As Jungwon walked home from the hospital for the last time, he passed by the post office, turning left at the junction. A small, white-cream fox sat on the wooden bench, his wooden bench, their wooden bench.
Wooseon, his eyes dark, alight with a familiar brightness, soulful in the light of the arriving morning.
Sunoo. Autumn outside the post office, like he'd promised.
Jungwon took the milk sweets out of his pocket. Unwrapping the wax paper carefully, he set the sweet on the bench next to Wooseon.
"Here you go. These were meant for you, anyway."
Wooseon took the sweet with gratitude, licking happily at the candy. Jungwon stayed with the fox until he finished the candy, blinking its doe-eyes at the boy before padding away around the corner to Sunoo's street. Jungwon got up to follow, but the street was empty, the fox nowhere to be seen.
Wooseon had gone, and so he went home.
─
It was difficult not to miss Sunoo every day, every hour, like he'd said not to. Some days Jungwon would wake up to Sunoo's shirt draped over his desk chair, Sunoo's spare earphones on his nightstand, and for just the briefest few minutes it was like the other boy had never left.
Jungwon lived for those mornings, but they were never meant to last.
He staunchly refused to adhere to the rituals of silly Hollywood movies and collect all the things that belonged to Sunoo to keep them in a box; the older boy would have laughed so hard at him he would practically have been rolling on the ground. He didn't believe in sealing everything he had of Sunoo's away in a little box on a shelf for the rest of forever, so they stayed with him, little parts of his everyday life ─ his jackets and shirts in Jungwon's closet, his pencils in Jungwon's backpack, his socks in Jungwon's laundry, his selfies in Jungwon's gallery. It was a little like he was still there, all around Jungwon wherever he went.
Even the wall in the alley next to the mall in the city, where some of the spray-painted sentence had been obscured by the swirls of another painting over it. SUNWON WAS HERE!!! He'd asked Sunoo what it meant back then. The other boy had cheerfully said he wanted to announce both of their presences, he just didn't have enough paint left to write their full names. Jungwon had scolded him for not just writing SUNOO WAS HERE back then,"Why did you have to drag me into this?", but he was glad now, that both their names were there. It was a reminder to him of what they had been together.
─
Dear Sunoo,
Some things never change, turn around and the time has flown
Some things stay the same, though the future remains unknown
May our good luck last, may our past be past
Time's moving fast it's true
Some things never change, like how I'm holding on tight to you
22nd September, 2022
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autumn outside the post office | sunwon
Fanfiction❝autumn outside the post office, i waited for you❞ sunwon childhood friends!au by suncenzo on ao3.
