Observation Changes

In the past, Youngjae liked to pick on Kangmo because Kangmo wouldn’t fight back.

Since they came back to school, though, the fact that Kangmo doesn’t fight means Youngjae isn’t interested in him. Youngjae leaving him alone should come as a relief, but it doesn’t.

‘Are you trying to get beaten to death?’ Kangmo asks, after he sees Youngjae in the aftermath of his third fight of the week.

Youngjae, who’s lying fetal against the wall, uncurls himself.

‘Just put that fucking thing away,’ he says, sitting back against the wall.

‘What’d I want a photo of you for?’ Kangmo is carrying his camera, but he hasn’t used it. He hasn’t used it much at all lately.

Youngjae sneers. ‘Right, you just wanna take pictures of pretty girls to wank off to.’

Kangmo narrows his eyes, but he doesn’t strike out at Youngjae, which is probably what Youngjae wants him to do.

‘Don’t be pathetic,’ Kangmo says.

Youngjae rolls his eyes. His face is cut over the eyebrow and his lip is bloody, and that’s just what Kangmo can see.

‘Seriously though,’ Kangmo says, and he hesitates, because he has the strangest urge to ask Youngjae if he’s alright. Which is stupid, because he doesn’t care whether he is or not. Better if he’s not; maybe he’ll drop out and Kangmo will never have to see his face again.

Youngjae looks up at him, his eyes dark. He wants something, but Kangmo can’t tell what it is.

‘You should get that cleaned up,’ he says, gesturing to his eyebrow, and he walks away. If Youngjae responds, he doesn’t hear it.

---

Youngjae has to sit out phys ed the next day because his ribs are strapped – not that Kangmo knows this firsthand. It’s not like Youngjae keeps him up to date on these things.

In theory this means Youngjae should be studying, but when Kangmo cuts class himself, he finds Youngjae in his room, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

When he sees Kangmo, he sits up with a start, and Kangmo sees his wince when he moves.

‘What’re you doing here?’ Youngjae says.

Kangmo puts his hands in his pockets, and he comes and leans against Youngjae’s desk – where, he notes, there are zero school books out.

‘I heard you fractured your ribs,’ he says.

‘So what I fractured my ribs?’ Youngjae says. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to check up on me.’

Kangmo certainly doesn’t have any other excuse for being here.

‘You need to get a life,’ Youngjae says. ‘Stop following me around.’

‘Why, so there’s no-one to see when you end up like this? Should I have taken a picture after all?’

Youngjae’s lips thin. ‘What does it matter to you?’

‘It doesn’t.’ It’s just that Kangmo has the feeling Youngjae is trying to do the same thing as Yun Su. He’s just going about it differently.

‘It’s bad enough having Park Mooyul check up on me,’ Youngjae mutters. ‘I don’t need your pity too.’

‘Park Mooyul was checking up on you?’ Something curls in Kangmo’s chest.

‘He doesn’t want me letting the team down.’ Youngjae bites off his words and looks mad, like he wants to fight Mooyul right now.

‘Ridiculous,’ Kangmo says. ‘He shouldn’t worry about the inevitable.’

Youngjae jerks forward off the bed, but before he can hit Kangmo, he remembers his ribs. He holds a hand to his torso and says, ‘You’re lucky I’m too sore to beat your ass.’

‘Sure, I’m lucky.’

He sees Youngjae draw breath, the way even that causes him pain. He looks dreadful, and maybe Kangmo should be satisfied to see that. If Youngjae falls apart after everything, it would serve him right.

‘If you just want pain,’ Kangmo says, ‘you don’t need to pick fights. I’ll sit here and insult you as much as you like. Same difference, right?’

‘I’d rather be beaten up,’ Youngjae retorts, too quickly. ‘That’s not the point anyway.’

‘Why not?’ Kangmo says. ‘Because there’s no risk I’ll put you in hospital by accident?’

Youngjae scowls, but he doesn’t answer back.

‘Oh shit,’ Kangmo says, his tone dry even though he is, internally, freaked out. ‘You really do want to follow Yun Su.’

‘Shut up,’ Youngjae says. He does hit Kangmo then, a pointed slap across the face. ‘Don’t you talk about him.’

Kangmo glares back at him. ‘Who are you to tell me who to talk about?’ he says. ‘No-one wants to talk about anything.’ Except that Mooyul is checking up on Youngjae, so maybe they just don’t want to talk to Kangmo ...

Youngjae, he notices suddenly, is shaking.

Kangmo clicks his tongue. ‘What a pain,’ he says.

‘You’re the pain.’

Kangmo puts a hand on Youngjae’s shoulder. He wants to say something corny, like, if you need to talk, I’ll listen. As if he has any interest in hearing Youngjae’s problems. Maybe he’d let his batteries run flat and see if Youngjae noticed.

‘Sit down,’ he says instead. ‘If you collapse I’ll have to get the nurse and then everyone will think I’m responsible.’

‘As if,’ Youngjae says, but he sits down.

Kangmo sits on the bed beside Youngjae. Like this is totally normal and he’s completely relaxed, sitting here next to Plague Jo.

‘It should’ve been me,’ Youngjae says, ‘not Angel.’

Kangmo looks sideways at him.

‘But I guess I’m more of a wuss than he was.’ Youngjae laughs, and looks as if he regrets laughing. ‘If you tell anyone I said that I’ll kill you.’

‘I know.’

‘God, we’re pathetic,’ Youngjae says. He lies back on the bed and covers his eyes with his arm.

Kangmo almost smiles, looking at him. Only because Youngjae can’t see to comment on it.

‘At least Park Mooyul hasn’t had to check up on me,’ Kangmo says. Youngjae waves a hand at him, like he’d hit Kangmo again if only he had more energy.

‘I guess you’re not as special as you think you are, Cameraman Yang.’

Kangmo thinks about jabbing Youngjae in the ribs. Instead he says in an ingratiating voice, ‘Ah, but Plague Jo, I’m special to you.’

This time Youngjae’s hand connects, but it’s a pretty mild sort of violence. Even comforting, given the rest of their conversation. Like it’s somehow preferable that Youngjae want to beat him up than he want to die. As if the two things are mutually exclusive.

If Kangmo had known how Kim Jinsu felt, would he have been kinder?

Probably not.

‘Why aren’t you in class?’ Youngjae asks, when Kangmo doesn’t leave.

‘Can’t you tell?’ Kangmo says. ‘I’m sick. I’m coming down with a fever.’

Youngjae snorts.

‘I think they’re scared to push back now. In case I have a breakdown next.’

‘Yeah, it’s not a good look when students who have been in the news commit suicide.’

Kangmo wishes it weren’t true. ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘do you … need anything?’ He doesn’t know exactly what he’s offering.

Youngjae seems to actually think about it. He shakes his head.

He really must be feeling miserable.

Kangmo still sits there.

‘I’m not going to kill myself if you go,’ Youngjae says. ‘I might if you stay, though.’

‘Wow,’ Kangmo says, ‘do you promise?’

Youngjae makes a rude gesture, and Kangmo takes that as it being okay to go. He’s not sure if he’s doing the right thing or not. He’s not sure if coming here was the right thing.

Maybe he wouldn’t have done anything different for Jinsu, not then. Maybe it’s only now, when he’s sick of seeing people dying, that he has regrets.

---

Youngjae sits with him at lunch the next day. Kangmo exaggerates his shock, and Youngjae taps him on the head.

‘You don’t need to look so pleased,’ Youngjae says. He takes a bite of his apple, chewing it obnoxiously.

‘I can’t help my face,’ Kangmo says. ‘It just gets like this when I see you.’

‘If you give me your dessert I’ll go away.’

‘Fuck off,’ Kangmo says, and bats away Youngjae’s hand when he reaches across the table.

The contact makes Youngjae look embarrassed. He starts to talk about their classes earlier. With all the noise of the other students, it’s hard for Kangmo to pretend to pay attention, but evidently his presence is the only encouragement Youngjae needs.

‘Don’t you ever shut up?’ he asks, when he’s finished his lunch and Youngjae is still keeping up his side of the conversation.

Youngjae’s annoyed expression makes Kangmo’s stomach flip, for some reason.

And that’s quite enough of that. Kangmo picks up his stuff, and he leaves Youngjae there alone. He feels Youngjae’s eyes, following him till he’s out of view.

Is it better then, to have Youngjae bothering him in this way, than to see Youngjae getting himself hurt?

It’s better. Maybe by only the tiniest amount, but it’s better.

But maybe by more than that too.

---

‘You do have actual friends though, right?’ Kangmo says, the next time Youngjae joins him. ‘I’ve met them.’ Met is a polite way to say been harrassed by.

Youngjae gets a funny look on his face. ‘Of course I have friends. I’m just sitting here because –’

‘Oh, because they don’t actually like you?’ Kangmo says. And regrets it, because Youngjae looks uncomfortable and because he realises then that it’s true.

Kangmo has always known that Youngjae is unlikable, but he’d assumed that unlikable people must at least like each another. They had the same hobbies, right? Being awful.

‘I get along with people fine,’ Youngjae says. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘How can you stand to be so full of bullshit?’ Kangmo demands.

Youngjae finishes chewing before he answers. ‘Fuck you, Cameraman Yang. I don’t see you sitting with anyone else.’

He does sit with the others sometimes. Chihoon, or Jaekyu. ‘Maybe you scared them all away.’

Youngjae doesn’t look like he buys it.

Kangmo keeps eating. It’s easier, really, when he’s by himself. He can get along with people if they have to work together, but really it’s easier to be alone, to be apart. To not have to struggle or to think that anything you do has any effect on anyone else. To believe they don’t notice you, even when you’re there. Like you’re a nickname and not a person, and therefore have no responsibilities toward anyone.

Except if Kangmo has learnt anything from their experience, it’s that he does have responsibilities. It’s just that he usually fails in them.

He doesn’t want to be like that any more.

Youngjae flicks a glance up at him. ‘Dude,’ he says, ‘you look like you’re about to cry.’

‘Shut up,’ Kangmo says. ‘It’s just from having to sit with you.’

‘Because I said you don’t have any friends?’

Kangmo doesn’t answer.

‘That’s a fact,’ Youngjae says. ‘Stop complaining.’

Kangmo wants to say that he wasn’t, but he feels enough like a petulant child as it is.

‘Sometimes,’ Youngjae says, ‘people change.’

‘What?’

‘People don’t want to hang out with you when you’re a moody bastard.’ Youngjae is looking at his food, not at Kangmo, and Kangmo isn’t sure which of them Youngjae is talking about.

‘Like maybe it’s cool for a bit that you nearly died, or –’ Youngjae screws up his nose – ‘whatever. But then you gotta get over that shit or you’re just a drag.’

‘That’s why we’re back here, right?’ Kangmo says. At the school.

‘Yeah. Except now we know what’s true and what’s not.’

True things. That was the trouble with Kim Yohan – that he saw past your front and saw what was true about you. And that he twisted it; Kangmo wants to think that he twisted it, but he can’t be sure. He only remembers how it felt after Kim Yohan spoke to him.

It’s probably the same for Youngjae.

But it’s true too that Kim Yohan is dead and they’re not.

‘When we get out …’ Youngjae says. He shakes his head. Kangmo thinks he won’t finish the thought.

‘Even if we change,’ Kangmo says, ‘the rest of the world’s still the same.’

Youngjae looks at him. ‘Well, you’re depressing.’

‘Sorry,’ Kangmo says, not sorry at all. ‘When we get out …’ He can’t think of a good ending, either.

‘I’m gonna leave home,’ Youngjae says.

‘And do what?’

‘Does it matter?’

Kangmo thinks about it. ‘I don’t mind my family,’ he says. But after that … he doesn’t know. He used to know what he wanted, the path he would take. It used to feel important.

‘It’s not that,’ Youngjae says. ‘I just feel like it would be good not to be watched. You know?’

They meet eyes for a little too long.

‘Yeah,’ Kangmo says, looking away first. ‘I know.’

If there’s a way to exist without being watched, though, Kangmo doesn’t know what it is. Even once they finish school, they’ll still be watched. Putting himself on the other side of the camera hadn’t changed that. People don’t exist unobserved.

And everyone will still be waiting for them to crack.

---

Kangmo is in the AV room, ostensibly working on a school project, the next time Youngjae comes to find him.

‘Oi, Cameraman Yang.’ He’s already in Kangmo’s personal space when he announces himself, putting a hand on his shoulder and leaning in to peer at the screen. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ Kangmo says. He minimises the browser, but Youngjae’s expression has already ghosted over.

‘You shouldn’t be reading that stuff,’ Youngjae says. His fingers tighten on Kangmo’s shoulder, but it’s not a threat. More like Youngjae he’s spooked.

It’s just an article about Kim Yohan again – some of his earlier crimes. The grizzly history keeps getting dug up.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ Kangmo says. Sure, he feels sick sick whenever he reads about it, but it’s the sort of thing he can’t look away from. It could have been them. It was them.

‘Didn’t he mess with our heads enough already?’ Youngjae says. ‘Don’t you –’

Youngjae startles then, but not because of Kangmo. When Kangmo follows his gaze, he sees that two of their classmates have come in. Kangmo can see them murmuring, but he can’t tell what they’re seeing.

Youngjae straightens, letting go of Kangmo’s shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ he says, before he walks out.

Kangmo rubs his shoulder, and looks back at the screen. He hovers his mouse over the browser window, but he hesitates on opening it. Youngjae’s repulsion had been so immediate.

But is it wrong to want to try and put what happened to them in context?

He can almost hear Youngjae’s answer already: The context is he was a sick fuck. That’s all.

It wasn’t all, of course. They were messed up before they were Kim Yohan’s victims.

It’s not like the articles will help with that part anyway.

Kangmo shuts the browser window.

---

When Kangmo gets back to his room, Youngjae is there already. Lying on his bed, like this is something he does all the time. Well, whatever.

Kangmo shuts the door behind him.

‘I don’t know why you’d even want to read about that stuff,’ Youngjae says when he comes in. Youngjae doesn’t sit up, but lies on his back, head at the wrong end of the bed. ‘Aren’t the nightmares bad enough as it is?’

‘I don’t have nightmares,’ Kangmo lies.

‘Lucky.’

Kangmo wonders if Youngjae intends to fall asleep there, on Kangmo’s bed. They’ll have to swap rooms.

Or maybe not; maybe Kangmo would just sleep there too.

Kangmo takes the seat at his desk, and watches Youngjae lie there.

‘Hey, did you get into a fight again?’ There is a new cut on Youngjae’s face.

‘No, I fell down the stairs.’

Kangmo scoffs, so that Youngjae knows he doesn’t believe him.

‘I might have.’

‘Yeah, if someone pushed you.’ Kangmo regrets it as soon as he says it, but Youngjae doesn’t seem to notice.

‘I don’t know why this all doesn’t bother you,’ Youngjae says.

‘Why would I care if you got into fights?’ Kangmo says. Except that it’s obvious by now that he does.

‘I don’t mean that,’ Youngjae says. ‘I mean how you’re not falling apart.’

Kangmo didn’t know he wasn’t. ‘If it didn’t bother me,’ he says, carefully, ‘do you think I’d be reading that stuff?’

‘I don’t know.’ Youngjae rolls over onto his side, facing away from Kangmo. ‘You’re weird anyway. How’m I meant to tell?’

‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’ Kangmo says. ‘That’s clearly a sign that I’ve lost it.’

Youngjae makes a noise that could be a laugh.

Kangmo leans back in his chair. If you’re going to cry, he doesn’t say, don’t do it in my bed.

‘Why did you want to find me anyway?’ he asks. Youngjae presumably had a reason to come find him.

‘Oh.’ Youngjae rolls back over. ‘I wanted to use your notes.’

Kangmo’s heart eases. ‘Is that all?’

‘Yeah, surprise surprise, I wasn’t paying attention in class. So can I?’ He tilts his head back to see Kangmo’s response.

Kangmo shrugs. ‘Whatever.’ But he gets them for him.

When Youngjae is gone, Kangmo sits down on his bed, his hand on the duvet next to him. It’s still warm from Youngjae’s body.

Clearly, Kangmo is losing it. If he’s actually enjoying Plague Jo’s company, then there is something wrong with him. It’s not the same thing as hatching a monster but it’s disturbing in its own right. Youngjae tried to kill him.

And yet.

---

He looks for Youngjae at mealtimes, but perhaps the novelty has worn off; Youngjae leaves him alone. In public. He shows up in Kangmo’s room sometimes. Like they’re study buddies. Or friends.

Once night, Kangmo has to stay up late to finish an assignment and Youngjae actually brings him a coffee. Kangmo had suggested it as a joke, but Youngjae does it.

‘Wow,’ Kangmo says, taking a sip. ‘Are you trying to butter me up or something?’

‘Can’t I just do something nice?’ Youngjae ruffles Kangmo’s hair before he sits on Kangmo’s bed, feet up on the duvet.

‘I don’t know,’ Kangmo says. ‘It’s you, after all.’

Youngjae looks annoyed at that. ‘I can be nice,’ he says.

Kangmo waits, but Youngjae doesn’t say anything else. Just looks stubborn.

‘Uh.’ Kangmo looks back at his schoolwork, and feels like an ass. ‘Thanks, then.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Youngjae studies too, sitting on Kangmo’s bed. It’s bizarre that that seems normal already. Last year … last year Kangmo would have physically forced Youngjae out the room.

Last year Youngjae would never have wanted to be here.

Kangmo still doesn’t understand why Youngjae wants to be here. He doesn’t understand why he wanted to show concern for Youngjae in the first place. Just going through what they’d been through shouldn’t have made them friends. Kangmo should still hate Youngjae. He shouldn’t be sitting here, failing to make progress on an assignment just because he’s touched and bewildered about the fact Youngjae brought him coffee.

Coffee didn’t make up for attempted murder. Did it?

‘You’re not writing anything,’ Youngjae says.

‘I’m thinking.’

‘Thinking isn’t words.’

‘I can’t concentrate. Maybe you got me decaf by mistake.’

Youngjae snorts, and turns his attention back to his own notes.

‘Hey,’ Kangmo says, spinning round on his chair, ‘if your only goal now is to leave home, why bother with this? Studying, I mean.’ Maybe he’s thinking of himself too; schoolwork and exams all seem fairly meaningless now.

‘Maybe it’s just an excuse to spend time with my friend.’

‘Ha ha.’

Youngjae puts down his pen and he looks up at Kangmo. ‘I mean, I could stay in my room alone. Think about how awful everything is. That could be almost as much fun as this.’ Kangmo doesn’t respond to that. ‘But how can a high school drop-out afford to leave home, right?’

‘You can always fall back on your life of crime,’ Kangmo says.

Youngjae fixes his eyes on him, and Kangmo realises what he’s said.

‘I mean …’ How could he forget that they’re both murderers now? How could he forget that even for a moment? ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ Youngjae says, ignoring the apology.

Kangmo is scared that Youngjae is about to walk out on him. That shouldn’t scare him but it does.

Youngjae stands up, but he only walks as far as where Kangmo is sitting. ‘How about we go in on it together? I’m sure we could work out some kind of blackmail scheme. And then when they don’t pay up …’ He makes a flicking motion with his hand. Like pushing someone off a building.

‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ Kangmo says again.

‘Guess not,’ Youngjae says. And he picks up his school books and he leaves.

Maybe if he were a better person, or less terrified, Kangmo would follow him. He just watches him go.

And then he finishes the assignment, because some marks are better than none, and it’s better than thinking about Jo Youngjae.

---

The next day, Youngjae doesn’t come to class. Kangmo can’t help looking for him, whenever the door opens. It’s stupid. There’s so many worse things that Kangmo has said to Youngjae in the past. So why this?

When class lets out for break, Kangmo is ready to hurry out, but one of Youngjae’s old friends blocks his way.

‘You and your boyfriend have a fight?’ he says.

‘What?’

‘What?’ the boy echoes.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Kangmo says, and he sidesteps past. Behind him there is laughter. Kangmo braces, but they don’t stop him from leaving.

Outside the classroom, he runs. It’s just the adrenaline of the accusation, he thinks, but he knows he’s going to the dorms to check on Youngjae.

Did you and your boyfriend have a fight? No wonder Youngjae wasn’t talking to him in public, if that was where people’s minds went. Or maybe it wasn’t; maybe it’s just a convenient accusation to make when someone’s pissed you off. It’s not necessarily even about Kangmo.

Youngjae isn’t in his room.

Kangmo could look for him. He could miss class, and then the assholes would congratulate themselves on a point well-scored. He can’t miss class.

He waits in Youngjae’s room as long as he possibly can, though.

---

Lunchtime, Youngjae still hasn’t shown up. Kangmo alternates between feeling sick and feeling outraged that Youngjae would go awol over such a stupid thing as this.

For some reason, he doesn’t doubt that Youngjae’s disappearance is his fault.

Of all places, he finds Youngjae on the roof, sitting on the edge with his legs dangling over it. Kangmo’s heart is in his mouth, seeing him.

Youngjae doesn’t look around when Kangmo closes the door.

‘Jo Youngjae,’ he says, ‘what are you thinking?’ He glances up at the camera and wonders if they’re just for show now, because shouldn’t someone be watching for this kind of thing?

‘Yang Kangmo,’ Youngjae says back, ‘what do you care?’

Kangmo can hear his own heartbeat. He’s scared that Youngjae will jump. He’s scared that Youngjae has been waiting just for this, so that Kangmo will see it.

‘I was an ass, okay?’ He steps closer to Youngjae. ‘You should just ignore me. I just … I don’t know what I’m doing. Come away from the edge, Youngjae. You’re scaring me.’ He’s babbling. It’s stupid, but he feels like getting closer might be the thing that pushes Youngjae over. But Youngjae is just sitting there.

You can see the whole school from here; you can see the mountains. Kangmo isn’t looking at any of that. ‘Youngjae.’

‘Since when do you call me that?’ Youngjae looks back up at Kangmo then, and Kangmo’s heart stutters; he sits suddenly on the concrete, like a physical sign of relief.

‘Since now,’ Kangmo says. ‘I guess.’

Youngjae looks out again. Toward the mountains, not the drop.

‘Angel used to like high places,’ Youngjae says.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s hard not to just think about him now though.’

‘Yeah.’

Kangmo hesitates, and then he reaches out and puts his hand on Youngjae’s arm.

‘I mostly think about Oh Junghye,’ Kangmo says, like an admission. ‘When she died. I … I said I don’t have nightmares but I do.I don’t feel guilty about the doctor at all, but she –’ He breaks off. ‘Don’t make me feel guilty about you too.’

‘Geez,’ Youngjae says. ‘You’re embarrassing me now.’ But he looks at Kangmo coyly. ‘Is that all, then?’

‘Is that all what?’

‘You’d just feel guilty?’

Kangmo opens his mouth and shuts it again. ‘I mean, I don’t hate you,’ he says. ‘Not 100%.’ Stupid, that even in this situation he has to couch things like that. Because he’s that afraid of Youngjae seeing him. Of anyone seeing him.

He lets go of Youngjae, and stares at his hands in his lap. ‘I’d miss you,’ he says. ‘I’d be more lonely. So, Jo Youngjae, you see this is really a selfish request when I ask can you please get away from the edge?’

Youingjae sighs, and he swings his legs back round onto the concrete. He slides down so he’s sitting with his back against the lip of the building, next to Kangmo.

‘I wouldn’t actually kill myself,’ he says.

Kangmo hardly even hears him, he’s that relieved.

‘I mean, I’m still … Angel was braver than I am.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Kangmo says.

‘No?’

‘We should have been looking out for him,’ Kangmo says in a rush. And then he throws his arms around Youngjae, because he’s relieved; he’s so relieved.

And Youngjae doesn’t flinch or pull back; he lets Kangmo hug him.

‘I really wasn’t going to do anything,’ Youngjae mutters. ‘You make such a fuss.’

‘You started it,’ Kangmo says. He knows he should let go already, but he doesn’t want to; he still feels like Youngjae could disappear at any moment.

Or maybe Kangmo just wants to hold onto him. For its own sake.

Youngjae turns his head against Kangmo’s neck, and Kangmo feels him sigh. And then Youngjae pulls back, and he looks pointedly at the camera over the entrance to the roof.

‘I don’t know if it’s even working,’ Kangmo says, looking too. ‘I mean, how long were you sitting here?’

‘When they got rid of the detention room,’ Youngjae says, ‘they should’ve got rid of the cameras as well.’

He puts his hand down next to Kangmo’s. Close enough that their fingers touch.

Kangmo swallows. He stares ahead at the camera. ‘I think we’d be dead if not for the cameras. Or ...’ Who can guess how things would have played out? Would Kim Yohan really have let the rest of them live?

‘How much trouble do you think it would be if I smashed that one right now?’

‘I don’t know; did you change your mind about being a dropout?’

Youngjae pulls a face.

‘Hey,’ Kangmo says, ‘if you meant it about not wanting to go back home … you can always come back with me.’

Youngjae stares at him, and Kangmo feels himself start to blush. ‘My parents won’t care. They’d probably be happy.’ What is he saying? ‘We’d have to keep acting like we’re actually friends, but, uh, I think I can manage it if you can.’

‘Yang Kangmo.’

‘What?’

Youngjae is going to tell him he wouldn’t be seen dead at Kangmo’s house, let alone put up with being nice to his parents. Kangmo is sure of it.

But instead, Youngjae kisses him. It’s brief enough that Kangmo hardly has the chance to react; startling enough that he feels dazed.

‘Uh, the camera –’

‘You just said it wasn’t working.’ Youngjae looks exasperated for a moment, before he looks away from Kangmo. ‘I just thought you should know,’ he says. ‘I mean, if you’re going to go around making offers like that.’ He tilts his head back and squeezes his eyes shut. ‘I should just jump off this roof now.’

Kangmo grabs hold of his hand, and Youngjae doesn’t move at all.

‘I’m not taking anything back,’ Kangmo says.

‘Right.’

‘You should come home with me.’

‘Right.’

Kangmo squeezes his hand. ‘That means yes, right?’

‘Well, if you’re going to twist my arm about it.’

Kangmo laughs. He feels slightly high.

‘I thought you’d be mad,’ Youngjae mutters.

‘Being mad is counterproductive,’ Kangmo says. It’s not as if he can feel the way he ought to about Youngjae anyway. ‘Are you disappointed? Did you want me to get mad?’

Youngjae flushes, and ducks his head.

Probably, Kangmo thinks, if they kissed again, that’s the moment someone would decide to start paying attention to the security footage. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. Now that it is, apparently, an option.

‘I’m not mad,’ he says. ‘I might be crazy though.’

‘No shit.’

Kangmo laughs again.

They’ll have to go back down soon. Go back to acting like they’re not friends, or whatever it is they are now. But that’s not so bad. Kangmo remembers, now, what it feels like to have something to look forward to. The future.

Maybe neither of them deserve it. But then, it’s not often people get what they deserve. Kangmo will take it.