attention | gyuricky

twenty-one.

Ricky shows him to the guest room after they're done eating. "I left some clothes on the bed, if you want to shower. And there's a charger for your phone on the nightstand."

"Thanks for all this," Gyuvin says, draping his jacket onto the loveseat next to the door as he enters. "You're really thoughtful."

"I'm in the room down the hall if you need anything."

"Okay. Goodnight, Ricky."

"Goodnight."

The door closes and Gyuvin takes in the interior of the guest room. It's decorated similarly with the living room and corridors; dark wood panels and homey, comfortable looking furniture, the windows draped with gauzy curtains and a painting of two kittens hung on the far wall, a stark contrast to Ricky's house in the city, which was clearly more modern and minimalistic, perhaps to fit in with the rest of the houses in the neighbourhood.

There's two fresh towels left on the rack in the bathroom and Gyuvin steps inside to take a shower. It's a little weird going back to showering normally after spending six weeks having to focus on keeping his cast dry, but he's slowly getting used to having full function of both of his hands again as the days go by. The shower's warm enough to quiet his thoughts, and when he steps back out of the shower and towels himself dry there's a comfortable sense of serenity that envelops him like a warm blanket.

He pulls on the clothes Ricky's left for him on the bed, a matching blue set of sweatpants and hoodie, making sure to text Zhanghao to let him know he got there safely and to thank him for the use of his car. Zhanghao answers with a noncommittal sticker of a waving raccoon and Gyuvin sends back a goodnight before putting his phone down on the nightstand.

Sleep, however, evades him that night. The bed is comfortable, arguably much more than the one back at his university dorm, but though his body is tired from the day's long drive, his mind is awake and doesn't seem to want to let him rest. He tosses and turns under the blankets for an hour without much progress, and when he checks his phone and it's one in the morning he eventually gives up and sits back up in bed.

Maybe a walk outside will help him fall asleep. The weather must be nice up in the mountains at night, anyway.

Gyuvin closes the door quietly and heads through the dark living room towards the door, fumbling a little for his sneakers and slipping them on without tightening the laces because he knows he won't be out for long. As he opens the front door and light from the veranda spills into the house, he catches sight of another figure sitting on the edge of the porch, unmoving, blonde hair still damp from a shower. Ricky looks up and glances back at him when he hears the door open, but doesn't speak.

"You're not sleeping?"

Ricky shakes his head, burying his face into his knees. "It's one of those nights. You can go and sleep if you want to."

"It's okay," Gyuvin answers, sitting down next to him, letting his feet hang off the wooden deck. "I'm not really tired either."

"Makes two of us."

There's a certain sense of tranquillity being surrounded by woods in the nighttime that no city, no matter how quiet, could ever emulate. The air is crisp and the night air smells of fresh earth and leaves and crickets chirp from the darkness, speaking their own language, and for the first time, next to Ricky Gyuvin feels like he's in the companionship of a friend.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Gyuvin looks up from where he's been tracing the path of a little moth fluttering near the a floorlamp.

"I was an asshole to you," Ricky answers softly. "Treated you like shit when you did nothing wrong. I'm sorry."

Gyuvin takes a couple of seconds to process this unexpected turn of events, and the other boy doesn't press him for an answer. "What happened, then?" he ventures, carefully. "I know you're not an asshole. There must have been a reason."

Ricky smiles, and under the dim fluorescent lighting of the front porch the expression almost looks a little bitter. "It's a stupid reason. It wasn't fair to you."

"I never hated you, you know?"

"I know you didn't," Ricky answers. "Which kind of makes it worse."

Ricky doesn't say anything more and Gyuvin watches the harsh lights dance over his golden hair until he speaks again.

"Since you like to act like you know everything, maybe I should just tell you."

Gyuvin smiles, a little ashamed. "Tell me what?"

"How'd you know about Yujin?" Ricky watches him hesitate for a moment and adds on. "It's fine, I'm not going to do anything about whoever told you. Wasn't really a secret, anyway."

"Yunseo told me," Gyuvin says. "The one from your class, he was friends with me from middle school. But he barely said anything, and he only mentioned it because I asked."

"Oh, I didn't know you knew him. Yeah, Yunseo was friends with Yujin. I suppose he must have been sad too."

"He was. He told me Yujin was always smiling, and that he'd wanted to come study at our university."

Ricky nods slowly. "Yeah, he wanted to study architecture."

"Like me."

"Like you."

The conversation lapses into silence again. Gyuvin watches Ricky pull at one of the strings of his hoodie, a nervous, mindless action that tells him he's trying to think of how to continue, but Gyuvin doesn't mind the silence anyway. He would've before, but it's just not really the same between them anymore.

"You reminded me of him," Ricky says finally. "A lot. Too much."

"I did?"

"Yeah. I just hated that I couldn't get away from the memory of him wherever I went. And I guess that made me hate you. I'm sorry."

"Oh..." Gyuvin nods, thinking. It made sense. "Why do you want to forget him so badly?"

There it is again, that bitter smile that twists his soft features into something else entirely, something sad, something regretful, a little of everything at once. "I couldn't live with myself otherwise."

It's the second time he's ever seen Ricky cry.

Ricky looks up and lets his head fall back, and as the warm yellow light illuminates the tears on his face that come faster than the night wind can dry them, Gyuvin feels his heart burn like a thousand suns.