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us, again (the road to you will never end)

Summary:

“Can I help you?”
They whirl around, mouths hanging open, caught in the middle of an argument. At the bottom of the steps, a boy who is definitely not Seokmin stares up at them, clearly uncomfortable, a box half the size of his body in his arms.
Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”
"Hey, Mingyu," Wonwoo says quietly.
(or: mingyu is in fifth grade when wonwoo moves away. he's in eleventh grade when wonwoo moves back.)

Notes:

A WARNING: this fic is going to be inordinately long. like, 200k+ long. like, i have no idea how it got this long, i started writing it almost half a year ago and here i am, a clown, a fool, a simp
also, don't ask me where this is set because i don't know either. just imagine a canadian high school but with the demographics of south korea. once again: i am a fool
anyway. updates will be once, maybe twice a week? then again, maybe uni will decide to simply Take Away My Rights, so we'll see how that goes.
thanks for reading in advance :)

title is from us, again by seventeen.

Chapter Text

“Hey, did you hear? Seokmin’s moving back.”

“Really,” Mingyu comments. He hasn’t thought about Seokmin in a while - five years, actually. Hearing the name only brings fond memories to the surface, carefree childhood moments soaked in a sunset glow. “How do you know?”

Next to him, Minghao rolls his eyes. “He texted me, dumbass,” he says. “He probably texted you too.”

Mingyu pats around in his pockets and then groans. “I left my phone with my mom.” He shrugs. “He probably doesn’t have my number anyways. It’s not like either of us had a phone in fifth grade.”

“Nah, I gave it to him. He got my number from his mom who got it from my mom. Turns out they’ve been keeping in touch this whole time.” Minghao sighs. “As usual.”

Mingyu elbows him. “You obviously take after your dad,” he teases. “If you were anything like your mom it wouldn’t have taken me, like, two years to befriend you.”

“It would’ve taken less time if you weren’t so annoying,” Minghao refutes, elbowing him back, which hurts, because Minghao is very bony and very strong. “Wanna say hi to Seokmin when he comes back?”

Mingyu shrugs, and sticks his popsicle back into his mouth.

--

Most of the memories Mingyu has of Seokmin are emotional imprints, not defined moments. He just remembers that he was always smiling, warm and generous, and seemed to be best friends with everyone.

His real best friend was Mingyu, though. Mingyu knows this because Seokmin told him on the first day of second grade, coming to sit next to him in the gymnasium. “Because I like you the most,” he said, when Mingyu asked why.

But why? Mingyu wanted to say. But he didn’t, because Seokmin seemed to genuinely like him, and that was good enough.

--

Mingyu checks his phone later that day. Sure enough, there’s an unread message.

from: unknown

hey mingyu!!!! remember me ~~~

im back~~~~~~ 

Mingyu laughs, those five years in between shrinking as he types a reply. Maybe Seokmin’s endless good nature is the one thing that stands the test of time.

--

The Jeon-Lee family moves back exactly a week before school starts. Mingyu bakes a pie, and Minghao’s mom shoves a large container of homemade dumplings into their arms before they set off.

In elementary school, Mingyu walked three blocks, then took a left and walked two more before arriving at Seokmin’s house. Muscle memory propels him in that direction before Minghao stops him and asks if he’s stupid. 

Their new house is four blocks away, facing the field with the bleachers that he and Minghao hung out on the entire summer. Mingyu remembers seeing the SOLD sign in front of that house in the distance, a bold red print.

There’s a moving van parked in the driveway, the back open to form a ramp. The front door is slightly ajar. Mingyu exchanges a glance with Minghao as they climb the stairs leading up to the porch, feeling a sudden onset of awkwardness.

“They seem busy,” Minghao hisses. “Should we just leave these here?”

“What? No!” Mingyu says. “We promised we would say hi!”

You promised you would say hi,” Minghao points out. “And then you just had to drag me into it-”

“Oh shut up, Seokmin was your friend too-”

“Can I help you?”

They whirl around, mouths hanging open, caught in the middle of an argument. At the bottom of the steps, a boy who is definitely not Seokmin stares up at them, clearly uncomfortable, a box half the size of his body in his arms.

Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”

--

Mingyu was always kind of aware of Wonwoo’s presence, in the periphery of his mind, moving silently through his house whenever Mingyu was over. 

“Oh, Wonwoo? He’s my brother,” Seokmin explains the first time Mingyu comes over and a boy other than Seokmin answers the door, letting Mingyu in before running back to his room. “Well, actually we just have the same dad. He feels like a real brother to me, though. He’s really funny once you get past all the shyness.”

“I’m sure he is,” Mingyu says, a little intrigued.

From that point on, he always makes a point of looking for Wonwoo whenever he hangs out with Seokmin, always asking to go to the bathroom in case he runs into him on the way there. He rarely does, but at least Wonwoo opens the door for him sometimes, saying a brief hello before disappearing again. He doesn’t mention it to anyone, but he starts looking forward to just saying hi, starts wondering what they would talk about if Wonwoo ever stops to say anything more.

He finds out in third grade, on his first sleepover of the year at Seokmin’s house. They’re huddled in the living room exploring Seokmin’s shiny new video game console when Wonwoo comes downstairs and sits on the couch on Seokmin’s other side.

“Let me play after this,” he says.

“Aw, you aren’t scared of Mingyu anymore?” Seokmin teases. 

“You were scared of me?” Mingyu asks, frowning down at his controller. He doesn’t know why he’s so hurt, but he is.

Wonwoo elbows Seokmin. “Don’t listen to him,” he tells Mingyu. “I’m just not good around strangers.”

It’s the most Wonwoo’s ever said to him. “Well, I’m glad I’m not a stranger anymore,” he says happily. He searches for something else to say, but then his character dies. Seokmin calls him a loser. Wonwoo laughs at him, nose scrunched, and Mingyu isn’t even that upset.

From that point on, Wonwoo joins them whenever they play video games. He always leaves halfway through to finish his homework, but Mingyu finally finds out how funny he really is - and he is funny, sometimes in an unexpectedly witty way, but usually in a really lame and corny way. Mingyu always laughs a little harder at the jokes that come out of his mouth, mostly because he looks so proud whenever he tells them.

Two years pass like that, Seokmin sandwiched between them as they laugh on the couch. Wonwoo starts making conversation with him when he greets him at the door, and he’s happy.

But then Wonwoo starts middle school, and all of a sudden he’s too busy video calling his friends and playing online games to play Mario Kart with the two of them. “You guys are lame,” he says when Seokmin invites him the first weekend of the school year, barely pausing on his way up the stairs. 

Mingyu leaves a little early that day, and if Seokmin knows why, he’s gracious enough not to say anything. Wonwoo recedes back into the shadows of the house, never looking Mingyu in the eyes.

On the last day of fifth grade, Seokmin drags him to the park to celebrate graduating elementary school. He drags Minghao along, too, because the two of them spent the past two years trying to befriend the Chinese student who had the misfortune of transferring in during fourth grade and they’ve only succeeded now. They buy popsicles from an ice cream truck with their hard-earned pocket money and sit on the grass, enjoying the summer sun and talking about the future.

“I’m so glad we’re all going to the same middle school,” Seokmin says for what must be the tenth time. “Imagine if we spent all those years trying to get you to be friends with us and then never saw you again!”

“Yeah, well, you’ll see me again,” Minghao says drily. “Unfortunately.” Mingyu thinks he can see a small smile on Minghao’s face, though, so he’s not too hurt.

“Aw, come on, you like us! Otherwise you wouldn’t have come.” Seokmin jumps to his feet, brushing the grass off his knees. “Come on, let’s go play!”

“Ugh,” Minghao says, but he lets Mingyu drag him up and to the playground.

They play all the games three ten-year-old boys can play - tag, sandman, hide and seek. It’s during a particularly intense game of tag that Mingyu launches himself onto the slide in an attempt to escape, but his legs are getting longer every day and his brain hasn’t caught up yet, and he’s falling off the slide and making hard contact with the sand below before he can make any attempt to save himself.

He blinks up at the sun, stunned, before the pain in his hand registers. “Ow,” he says aloud, and tries to rub away the tears pooling in his eyes. When he looks down at his right palm, at the bright red gash there, the tears start flowing unabated.

“Mingyu, are you o- oh, man, that looks bad!” Seokmin says as he and Minghao rush over. Minghao leans forward to examine the wound, while Seokmin brushes the sand off his pants. Neither of them say anything about the crying, which Mingyu is grateful for. 

“You gotta go home,” Minghao says. “That looks pretty bad.”

Mingyu shakes his head. “My mom isn’t home yet."

“Then you should come over,” Seokmin insists. “My mom always said you have to rinse and bandage the wound before it gets infected, and you can’t do that by yourself.”

Mingyu nods, sniffling, and Minghao takes it as a cue to help him up, pulling him along by his uninjured hand. He walks the entire way to Seokmin’s house cradling his hand to his chest, his friends on either side of him like bodyguards.

Minghao parts ways with them once he’s near his house. He promises that he’ll come hang out more during the summer, and gives Mingyu one last pat on the shoulder before heading down his street. Seokmin makes up for Minghao’s missing presence by talking loudly the rest of the way to his house.

Seokmin sits him down on the couch before rummaging around in his kitchen cupboards. “Wonwoo!” he calls, his voice ringing through the house. "Can you come help?"

Mingyu tenses at the name - Wonwoo already thinks he’s lame, what will he think when he sees him crying? “It’s okay,” he says quietly, “I can just-”

“What’s going on?” Wonwoo’s already at the bottom of the stairs, looking annoyed. Mingu shrinks even further into himself. “I was doing homework.”

“Mingyu’s hurt,” Seokmin explains, head still stuck in a cupboard. “Do you remember where mom keeps the first aid-”

“You’re hurt?” Wonwoo cuts off the rest of Seokmin’s sentence, his eyes fixed on Mingyu. Mingyu’s well aware of how pathetic he looks, eyes red, nose still runny, cradling his bloody hand. To his surprise, all the annoyance fades from Wonwoo’s eyes as he looks at him, replaced by something Mingyu’s never seen before. “Lemme see.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mingyu mumbles as Wonwoo kneels in front of him. He flinches as Wonwoo reaches for him, curling further into the couch. “You don’t have to help me.”

Wonwoo scoffs. “It’s not like you can help yourself,” he says. Mingyu feels his face heating up in shame. But Wonwoo’s fingers are gentle when they grasp his wrist, and he winces sympathetically when he sees the blood.

“Seokmin, call Mingyu’s mom,” he calls into the kitchen. “I think he needs stitches.” He looks into Mingyu’s eyes, and even though he scoffed at him and spent a year ignoring him he looks worried. It makes Mingyu’s heart ache, makes him want to ask why? “Go to the bathroom and run it under warm water.”

Mingyu nods. Wonwoo steps away to give him space, and he gingerly climbs to his feet, angling his hand so the blood doesn’t drip onto the floor. 

The water stings, deep in his skin, and Mingyu bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. When he makes his way back into the living room, Wonwoo is sitting on the couch, rummaging through the first aid kit. Seokmin is on the phone in the kitchen, stumbling over his words as he explains what happened to the person on the other end - Mingyu’s mom, presumably. 

Wonwoo looks up at him as he approaches and pats the empty space on the couch next to him. “I don’t really know how to do this,” he confesses, holding up a roll of gauze, “but I remember seeing my mom do this for Seokmin once, so.” He gestures for Mingyu to give him his hand.

Mingyu obliges, and almost chokes when Wonwoo pulls his hand into his lap, still gentle. It’s so different from the cold, indifferent Wonwoo he’d known for the past year, and Mingyu feels nothing but shame, for inconveniencing someone who clearly has no time for him. “Sorry,” he says aloud. 

Wonwoo glances up from where he’s clumsily wrapping the bandage around his hand, and frowns. “What are you saying sorry for? You didn’t get hurt on purpose.” He must make a mistake, because he sighs under his breath and starts again. It only makes Mingyu feel worse.

“Sorry for making you do this,” he says. “I know I’m annoying.”

Wonwoo’s head snaps up, mouth open as if to retort, before he visibly deflates. “You’re not annoying,” he says.

“Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” Mingyu accuses. “You never play video games with us anymore.”

Wonwoo sighs again and scrubs at his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry,” he says openly, taking Mingyu by surprise. For the first time, Mingyu understands that maybe Wonwoo made some choices he didn’t want to make. “My friends told me it’s lame to hang out with elementary school kids, so I didn’t.”

“Well, I’m not an elementary school kid now,” Mingyu says proudly, puffing his chest out. “So you can hang out with me again!”

Wonwoo laughs. “Yeah, I guess I can,” he admits. He stands up, giving Mingyu’s hand a final pat. “You’re all good now,” he says. “Well, as good as you can be.”

Mingyu blinks down at his hand, now wrapped in a crudge bandage. He’d completely forgotten that he was injured. “Thanks!” he says cheerfully, his spirits considerably lifted. “I feel much better already.”

Wonwoo smiles at him, and looks like he’s about to say something else when they’re interrupted by Seokmin in the kitchen. “Your mom’s gonna come pick you up from our house and take you to the hospital in case you need stitches,” he says, making his way to the living room. “Wanna play something until they get there?”

“Sure!” Mingyu says. He looks over at Wonwoo, who’s packing up the first aid kit. “Wanna join us?”

Seokmin starts, “nah, he’s probably busy-”

“No, I’ll join,” Wonwoo says, and Mingyu very nearly jumps with joy. “Just let me put this away first.”

“Oh.” Seokmin says, surprised, before shrugging and turning around to search for the TV remote. Mingyu grins at Wonwoo, who smiles back, and barely feels the sting in his hand for the rest of the day.

Mingyu leaves Seokmin’s house that day looking forward, more than ever, to the rest of the summer. Seokmin moves away a few weeks later. Mingyu doesn’t see Wonwoo again.

--

Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”

“Hey, Mingyu,” Wonwoo says quietly. Mingyu swallows, because apparently puberty dropped Wonwoo’s voice to the bottom of the ocean while he was gone. He’s taller, too, and his arms are steady under the weight of the box. Mingyu swallows again, harder.

Wonwoo holds his gaze for one more drawn-out moment before he shifts his eyes to the right, and clears his throat. “Hi, Minghao.”

Mingyu had completely forgotten that there was someone else there. From the smirk on Minghao’s face, he’s fully aware of what just happened. “Hey,” he greets, lifting the container in his hands. “We brought offerings.”

Wonwoo blinks. “Oh, thanks.” He tilts his chin in the direction of the door. “You guys can just go in. Seokmin should be in there somewhere.”

The words don’t register in Mingyu’s brain. It’s only when Minghao nudges him that he turns around with a start, almost tripping over his feet as he pushes the door open and steps into the house.

“Get it together,” Minghao hisses to him as they toe their shoes off in the entryway, Wonwoo coming up behind them. “If you drop that pie I’ll kill you.”

I baked the pie,” Mingyu says, indignant. Minghao just rolls his eyes and walks away.

There’s cardboard boxes scattered all over the floor, and what looks like the headboard of a bed in the middle of the living room. All the blinds and windows have been opened, filling the house with sunlight and fresh air. It’s eerily silent for a brief moment before someone lets out an inhuman shriek from somewhere on the second floor.

“Mingyu! Minghao!” And Seokmin comes thundering down the stairs, barely giving Mingyu any time to put his pie down before he’s being swept up in a hurricane of affection. Minghao gets dragged in shortly after, and then they’re all standing in Seokmin’s new house in their old neighborhood, hugging and laughing and crying a little.

Crying a lot , Mingyu corrects when Seokmin pulls away, tears freely flowing from his eyes. “I missed you guys so much,” he sniffs, wiping at his face, looking back and forth between them like he’s trying to visually account for five years of change. “Ugh, Mingyu, you’re so tall , what the heck?”

“I know, right?” Minghao agrees, elbowing Mingyu in the side. “Like a beanstalk.”

“Hey, mean!” Mingyu pouts, cradling his ribs. “I baked a pie for you!”

“You baked a pie for Seokmin, I owe you nothing,” Minghao dismisses. Mingyu pouts harder.

“Aw, I missed you guys,” Seokmin says again, and - oh, no, he’s crying even harder. That part of him hasn’t changed either, Mingyu supposes. “And Minghao! What happened to your cheeks?

“No, don’t you dare-” Minghao starts, but he’s cut off when Seokmin starts pinching his face, exclaiming loudly about how “they aren’t as squishy anymore, Minghao, how dare you”. Mingyu steps away so he won’t get caught in the crossfire when Minghao commits murder, and hits someone standing behind him.

“Ah, sorry-” he steps on a foot as he stumbles, and winces. “Sorry , I’m-”

Wonwoo reaches out to steady him, putting a hand on his bicep. “That hasn’t changed, huh?” he says, laughing, and Mingyu is so glad he isn’t holding anything at the moment because he definitely would’ve dropped it. 

The nose scrunch , his brain screams at him. I know , he screams back.

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?” he asks, indignant, crossing his arms over his chest. Wonwoo’s eyes flicker down as he does it, and Mingyu allows himself a small triumphant smile - he’s finally reaping the benefits of his summer workout regime. All those protein shakes were worth it .

Wonwoo just laughs again and pokes at his shoulder. “It means you’re still a danger to humanity,” he teases. “Remember that time you broke two of our mugs in one night?”

Mingyu groans at the reminder, burying his face in his hands. “Ugh, why’d you have to bring that up? My day was going so well.”

“You’re probably even more of a threat now that you’re taller,” Wonwoo muses. “They should keep you in confinement or something. Like an SCP.”

“Huh?” Mingyu peers at Wonwoo through the gap between his fingers, but the latter is just smiling to himself at his own joke like the nerd he is. “What’s that?”

Wonwoo opens his mouth, but they’re interrupted by Minghao physically barging in between them, holding a knife. (A butter knife, but still. Scary. Minghao could probably kill someone with a pencil, John Wick-style.) “Sorry to disrupt,” he says, “but do you guys want some of Mingyu’s pie?”

Wonwoo shrugs. His demeanor shifts a little with Minghao, just a little more shuttered, which makes Mingyu weirdly happy. “Sure.”

They eat the pie from paper plates Seokmin found, standing around the cardboard box serving as their makeshift dinner table. Seokmin and Wonwoo’s parents come in a few moments later, carrying the last of their belongings, and join them. Mrs. Jeon-Lee coos at Mingyu and Minghao, a mirror image of her son, while her husband stands in the background looking apologetic. The taste of Mingyu’s pie makes Seokmin tear up all over again. Mingyu feels weirdly at home, in this empty house full of childhood memories.

They leave an hour later, the sky turning warm with the sunset. Minghao lures him into a false sense of security by staying silent as they walk away from the house, but a block later he turns to him, eyes sparkling, and says, “so that’s why you were so excited about coming here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mingyu says firmly, even as he thinks about the rim of Wonwoo’s glasses glinting in the sunlight. Minghao just cackles.