Junho recalls feeling surprised when he first saw Rico’s room—looking like the only place in the house where someone actually lives—but his surprise upon seeing Ciana’s bedroom makes even that seem like a distant memory.

The walls he never got to see before are pink with hand-painted on flowers coating every inch. Posters hang from them, movie posters for Ciana’s favorites: The Shining, Heathers, Clueless, Vertigo.

His gaze lingers on the Alfred Hitchcock film and, unable to help it, thinks of Ciana’s favorite line from it:

Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.

His lips parts and he’s short of breath again, his heart squeezing in his chest, the strength in his legs weakening until he’s walking in like a newborn doe. He stumbles towards her desk, eyes zeroing on the board she’d nailed into the wall, the pictures of them that she’d decorated it with.

Another hit to the stomach. He’ll be down if he takes another one.

“That moron,” he chokes out, tears filling his eyes as he lifts a finger up to trace over an image taken last summer where he’d thrown his arm over her shoulder, snapping a shot of the both of them grinning together after a trip taken to Twin Lakes Park. 

They’d both gotten a sunburn after forgetting the one thing they kept reminding each other of. In a fit of desperation, they'd even ended up asking a family for sunscreen, and on the same day, they’d been mistaken for a couple on their honeymoon—much to their utter bafflement and uncurbed amusement.

Grinning mischievously, they’d kissed each other like they were, playing along as if they were fresh college graduates who’d just gotten married. They’d even given each other entire fake identities, fake lives that they pretended was theirs for a day. He never has as much fun with anyone else, can never meet a match for him like her.

Even now, he remembers the medicinal taste of her lips that lingered long after he pulled away.

“I guess you were friends,” Luca says from behind—too close!—sounding genuinely surprised. He reaches up, tugging the picture off the board, observing it with an unreadable expression before leaning in much closer to put it back up.

Junho stiffens upon feeling Luca’s chest brush his back, but covers up the reaction with an indignant scoff. “I told you—your dad told you!”

“Yeah, but seeing is believing,” he murmurs, his hot breath hitting the back of Junho’s ear.

Just the way he liked it. Junho's back arches slightly, a shiver traveling through him before forcing himself to ignore his reaction in lieu of carefully turning around to face Luca.

They’re, quite literally, eye to eye.

It’s kind of unfair, actually, Junho thinks. Despite being the same height, Luca has an entirely different body type. Where Junho is thin and lean, with a glimpse of muscle definition in the right lighting, Luca is a straight up brawler. Big hands, strong arms, stocky frame and, Junho notes as he eyes the way Luca’s shirt clings to his stomach from what looks like sweat, very fit.

Junho is so fucking jealous.

Luca’s  the one to take a step back, his gaze darting towards the floor. Junho watches in awe as his cheeks and ears redden, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek.

“Did we just have a moment?” Junho asks dryly, and his eyes go wide as he realizes he’s fucked himself over by saying that out loud. “I-I mean—”

“Why do you think she never mentioned you to me?”

Junho almost thinks, thank god, before he digests just what he’s being asked and that answering a question like that isn’t much better than being caught flirting by accident. Which he might even have preferred.

Out of the pan, into the fire, as they say.

In response to the question, he forces a casual shrug. “Maybe I just never needed to come up in conversation? I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s like to have siblings, not really, so it’s not like I know how siblings usually introduce their friends to each other.”

Which isn’t exactly a lie. While Junho has sisters, they’re half a world away and neither of them especially like him. But he’s not about to tell Luca any of that.

Luca grunts, moving to sit at the edge of Ciana’s queen sized bed and clasps his hands together in his lap. The way his jaw is working, the tense set to his shoulders, the tap of his foot against the floor—the signs are all there. Tread carefully.

Junho ignores them, plopping down directly next to Luca, so close that their arms brush. His warmth is like a heater, coming off him in waves that make Junho want to lean even further in.

It keeps throwing him off—Junho keeps thinking about the last time he got laid, almost an entire month ago. Then he hates himself because here he is, in his deceased best friend’s room—on her bed!—for the first time ever and all he’s thinking about is putting his lips to her brother’s neck.

Inappropriate! Wrong! Lean away, idiot! 

God, he’s a degenerate. Which, in his defense, Ciana had known. But still, time and place. Time and place, and a better option than her brother.

“She talked about you a lot,” Junho says abruptly, the panic of his thoughts edging into the tone of his voice.

Luca’s foot halts its tapping. “She did?”

“Yeah, I feel like I know you already, but I don’t. Like, I know you have a hard time talking to people, which, like, I get. I find it hard to talk to people too—”

“No, you don’t,” Luca cuts in, his glare sharp on Junho.

“Yes, I do,” he insists, frowning at the forcefulness of his statement.

Luca scoffs, rolling his eyes. But he isn’t rolling them for long.

“Feel my heartbeat,” Junho dares him, sitting completely still.

Their eyes meet.

“Go on, feel it.”

“Why the fuck should I?”

“So you can see for yourself.”

Luca stares at him for a moment, expression schooled blank.

Junho bares his neck pointedly.

“I don’t see why—”

Fed up, Junho snatches his hand from his lap and places it with care onto his neck, feeling the spike of his pulse threaten to make him lightheaded. “Feel it?”

He hears the gulp Luca takes before whispering a short, “Yeah.”

Luca’s hand remains on his throat, his pulse hammering in his skull now.

“I have anxiety—and ADHD, but most of my problems stem from anxiety. That shit is diagnosed and everything,” he says conversationally, lightly. “Not that consistent with my meds, admittedly. But, you get the point.”

Luca’s nose wrinkles, his blue eyes appearing much darker as the sun begins to set and the room darkens.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“You’re a real chatterbox,” he says, sounding distinctly unimpressed.

Junho scowls. “Hello, I’m nervous. If you’d talked more, I wouldn’t have to make up for the silence!”

“Yeah, but you talk so much,” Luca murmurs, exasperated. “I don’t get it. You just… are fine just being honest about your thoughts and what you’re feeling? You don’t try to think before you speak?”

“Hey, honesty is the best policy,” he says sagely. “And honestly, lies increase my anxiety. And so does thinking. I’m an overthinker, if anything.”

“Your heartbeat is slowing,” Luca notes.

Junho’s neck feels slick with sweat, and despite the bizarreness of the entire situation, he feels that it’s kind of a turn on. Probably because he’s staring so deeply into Luca’s eyes and—

Seriously, I need to stop. Pull away. Ignore the heat and toe curling—

“It’s picking up.”

“Stop narrating my damn heartbeat.”

Luca cracks a grin and Junho's breath catches in surprise. “I thought we were having a moment.”

Junho’s mouth falls open. 

He did hear me!

And what the hell—is he flirting back? Junho snaps his mouth shut and with a tone edging on petulant, says, “We were but you keep ruining it by talking.”

Luca's grin curls into a smirk. “And here I thought you wanted me to talk—”

Junho catches himself leaning in, eyes dropping to his mouth before he halts and swallows. The bizarre thing is that Luca doesn’t pull away, his palm still against the skin of his throat.

He has to put a stop to whatever the hell is happening, quick.

“She talked about you a lot,” Junho whispers to remind himself what he’s there for, tugging Luca’s hand off his neck, watching it fall limply onto his lap. “She really loved you.”

Luca says nothing, the smile slipping off his face.

Junho is desperate. “Does it frustrate you thinking I know her better?”

Silence.

“It shouldn’t. Knowing someone isn’t the same thing as loving someone, and she loved you. I think she loved you more than she did anyone else.”

Luca ducks his head but continues to say nothing.

“Must be a twin thing," Junho mutters.

At that, Luca raises his head and what Junho sees chills him. His expression is desolate, twisted. His mouth is a flat line, his jaw tight, his brows low, and his eyes. His eyes are dry, narrowed, intense, almost searing blue. He looks agonized for one terrible second.

“She was my twin, wasn’t she? Is that why?”

“Why what?”

Luca doesn’t answer. He just works his jaw and then a moment later, rises off the bed.

“I’m gonna take shower. Do whatever the hell you want.”

"Wait!"

Luca ignores him, heading out the door.

Full on desperate, he calls, "Would you at least consider that conversation somewhat decent?"

To that, unsurprisingly, there is no reply.

"Whatever," Junho grumbles when he hears the footsteps recede. "I considered it somewhat decent."

Which, honestly, is just an excuse to see just what Ciana wants to say so badly to her brother that she'll go out of her way to get Junho involved like this.

It better be worth it.