Junho Baek can’t stop crying.

He's been trying a good while to—believe him—but the tear ducts in his eyes are having a malfunction in the dawning reality that this isn’t just a sick, morbid joke. It’s real. Actually real.

His best friend, since the age of ten, is dead.

The sight of her in her casket had been no visual delusion. Not when he had held her cold, limp hand, and her chest failed to move in any rhythm, her pulse absent in her wrist. She'd been all-too perfectly still.

God, he’s going to throw up.

There’s only so much telling himself that this isn’t real can do, before reality hits and he can’t live in delusion anymore. Fuck.

A fresh wave of sobs overcomes him and, as he’s been doing for the last few hours while in attendance at the vigil and mass, he weeps quietly. And he tries, he really tries to wipe his tears away.

But the tears keep falling.

It doesn’t help that he’s come alone, knowing only Rico and Pino, who, with the recent developments, feel too awkward to approach. 

What is he to them now, other than a grim reminder? What’s the etiquette for dealing with a late best friend’s family members in the first place?

What else other than to say the usual, “Sorry for the loss. I’ll be missing her, too. She'll be in my thoughts," etc, etc.

Knowing him, he’ll add on a soliloquy of how devastated he is from losing Ciana, how he’ll never find a better friend in the whole world, and how, when he finally fulfills his wishful dream of becoming an actor, he’ll dedicate his autobiography to her in her memory.

Even Junho knows how inconsiderate that sounds.

Ciana would have gotten a laugh out of it though. 

She’d snicker and say, “Better make sure there’s an entire chapter about me in that autobiography. Actually, make that several.” 

He knows that because she said that not too long ago, and he’s only remembering now because back then it was just a joke, and now it’s—it’s something more.

Another sob chokes him.

God, why—why’s this his reality now?

Junho’s stomach decides then that it’s the best time to growl and he recalls the fact that he hasn’t eaten all day. Or anything at all, really, not in the last couple of days. Now his thoughts are suddenly filled with that of food, of what will take this void in him away—and does that make him a bad friend? Desperately wanting that void filled?

He isn’t actually sure, being on the verge of passing out like he is. It’s his first experience with both black dots and tears clouding his vision, and he sways where he stands.

“Junho!” a youthful voice cries out and much to Junho’s surprise, a weight crashes into his back before he can turn to see who’s called him. He struggles to keep upright. From that alone, he has a pretty good idea of who it is.

“Rico Suave!” His smile is genuine, perhaps for the first time that week, as he maneuvers around to look at the ten year old who's tackled him.

"You showed up!" Rico points out, grinning with a red-cheeked, blotchy, wet face. He's obviously in the same boat Junho is in, whose eyes feel like they've swelled by two sizes.

"I went to the church too! You just didn't see me, I guess," Junho grumbles, a bit put out over the experience of awkwardly watching the procession of a Catholic funeral mass with no one in sight to make the experience slightly less… uncomfortable.

"I was with my brother," Rico explains, his cheeks pinkening further.

Junho raises his brows. "Brother? The one I've heard so much about but have never seen so much of a picture of?"

Rico giggles, showcasing his charmingly crooked teeth. "He doesn't like pictures."

His curiosity piques, and he knows it will get the better of him. "He's here, right?"

Rico swings around to point towards a boy about Junho's height with looks that captivate him momentarily. From everything Ciana has ever said to describe him, it doesn’t quite give the reality justice.

Overgrown, dark brown hair, thick brows, remarkable cobalt blue eyes, and stocky arms crossed over a broad chest certainly do not help matters.

His is the striking sort of face that people would remember, coming across older than he is, but affected by his age in the softening of what will be future sharp features.

And if Junho is being honest—at least in the suit he wears—Luca looks like he could've just stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine. That isn’t to say he’s pretty, or even very handsome. He just has a look in his eye that makes the word 'intense' seem lackluster to describe him, and there’s something oddly attractive about that.

He’s also mad-dogging everyone who seems the least bit tempted to approach him, which Junho can’t help but be fascinated by.

"He looks... mildly intimidating," Junho says, putting it lightly. 

"That's just his resting face," Rico says with a laugh. "He doesn't like people very much."

"I feel like he's about to start growling any second now," Junho notes. "Not at all like I pictured he'd look. Ciana always made him sound more... charming?"

When Junho looks over to the suddenly quiet boy, he finds Rico's face has fallen and Junho realizes only belatedly why that is.

Crap.

Junho isn’t going to be able to get used to the whole 'not mentioning his very best friend by name because she's dead now' thing. At least not any time soon. Because fuck.

His brain desperately scrambles for words to make things better and comes up with nothing but a million very bad options that won’t be doing him any favors. Most notably: run away! He's small, he can't catch me!

Which is a bald-faced lie, because Junho has seen Rico run, and it’s safe to say that he’s a terror on the track field, with legs that could pump like pistons. There’s no way a skinny dude like him, who can’t even walk up the stairs without getting winded, can outrun Rico.

Fresh tears spring to Rico's eyes, rousing a panicking Junho from his internal monologue. "Do you..." he begins.

He never finishes. Instead, he latches his arms around Junho's middle and squeezes as hard as he can, pressing his face into Junho's stomach.

"You know, you can call me anytime you want," Junho says, and for lack of anything better to say, adds, "We can hang out, play video games, eat pizza, or whatever you want. 'Course your dad'll have to say yes, but he loves me, so how could he say no?"

Rico peeks upwards, revealing his woeful pout. "Really?"

"Of course! I've known you since you were two, we're pretty much brothers, kid."

He apparently isn’t yet convinced. "Promise?"

"Pinky swear," Junho says in a matter-of-fact tone, holding out his knuckle to Rico and linking pinkies.

It’s at that time, though not a complete surprise, that both of their stomachs decide to chorus equally demonic growls. They meet gazes.

"Will there be food after this?"

"Yeah," Rico answers. "Babbo rented out a hall. He called in some catering service for it, too, but apparently a lot of women are gonna be bringing food. Luca says it's ‘cause Babbo will be at his weakest then and they'll be trying to get into his pants."

Junho's brows shoot up. "Really? Your brother said that?"

Rico nods, then shrugs. "Most everyone is gonna be there for Babbo anyway."

"Well, I'm gonna be there for you," Junho says decisively, giving Rico a hearty squeeze. "And for the food."

Rico laughs at that, grin spreading wide. "Wanna meet Luca?"

Junho blinks at the question, sending another look towards the grumpy teen who now appears to be in deep conversation with an elderly woman wearing a small cache of dangling jewelry. He adopts a smirk. "Why not?"

"He won't be nice to you," Rico warns, almost gleefully. "He's only nice to dogs and small children."

"Why small children?"

"He says it's because they're like dogs."

A surprise bark of laughter leaves Junho. "Oh my god, that's... really something. Should I be scared?"

Rico considers him. "Uhhh, no?"

"You don't sound very sure."

"He's in a bad mood. It's hard to tell what he'll do."

"Lead on then! Let's see where this takes us," Junho urges, already mentally preparing himself.

Rico nods enthusiastically, unlatching himself to run ahead and steal his brother's attention. Junho hustles to keep up, catching up just as Rico announces, "This is Ciana's friend!"

A quiet voice in the back of his head corrects that statement: was. He was Ciana's friend. Best friend.

Luca raises a single brow and purses lips that are surprisingly shapely. Junho bites his, eyes drawn to Luca's jawline that are certainly more defined when up close. Yikes. Not what he is prepared for.

"Ciana's friend?" the old woman asks, a warm smile gracing her weathered face. "Are you the one named Junho?"

"Since the day I was born," Junho murmurs, a bit surprised to hear his name from the mouth of a stranger. "Are you Ciana's grandma?" he guesses.

"Sì!" Her smile widens and suddenly Junho is getting subjected to a full-on Grandma-style hug, rose-scented perfume and all. "Oh, you are as adorable as she said you would be in her letter!" 

Always up for a hug, Junho readily embraces her back, just as he would have if she were his own halmeoni, and for the first time that week, feels himself feel... comforted.

"She mailed me something a month ago," she announces as she pulls away, and begins to tug Junho away from the others, leading him off to the unknown.

Before they can get too far, Junho sends a confused, helpless look towards Rico, who mirrors the sentiment with a look of his own. No help there, then.

"Mailed you something?" Junho prompts when they'd gotten out of earshot of others.

"It was meant for you, but I think she want it kept secret from the boys," she explains in accented English, digging into her large sack of a purse before producing a thick stack of letters tied together in blue ribbon. "She says to me, you have promises to keep."

Junho blinks, completely befuddled by this rather strange turn of events. "Promises?"

The woman waves her hand dismissively. "The letters will explain it to you."

Junho frowns, realizing more and more how weird this is. "What was your name again?"

At that, she laughs. "Mi chiamo Sofia! But you can call me nonna—anything but granny, please."

Ohh. His heart is warm again. Unthinkingly, he wraps her up into another hug, which she delightedly takes part in. This time the tears pressing at the back of his eyes feel... happier, or at least less fraught in grief.

And like that, it hits him then that Ciana has sent him letters. Secret letters. 

Surprised, belatedly so, Junho pulls back with wide eyes. "What do you think those letters are about, Nonna?"

Sofia grins, revealing several missing teeth. "She needs you to be an angel, mio caro."

Junho, ever the optimist, feels his spirits lighten considerably at the thought of having purpose once again.

"If it's anything Ciana cooked up, I trust it," he tells her sincerely.

Sofia looks appeased by this, stuffing the letters back into her purse. "The boys can't know, so I'll give you the letters after dinner. And my email, too—" She levels him with a stern look. "This is an order, you must write to me of what happens."

That itself casts everything into further mystery, but Junho is all for it. He nods enthusiastically. "Of course! Ti considererò un diario.”

Sofia regards him with surprise. "Parli Italiano?"

"No, it's just something Ciana said to me a lot," Junho explains, getting a little misty-eyed at the thought of never playing diary with Ciana again.

To that, Sofia takes out a little kleenex pack and pulls a tissue out, reaching up to dab at his face. "Oh, mio caro. You were so close."

"Best friends," he agrees, glad he now has someone to cry with as he reaches into the kleenex pack for a tissue to press against her watering eyes.

This gets a laugh out of her. "Grazie!"

"What's this? You found your Korean grandson, Mamma?" an all too familiar voice interjects from behind Junho.

"Rico brought him to me," Sofia says to her son brightly, stuffing both of the soiled tissues into a ziplock baggie. "I like him. He's a hugger." At this, she gives Junho a bemused look. "No one in my family wants to hug me."

Junho gasps. "That has to be a crime."

She cackles. "It is to me!"

"It's nice to see you here, Junho," Pino says, scratching at his scraggly beard. It’s a tragic look for a man who once, in an embarrassingly once-upon-a-time fashion, starred in Junho's puberty stricken daydreams. Not that he'll ever tell anyone that, of course. Not even Ciana had known.

"She's important to me," is all Junho manages to get out as he shyly diverts his gaze.

"I know," Pino murmurs, voice sounding choked up. Sofia leaves Junho's side to go to Pino's, instantly shifting into mother-mode.

He gazes at the sight of them wistfully, bittersweetly.

"I'm gonna go find Rico," Junho says to excuse himself. "He's my buddy for dinner."

Pino cracks a thin smile. "Watch out—he'll turn into an octopus if you're not careful."

"I don't mind," Junho says, his grin widening. "Consider me Barnacle Boy for the night!"

Pino lets loose a rusty laugh, a weak one, but heartening all the same, waving Junho off before turning to his mother and accepting the tissue she has prepared for him.

It makes him sort of miss his own mom, who he hasn’t seen in person in a couple of years and hasn't called in about a month. With an internal promise made to facetime her later, Junho takes a look into the assembled crowd, spotting the grumpy face of Luca like a lighthouse, and spies Rico not far from there.

He makes a beeline to Rico.

"Why'd she take you away?" he asks curiously as soon as Junho closed the distance.

Junho shrugs. "We talked about Ciana for a bit and hugged, that's all." Which isn’t really a lie. It’s just the truth shaved down.

Just neglecting to mention that there’s a stack of letters in Sofia's purse with his name on it and a mission that calls for him to be an angel for some very mysterious reason. Also that he has plans to exchange email addresses with Rico's grandma, which is a story in itself because Junho hasn't even given his own grandparents his email, let alone a woman he met for the first time at a funeral.

Junho purses his lips, and wonders for a moment how Ciana expects him to keep this a secret. She knows he’s bad with them! Especially bad, because Rico doesn’t even look suspicious, looks perfectly content with Junho's answer—and he has no idea! No idea of the truth at all!

"How's school?" Junho asks, desperate for something so he won’t immediately spill the beans.

Rico makes a face. "It's school."

"If you need help with any homework, let me know, I'll help," he offers. Then—at Rico's blank expression—adds, "I've graduated. I have nothing better to do but be a pizza boy part-time and waste away the rest of the day in my bedroom hoping someone will text me so I don't sound desperate when I text them. Do I sound desperate?"

"Kind of."

"Can we play video games at your house this weekend?"

"I'll ask Babbo, but we might have to go to yours because Luca doesn't like visitors."

Junho wrinkles his nose. "He sounds like a bridge troll."

Rico grins at that. "Don't let him hear you say that."