The phone rang, shattering the tense silence.

Shihwan blinked as if waking from a trance and turned toward his phone.

And Insu found that he could finally breathe.

“Hello?” said Shihwan in his calm, deep voice.

Despite telling himself not to, Insu found that he could not stop staring at him. There was a soft look in Shihwan’s eyes — one he had never seen before.

“Tonight? A club get-together?” said Shihwan into the receiver. “Ah… Okay, I’ll be there.” 

Suddenly, a smile appeared on Shihwan’s face as he laughed softly, and Insu felt his gut twist painfully.

“Club?” asked Insu when Shihwan hung up.

Shihwan turned to him and gave him an embarrassed smile. “I joined the drama club.”

“Drama club?” Insu repeated dumbly. The Shihwan he knew had never shown even an iota of interest in the arts.

“Is this because of your puppy?” Insu asked, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.

Shihwan nodded, then gave him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, even though I called you over…”

Instead of replying, Insu stood.

He was irritated. Shihwan was bailing on him despite having been the one to call him over. But more than that, he felt hurt. They hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks. Didn’t he want to spend time with him?

Embarrassed by his pathetic thoughts, he turned away. 

No, this was good. He wanted to get away before Shihwan noticed the loud thumping of his heart.

“Wait,” said Shihwan, grabbing his wrist, and Insu had to stop himself from yanking his hand away. “You don’t have to leave right now.”

“Why would I stay?” asked Insu dryly. “To watch you get ready?”

“Ah.” Shihwan released his hand, and Insu ground out his cigarette before downing his drink.

“What are you planning to do tonight?” asked Shihwan.

Insu shrugged in response before casually walking out the door. He felt himself cringing as the quiet words he tried to hold back came tumbling out of his lips, following him like a slinking coward.

“Not like it matters to you — after all, I can’t compare to a damn puppy.”

The silence behind him lingered like the calling of a hundred sleepless nights, filled with embarrassing memories.

Then —- the soft, unmistakable click of a closing door.

~

“To our new members!” exclaimed a tall, slender university senior as she raised her glass of beer into the air.

The two dozen other members of the drama club cheered, raising their glasses in the air.

Shihwan smiled as he gazed at Boram, his fluffy brown hair bouncing as he moved from table to table, refilling empty glasses with beer. There was something endearing about an upperclassman catering to his juniors.

“Shihwan, are you going to drink more?” asked Boram as he stopped in front of him, his bright eyes twinkling under the soft LED lights of the busy fried chicken restaurant.

“Sunbae, sit. I’ll do that,” said Shihwan as he took the pitcher from his grasp.

Shihwan made his way to the next table.

He felt several pairs of eyes on him and looked up. A few freshmen girls were staring at him, smiling with soft blushes on their cheeks. He smiled back but made sure not to linger as he moved on. Now that he was seriously interested in Boram, he didn’t wish to cause confusion.

Shihwan set down the pitcher and looked for Boram. Seeing that the sunbae was nowhere in sight, he excused himself and made his way out of the restaurant.

Once outside, he pulled out his phone and gazed at the text message he had sent Insu, apologizing for cutting their hangout short. But there was no reply. Insu had simply left him on read.

Instantly, he felt guilty, and his mind immediately went to Insu’s last words before leaving his apartment.

What had he meant?

In all the years Shihwan had known him, Insu had never made such a comment.

He had sounded annoyed, justifiably so, but Insu often seemed irritated.

But there had been something else to his tone. Something different. It had almost sounded like… jealousy.

Shihwan shook his head and nearly laughed.

No. What was he thinking?

This was Insu he was talking about — his best friend. He was, at least to Shihwan’s knowledge, incapable of such an immature emotion.
And why would he even be jealous?

It wasn’t even the first time he had bailed on him. They had been friends for nearly all their lives, after all; such situations were sometimes inevitable.

For not just himself, but also Insu.

He suddenly paused, unable to think of a single moment when Insu had bailed on him or had been unable to meet up.

He mentally kicked himself. Damn. He was an ass. He needed to make it up to Insu soon.

A loud crash suddenly rang out somewhere behind him, disrupting his thoughts.

Shihwan quickly turned around, only to stare into a dark alleyway beside the restaurant.

He took a few steps forward only to see something moving frantically in the shadows.

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he recognized a female student from the drama club, one of the girls who had smiled at him, trying desperately to push a drunken man away from her.

“Hey!” Shihwan yelled, running toward them.

He reached out a hand and grabbed the man’s shoulder.

But suddenly, his ears twitched.

Twitched?

He didn’t know how to explain it, but he sensed something fast approaching him from behind.

But he didn’t have much time to think about it.

He grabbed the student’s arm and yanked her away from the drunk as a sudden onslaught of golden liquid rained down on the man.

“Hey, pencildick!” came a loud voice from behind him.

Shihwan turned and saw Boram standing with an empty beer pitcher. His eyes were narrowed, and his lips were curled back into a snarl.

For a moment, Shihwan was again struck by the idea that Boram truly did look like an angry pomeranian.

The drunk sputtered angrily. Then cursed loudly and took two large steps toward Boram, towering over him.

But Boram did not back down.

“Get out of here!” he yelled. “Before I stick my foot so far up your dick, you’ll be crapping piss.”

Shihwan froze as he stared at the sweet, kind sunbae he thought he knew yell creative profanities.

The man took another charged step toward Boram.

Shihwan instinctively mirrored the action, preparing to step in when Boram shoved the pitcher into the man’s chest, sending him to the ground. 

With surprising speed, Boram jumped on top of him, pushing the man’s face into the earth.

“Eat the dirt,” Boram hissed as the man struggled beneath him. “Come on, dickface, eat it!”

For a moment, Shihwan was taken aback not by the words but by the familiarity of it all…

Then the memory struck him—a young Insu crushing the face of one of Shihwan’s friends into the grass as Shihwan’s first “girlfriend” sat crying on the ground beside them. Shiwhwan recalled arriving at the park and a swarm of excited kids running over to him, calling Insu a bloodthirsty maniac. Shihwan had pulled Insu off the boy; the boy had run away screaming, the blood from his nose trailing a visible path to his home.

He had been angry with Insu then—at his tight-lipped attitude and the fact, revealed by his bleeding bottom lip, that he had put himself in harm’s way. It was only later, when his girlfriend told him what had happened, that he found out the truth: the boys whom Shihwan had considered his friends had cornered her and tried to lift her skirt.

It had been the first time Shihwan had ever come to admire someone.

And it was that same feeling that appeared now as he watched Boram enact his own form of justice in the dirty alleyway beside the bustling restaurant.

But then something twisted in his gut. A feeling that he had never felt before—a niggling sensation in the back of his mind that told him that something was wrong.

That something—or someone—was missing.

.