Present Day, Vietnam
"Hey hyung," Hongjoong says, squirming at little to make himself comfortable on the soft hotel bed.
"You think we'll have time to go around tomorrow?"
"I don't know, Joong," Seonghwa says, voice muffled and hollow, from inside the bathroom.
"I hope we do," Hongjoong mumbles.
Their schedule is chock full tomorrow, but Hongjoong still wants to see Vietnam.
He still wants to eat street food.
From the streets.
Not the polished, bland, tourist friendly versions they would find in the hotels and restaurants they'd be going to.
The bathroom door opens.
"I don't think we could, even if we had the time," Seonghwa says, stepping into the room.
A puff of steam follows him.
Hongjoong swears his eyes don't linger on Seonghwa's pretty, pink tinged skin, the clean, clean cuts of his jaw and collarbones, just visible beneath the loose grey t shirt he's wearing.
Ratty old shorts flap around his knees and he smiles at how small Seonghwa really is, how attractive he is, just toweling his hair dry.
"Why not?" he asks.
"We'd probably be too tired," Seonghwa says, laying his towel over the back of a chair.
"Aw, hyung come on," Hongjoong grumbles.
"You're never up for any fun."
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1947, Mokpo
"Hyung! Oh shit, we're going to fucking die!"
Seonghwa chuckles, his hair whipping in the wind, tickling his nose, tears gathering in his eyes against the cold.
"Calm down, uncle taught me how to do this," he says.
"You said you already... oh shit, you said the boys at school taught you!" Hongjoong yells into the wind.
They're hurtling down the road from the house to the town on that rickety old motorcycle, sharp turns and a quiet, chilling mist settling heavily in the evening air, the light turning golden, the shadows growing longer.
"I said that?" Seonghwa asks, grinning. "I must have been mistaken. I just learnt how to do this. Just today, while you were out in the shed."
"Are you fucking kidding?" Hongjoong says, a clear note of panic in his voice.
"Calm down, Joong, we're going to be fine," Seonghwa says, smiling, some effervescent energy bubbling, brimming, bringing his smile into happy laughter.
He knows what he heard.
The idea that someone knows, someone outside of Hongjoong and halmeoni, apart from the gossiped whispers of the gardener, the chauffer, the maids.
YOU ARE READING
↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽
FanfictionA story where Hongjoong and Seonghwa find each other in three lifetimes. "What if I said I'd find you in lifetimes to come? What if I loved you in all my lifetimes past? Wouldn't that be lovely?" "I think I'd say you're a god awful poet."
