One More Time

Chapter 10: The End

Fifty-seven days.

It had been exactly fifty-seven days since Mingyu last seen Wonwoo, and Mingyu felt like he was falling into a darker hole in his life.

A few days after Wonwoo had left, Yujin arrived. She was over the moon with the documents. The wrinkles of a forty-something woman's face stood out hideously in the light as she explained that she had sold him to Leesu. Mingyu couldn't say a word, all he could do was stare at his fleeting happiness. He had spent four days listening to Jihoon's conversations with her aunt, and in the end her efforts had been in vain. Yujin had packed up everything that had been his PASSIONBAR all these years and put it in a bag and put it on the doorstep with Mingyu.

For a month, chained in a corner of Leesu's bedroom, all Mingyu could think about was Wonwoo and Minseo. Was his sister okay? Where was Wonwoo? And then he'd gotten the idea that Wonwoo was playing with his heart. The thought kept him awake for days. As Leesu tore his body apart, Mingyu stared at the ceiling, stared at the floorboards, stared at the sheets and thought only of Wonwoo's face. Had Wonwoo really tricked him?

"For what?" he muttered to himself. Leesu was not at home. It was one of the few times he had a chance to rest like this, so he went to the window and looked out at the snow-covered garden. His eyes were immersed in the white blanket. "What did he get out of tricking me?" All Wonwoo was doing was spending money to spend time with Mingyu. No matter how he looked at it, Mingyu was profiting. So where was Wonwoo?

"He said he was coming back..." He wanted to believe that. He really did. But as the days passed, all hope faded.

When there was movement in the garden, he turned his eyes back to the driveway. He was back to where he had started, back to his personality, feeling nothing. When he saw Leesu's car pull into the driveway, not a muscle in his body reacted. But then something, a phantom scent filling his nose or a familiar sigh reaching his ears, caused his heart to start beating in his mouth. He pressed his nose to the window and tried to see better. The car door opened. Mingyu didn't know what to expect. But nothing surprised him more than Leesu being thrown out of the driver's side door. As he sank into the snow like a nugget, another body emerged from the door and closed the car door as he flexed his neck. Mingyu was almost ready to throw himself out the window when the boy's face turned toward the window.

"Wonwoo." His whisper bounced off the glass, but Wonwoo raised his eyes as if he'd heard, and voila! His brown eyes met Mingyu's tired green ones. He would never forget the smile on the boy's face for the rest of his life.

Wonwoo bent down and grabbed Leesu by the collar and began dragging him through the snow. Mingyu watched him until he reached the front door and disappeared from sight, then waited impatiently, listening for sounds from inside the house. From downstairs he heard a crash, a scream that he assumed was Leesu's, and Wonwoo cursing. Then the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs began to approach.

When the door swung open and Wonwoo burst into the room, Mingyu felt exhausted enough to drop to the parquet and breathe a sigh of relief. Scanning the room quickly, the boy spotted the man at the window and shouted, "Mingyu!" his frown relaxing.

"Wonwoo," Wonwoo closed the distance between them, pulling Mingyu to himself in a hug before the man had a chance to extend his fingers forward.

Mingyu wrapped his arms around Wonwoo's back as tightly as his chains would allow and buried his face in the boy's shoulder, closing his eyes tightly. This moment, this embrace, was priceless in itself. He was home. He had never believed he could have a happy ending, but with Wonwoo's arms around his neck, even Mingyu felt like he had one. The boy smelled cold and like pine needles, like freedom. In that moment Mingyu realized what Wonwoo had meant all along.