Dark on me || TXT

Chapter 1

It was strange how familiar everything felt.
And yet not, at the same time.

He had been down this street so many times in the past.
He had ridden his skate board up and down the side walks, he had gotten beaten up in the alley behind the convince store on the corner, he had come hear for the Halloween festival three years ago with all of his friends from school.
Plus Taehyun.

He could draw every crack in the sidewalk from memory and veering around the potholes in the street on his skateboard was so much of a second nature for him that he hardly registered it anymore.

Even in the rain, the street was like home.
It's sounds, it's scent, it's colors.

Maybe that's why it felt so strange.
This hadn't changed.
The stores were still the same.
The people who owned them, still the same. The same people hung out side the ramen shop, smoking cigarettes as they drove pass.

The potholes weren't filled in.
The cracks hadn't grown.
The alley was still dark.
The people who owned their favorite coffee shop were still laughing, college students who needed a job.

This hadn't changed.
Maybe he was the problem.
Maybe he was the thing that had changed.

Maybe he was the thing that felt wrong.

"So we have the guest room cleared out, so you can set up all your things.
Taehyun won't say it,
but I know he is really hoping you'll room with him.
But if you don't want to I'm pretty sure all he'll do is cry about it."

Mrs. Kang joked, that light comfort in her voice as she glanced at him from the rear view mirror.

"Thank you. I'll break it to him easy then."
He tried his best at a smile and it seemed to work, only for a heartbeat before it fell from his face all to quickly.

Mrs. Kang glanced at him again, her soft brown eyes filled with the same sadness and grief.

He couldn't witness it.

So he turned his head and studied how the rain drops fell down the window.
It was the only thing he needed to focus on right now.
She would understand if he was quiet.

Mrs. Kang had been childhood friends with his mom. They had know each other their entire lives apparently, and even when time and space had separated them, they always had found a way to connect.

And when they both had children...

It was like having two families.
Two moms, two dads, and a brother.
Beomgyu and Taehyun had been together since they were babies. They went to the same preschool, and elementary, and then most of middle school.

They had been to each other's houses so many time it was basically every other day they would slept over.

He remembered the bus driver getting concerned and calling Taehyun's parents because he had gotten off at the wrong stop for a week straight following Beomgyu home.

They didn't live that far from each other, so it was a normal occurrence for one of them to just walk in to others house.

Their family even started to make an extra meal at dinner and lunch just in case the other son was coming over.