Sungmin's Pov
I took the day off
First time in my entire work history that I had taken a whole day off for myself. There were times I had requested a half-day, but a full day? Never. I sent a text to Minjae at seven in the morning that just said 'not coming in today' and then turned my phone face down on the nightstand. For a long time, I just stared at the blank white ceiling.
My apartment was dead quiet. There was no morning rush to get to the office and no early calls from Bongseon. Well, who would even call at an hour like this anyway? My brain was working overtime, spinning in useless circles, and a dull, squeezing ache had been pressing against my temples ever since I heard the news about Yoonsuh.
I shifted to my side, ignoring the throbbing in my head. Outside my window, the city was carrying on with its usual morning routine without me, just like any other day. I should have felt some sort of relief or comfort in having a break, yet here I was, feeling empty after a sleepless night.
A heavy sigh escaped me. I rolled back onto my back, glaring up at the ceiling.
Yoonsuh's death happened nine years ago. It had been kept a secret for nearly a decade. Everyone around me knew about it, even though we had all graduated at that time and gone our separate ways. My old schoolmates knew. My classmates knew. Even my closest friend knew.
But why didn't I? How could I have been the only one left completely in the dark?
How could I not know…
The thoughts felt like heavy rice bags on my chest, suffocating me from the inside out.
"But Hosung and Ah-in knew, your friends; they both knew this not long after it happened. Almost nine years."
Noochan's words kept replaying in my ears like a broken record, exhausting me far more than the lack of sleep ever could. Letting out a low groan, I finally gave up on the bed and rolled to the side to sit up. I dragged my hands through my messy hair, pressing the heels of my palms hard against my face, wishing I could just press the noise out of my head.
I pulled my hands away from my face abruptly as the words replayed again in my mind yet again.
"Hosung and Ah-in knew."
Yes, they both knew. Then why did they hide it? Hosung hadn't even said a single word when Yoosuh accidentally mentioned it on the reunion day. He hadn't spoken up when I asked about it and hadn't even tried to tell me that Yoonsuh was dead. He had gone completely frozen, like he saw a ghost that day, letting me think.
I didn't even bother to change my clothes; I hadn't changed them since last night, which still faintly smelt of sour soju and a scent that wasn't mine – maybe Joohwan's. I strode out of the bedroom, grabbing my jacket that was hanging on the hand in a swift motion, and walked out. I didn't care if the main door locked shut or not; I just let it slam shut. The loud crack echoed down the hallway, making a woman who was locking her own apartment flinch in surprise.
She shot a sharp glare in my direction, but I just ignored it, like her presence. I walked past the elevator, never trusting it to be free during the morning rush anyway, and took the stairs two at a time. Ah-in and Hosung's apartment was only a twenty-minute walk from mine, a route I had taken a hundred times before without a second thought. But today, every single step is like walking through wet cement.
The spring morning was doing its best around me: cherry blossoms, warm air, and children in uniforms racing each other to the crosswalk, just like us in school days, and I moved through all of it unbothered. Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes until I could look my best friends in the eyes and make them explain why they had left me behind for nine years.
By the time I reached their building, the sweat on the back of my neck felt freezing against the gentle spring breeze. I didn't wait for the intercom to buzz me up; I slipped through the main entrance behind a delivery man and took the stairs up to the third floor, my heart hammering a frantic beat against my ribs.
By the time I reached apartment 304 and pressed the buzzer, I still hadn't figured out what I was going to say first.
A few seconds passed. Then the electronic lock opened and the door swung inward.
Ah-in stood there, a half-empty mug of coffee in her hand, wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt, probably Hosung's. Her hair was messy from sleep, but the moment her eyes landed on me in my rumpled clothes and my wild hair, her entire posture locked up. That lazy morning look instantly vanished from her face, replaced with wide-eyed surprise.
"Han Sungmin?" she gasped with her mouth open; she quickly put the mug in her hand down on the shoe rack. "What…what are you doing here at this hour? Aren't you going to work?" She asked, stepping aside to let me in.
Their apartment smelt of morning coffee and toast that was faintly burnt, probably by Hosung. It's always a comfort zone and slightly chaotic in the way that homes are when two chaotics live in it together. A blanket had half fallen off the sofa.
"Ah-in, I told you not to leave the toast like this; it would bur- hsoung appeared from the kitchen doorway in a faded sweatshirt, holding a spatula, complaining about Ah-in, who died halfway through his sentence the second he saw me.
"Sungmin-ah, I thought you would be at the company…" His words trailed off as he scanned me from top to bottom, taking in my rumpled self. "Did something happen?"
Yes, something happened.
"Nothing happened," I said, swallowing the lump in my throat, trying to force my voice to remain level.
I sat down on their sofa. Ah-in sat beside me immediately, curling her feet under her the way she always did. Hosung came back a moment later with a cup of coffee I hadn't asked for and sat in the chair across from us.
"Did you eat?" Ah-in asked.
"No."
"Hosung-ah, make him some—"
"I am not hungry," I cut her off.
But Hosung was already getting up. Some things hadn't changed since high school.
I watched him disappear into the kitchen. Ah-in nudged my arm with her shoulder. "What happened?" she asked.
"What?"
"I know you won't be here this early, and it's visible that you didn't sleep last night, and I wonder what happened," and then she pulled my sleeve and sniffed it like a puppy. "And are you drunk?"
I looked at her.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Did I ever drink at times like this?" I asked flatly.
She shrugged. "No…but you are acting different today; you took a day off, came to my house in the early hours, and smell drunk. Sungmin-ah, what happened?"
I stared at her. I hated how she always had ways to tell what was wrong, which only rubbed against my frayed nerves. I pulled my arm back from her grip, the fabric of my jacket rustling loudly in the quiet living room.
"I said I didn't drink today," I repeated, my voice dropping an octave but strong and steady. "It's from last night."
Hosung walked back into the room, holding a plate with a freshly toasted slice of bread that was mercifully unburnt this time, and placed it on the coffee table in front of me alongside a steaming mug of coffee. He didn't sit down immediately. He stood by the edge of the sofa, his eyes darting between my static posture and Ah-in's confused face.
"If it's from last night, you must have had a lot," Hosung murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. "Who were you even with? You usually call us if you're planning on knocking yourself out with soju."
"I was with Joohwan," I said flatly.
The name made all colours on Hosung's face fade in a second. His hand froze on the back of his neck. Beside me, I felt a slight shift in the couch cushion as Ah-in turned her head to look at Hosung, more confused.
"Kwon Joohwan," I repeated intently.
"Kwon Joohwan?" Ah-in repeated, her face scrunched in confusion.
"Yoonsuh hyung's best friend," I said, bringing a forced smile. "Remember Moon Yoonsuh, the guy who was all along filled with detestation for me?"
Ah-in's eyes widened slightly; she turned to Hosung before looking again and nodding.
I shifted on the couch, folding my legs. "I went to a high school reunion a few weeks ago, remember?" I asked.
She bit her lower lip before answering, "I know, I was supposed to come too."
"Yes, that one. Someone mentioned Yoonsuh hyung there after a very long time of hearing his name for the first time there," I said, my eyes looking into the void, enlarged. "And the first thing I heard about him was that he got into an accident after graduation."
Ah-in said nothing.
"Last night, I found out he didn't just have an accident." I paused, my eye on her, my throat burning from holding the lump. "He died, Ah-in-ah. Nine years ago. "My words scattered. "He took his own life, Hosung-ah. "I turned my gaze from Ah-in to Hosung.
A dry chuckle left my lips: "Funny that everyone around me knew it, including my best friends that I grew up with, who are still with me, hearing what I am saying right now."
Hosung looked down, closing his eyes as if he were about to cry, like they do when something kept so long hidden has finally been found out. Ah-in let out a shaky breath.
"Sungmin-ah," She started.
"You knew," I said, my voice dropping so low it felt like a vibration in the floorboards. "He knew. "I pointed a trembling finger at Hosung, then brought my gaze back to her, drilling into her wide, panicked eyes. "You all knew. But me? Why? Why was I the only one left behind?"
Ah-in's shaky breath caught in her throat. A tear finally escaped from her eye, tracing a wet path down her pale cheek, but she didn't reach to wipe it away.
Hosung finally started opening his eyes. "Because of the accident, Sungmin. Your accident – you were still recovering. You don't remember what happened. And we thought—" he exhaled, "—we thought if you knew about Yoonsuh hyung, you'd go looking. You try to find people connected to him. And at that point none of us were sure that was—" He stopped looking up into my eyes and started again. "We were trying to protect you."
"Protect me?"
The words tasted like ash in my mouth. I leant back, a harsh, humourless laugh ripping from my throat, though my eyes burnt with tears I refused to let fall.
"So, because I had an accident, because my memory was broken, you decided to keep me broken?"
"Sungmin-ah, you don't understand how bad it was," Ah-in sobbed, finally covering her face with her hands, her shoulder shaking violently under the oversized sweatshirt. "You were in the hospital. We didn't know when you'd be up. For three days you were unconscious; doctors said it would be even longer before you woke up. We are terrified, and luckily you woke up on the third day, and you could remember that Yoonsuh got into an accident or anything." She paused, exhaling.
"They said it's normal after a head trauma, a temporary gap in your memory. They warned us that any sudden emotional shock could cause a relapse or, worse, make the brain swelling come back." Ah-in's voice cracked completely, her words tumbling out in a desperate, weeping rush.
"We were just kids ourselves, Sungmin-ah! We had just completed high school, sitting in the waiting room, terrified we were going to lose you too."
"So you hid," I whispered.
I let my head drop back against the cushions, the anger completely draining out of me. It left behind a hollow, cold emptiness that was a thousand times worse. I looked at the two of them, the friends who had walked alongside me into adulthood, who had shared my meals and my apartment and my life.
How could I even vent my frustration on them? They just wanted to keep me safe from a pint that might have destroyed me. They had been terrified of losing me too. That was the truth of it; we were so young back then, barely graduated high school, entirely unprepared and scared to live as adults.
And right at that terrifying turning point, I pulled a reckless stunt, risking my own life to save someone else's, scaring them half to death in the process.
Did I even have the right to vent this much? As if I hadn't had any chance to find out the truth myself over the last nine years?
I simply let myself get swept up in the frantic, exhausting rut of building a life. I had allowed the memory of Moon Yoonsuh to slip into the background until the reunion day forced his name back into the light.
They hadn't built this cage alone. I had walked right into it and shut the door behind me.
"Sungmin-ah," Hosung spoke softly, his voice trembling as he took a step closer to the sofa, "I'm sorry for hiding this for so long and burying it when you asked again. I…I just didn't know how to dig it back up."
I didn't answer him right away. I stared down at my hands, which were resting heavily on my knees, into fists now unfolding. My shoulder slumped down, drained of the mixed emotions.
"Is there anything more that you kept secret from me?" I asked, looking at Hosung finally.
He stayed still, just like on the bridge when I asked about Moon Yoonsuh. The same expression of fighting himself over whether to say it or not, but unlike that day, I didn't want to distract from the topic again.
"Hosung?" I called to him, making his eye meet mine. "I am asking you again, is there anything more that you kept secret?"
"Yes," Ah-in said, making me turn my head to her.
She sniffled and wiped her tears before continuing, "There is something else you should know, not about Yoonsuh but about the person you saved."
I stared at her to complete her. She looked at me, her lips parted, but before she even spoke, Hosung spoke.
"It's Joohwan."
His name echoed in the quiet room, sounding completely new.
"What?" I breathed, the syllable barely leaving my lips. My brain stalled, refusing to process what I heard.
"It's Kwon Joohwan," Hosung repeated, his voice dropping into a ragged, broken whisper. "The person you pulled back from the edge of the bridge that day…the reckless stunt that almost killed you in the past, Sungmin-ahh…it was him. It was Joohwan."
The world seemed to tilt around me. The dull, squeezing ache in my temples flared into a sharp, blinding throb. I stared at Hosung, then slowly turned my head back to Ah-in, waiting for her to tell me to confirm that Hosung was telling the truth.
But she just sat there, fresh tears silently spilling over her lashes, nodding softly.