping bag, Suho had set his phone to charge and turned his back, while Sieun lay wide-eyed, realizing with dread that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. The fog in his head since dinner, a swirl of incoherent, restless thoughts, had thickened, leaving him with a pounding, sleep-deprived headache and dry eyes that refused to close.
After tossing in his sleeping bag for a while, he decided to get up and study outside with his phone’s flashlight. At least that way he might calm his nerves.
But as he sat up, a hand pressed against his chest, stopping him. “What’s wrong, Sieun?” came Suho’s drowsy voice.
“I can’t sleep, I’m going for a walk,” he lied. He didn’t mention the integrals waiting in his math book, Suho would never let him live it down.
“No way. Stay down,” Suho mumbled, then dragged his sleeping bag so close that Sieun could feel his warmth even through the fabric, throwing an arm across him as if to make sure he stayed exactly where he wanted him. Without another word, Suho laid his head back on the pillow and drifted off again.
The restless thoughts that had been keeping Sieun awake melted away in that shared warmth, replaced by a single awareness: the weight of Suho’s arm rising and falling with each breath. Before he knew it, Sieun was asleep too.