stop just a minute (we’ve got so much time)
name: lee/sungjong
from/to: icn/jfk
depart: 16:00
flight: kal81
the day sungjong leaves for new york is a big affair. howon rides in the sunggyu’s car with woohyun, myungsoo, and dongwoo. sungjong and sungyeol are in the car in front of them along with their parents, sungjong and sungyeol’s maternal grandmother, and all of sungjong’s luggage. even though sungjong and sungyeol’s grandmother and mother are barely holding back tears and won’t let sungjong out of their arms even as he laughs and continuously repeats that phones exist for a reason, the general atmosphere isn’t a sad one.
sungjong is right, after all - there are phones and computers and they’ll all be able to hear his voice and see his face as many times as they want and need to. he’ll be back between semesters for a month at a time, and for the summer for an entire three months.
after he checks in, they all walk him to the security gate to say their final goodbyes. howon stands back, almost to the side, and watches as everyone else hugs and kisses him - the youngest out of all of them, the last one they watched walk across that familiar platform in their high school to receive his diploma just a few months ago.
his carry-on is just a backpack - not the one he used for school, but a new one that sungyeol had bought for him when sungjong first received the acceptance letter to this program. he’s almost an entire head taller than howon now, even though when they just met, he’d only had a few centimeters on him. sungjong has also begun to lose his cheeks, the baby fat clinging to his jaw almost completely gone, and howon tries to ignore the pang in his chest when he thinks about how he won’t see sungjong finish growing up - he won’t be there.
he uses the time it takes for sungjong’s parents, grandmother, and the others to be completely satisfied in how much they’ve mussed his hair and nearly suffocated him to swallow down the rest of those feelings. this is going to be quite possibly a life-changing experience for sungjong, and he’s worked sleepless night upon sleepless night for this, and howon wants him to take the world by storm like he inevitably always would.
“this is a special occasion so don’t think i’ll let you touch him ever again,” sungyeol says, shoving howon forward by the back of his head. howon grins back at his friend, as he feels sungjong tugging him in by the arm.
he lets sungjong wrap his long arms around howon’s neck, face buried against the side of howon’s hair. howon pulls his own arms tight around sungjong’s waist and breathes in the scent he won’t smell again until december. “don’t eat too much shake shack,” howon says into sungjong’s neck. he feels the younger boy shake with laughter against him. “you won’t grow taller forever.”
“i’ll smuggle some back for you, hyung,” comes the reply as sungjong pulls away and smiles at him, eyes just a little wetter than they should be.
howon smiles back and pushes him with both of his hands on the omega’s back. “hurry up,” he says, as much of a laugh in his voice as he can inject without feeling his own eyes get too warm.
once sungjong is out of sight, howon feels woohyun’s hand squeeze his shoulder and sungyeol’s hand firm on his back. howon puts his hands in his pockets and turns to face them. myungsoo isn’t crying as hard as sungjong’s mother and grandmother are, but it’s a close call. “wanna get drunk?” woohyun slings an arm around howon’s neck.
howon glances at him with a half-smile. “you bet.”
03:18 d-4: hyung did u want the white one and sunggyu-hyung the red one 03:18 d-4: or is it the other way around 03:19 d-4: or did woohyun-hyung want the red one 03:21 ya lee howon: they r all for me 03:21 ya lee howon: only me 03:23 d-4: lol hyung srsly 03:24 ya lee howon: ur bringing both back either way 03:24 ya lee howon: we can fight for who gets which 03:25 d-4: hyungs battling to the death for hats 03:25 d-4: im down 03:25 d-4: pls provide popcorn 03:26 ya lee howon: no 03:27 d-4: no popcorn? :( 03:28 ya lee howon: hyungs battling for whatevers left 03:28 ya lee howon: i get first picks 03:28 ya lee howon: bc u love me most 03:28 ya lee howon: :) 03:29 d-4: i love whoever pays me back first 03:30 ya lee howon: u kno i’ll pay u back first and best :)) 03:32 d-4: lmao 03:33 d-4: ok fine 03:33 d-4: but only bc u drive a hard bargain 03:33 d-4: go to sleep 03:34 d-4: u have class in like 4 hrs 03:34 d-4: hyung omg 03:36 ya lee howon: miss u 03:37 d-4: SLEEP :( NOW 03:37 d-4: OR IM GIVING ALL THE HATS TO SUNGGYU-HYUNG 03:43 ya lee howon: the things i do for supreme 03:44 d-4: don’t let the sungyeol-hyung bugs bite 04:51 d-4: i miss u too
name: lee/sungjong
from/to: lhr/icn
depart: 9:30
flight: kl 856
there isn’t usually much traffic once howon gets out of the city itself onto the larger roads that lead him from seoul to incheon, but at around four in the morning, even the bit of traffic he usually encounters coming out of seoul is hardly there. it takes less than an hour today to get to the airport, and by the time he does, the first few barest rays of dawn are starting to peek through into the sky. he hadn’t slept at all tonight, afraid that he’d miss his alarm if he did.
he had work to get done anyway, and just started on whatever he needed to get through for next week once he had finished that in order to keep himself awake until it was time to leave.
the airport is as empty as the roads, the red-eye flights just beginning to land and most coming in on those planes are businessmen with chauffeurs from agencies and hotels waiting for them, holding placards with last names on them. howon goes to the board of arrivals, looking to make sure that sungjong’s flight was still due to land on time and to see which gate he needed to wait at.
even there, howon is fairly sure that he’s the only person who isn’t in a suit with a name-board. he takes his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. there aren’t any new messages he can look through because no one is awake at this hour, obviously. the last messages he received were from sungjong just before he’d gotten on the flight, nearly twelve hours ago. howon had sent him back suggestions for where sungjong wanted to eat once he returned, since more often than not, sungjong is hungrier for korean food than he is for sleep whenever he arrives.
sungjong had gotten on the plane and turned off his phone before he could read those messages, but now, when howon checks the chat, they’ve been read, which means sungjong’s flight really is on time, and he’s landed already - most probably reading the messages while waiting for his bags or during immigration.
people begin coming out of the gate about an hour after the arrival time that had been listed on the board. howon tucks his phone back into his jeans, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he bounces up and down on the heels of his feet, waiting.
the first time sungjong came home - from new york, after his two years abroad - they had all come to pick him up along with sungjong’s parents in the same way that they’d sent him off. it was like that when sungjong had gone off again two years later and when he returned a few weeks later. after three, four, five times, once it became sungjong’s steady career, and he began living with howon, it was either just howon or sometimes howon and sungyeol, or one of the others whenever howon just couldn’t make it himself.
sungjong insisted for a time that it was ridiculous and he could take himself to and from the airport by taxi, but howon thinks that’s more ridiculous and said exactly that to sungjong’s exasperated smile.
for the most part, howon knows sungjong understands now that howon does this almost as much for himself as he does for sungjong. from time to time, however, like yesterday, sungjong still tries to get howon to let sungjong take a cab. i’m going to land at five in the morning and you had meetings all week, hyung, sungjong had said, as howon watched him pack through his laptop screen.
you know we just eat and fuck around at those, howon had joked, grinning, and curling his fingers against the cotton of his joggers beneath the table - far from what the camera of his laptop could capture, where sungjong couldn’t see. he’d watched sungjong roll his eyes and smile back, not pushing further because even when sungjong had once told howon point-blank that sungjong was going to walk straight past howon and take a taxi even if he was there, howon had still come anyway, dragged a laughing sungjong to his car, and demanded that sungjong pay a fare since, after all, sungjong wanted to take a taxi so badly.
yesterday, howon had watched sungjong sitting on his suitcase, stomping on his suitcase, lying stomach down on his suitcase in an attempt to get it to shut, and he’d laughed and told sungjong that the omega was far too light to make even the slightest difference in getting it to shut - as well as asking him if he was trying to sneak in an entire year’s supply of fish and chips. he’d watched sungjong, and tried not to think about how, if he was there, he’d have jumped next to sungjong on top of the suitcase and they would’ve pressed it down together, each of them clicking the fastening closest to their hands.
he’d watched sungjong climb into bed holding the laptop and couldn’t help himself from imagining himself lying there beside him, one arm thrown over his stomach and the other pulling the blanket over both of them. he’d watched sungjong fall asleep through the screen of his laptop, and his finger hovered over his mouse pad for far too long before he brought himself to end the call.
“hyung!”
he hears him before he sees him.
there are more people than he expected now pouring out of the automatic double doors, and it takes him a moment before he sees the long, thin arm waving at him and the familiar suitcases piled on the luggage cart. he’s running in through the crowd before he knows it, around the cart and then his arms are around a small, warm waist and his face is pressed into a soft neck and he’s inhaling the scent of home.
18:13 overrated tokyo banana: flight got delayed 18:13 overrated tokyo banana: 4hr delay 18:16 bring me tokyo banana: shit 18:17 overrated tokyo banana: they said there might be more delays 18:17 overrated tokyo banana: bc it’s snowing so bad 18:18 overrated tokyo banana: hyung i think u shouldn’t come 18:18 overrated tokyo banana: i’ll just take a cab 18:18 overrated tokyo banana: if we even take off today 18:20 bring me tokyo banana: it’s fine 18:21 bring me tokyo banana: i’ll catch dinner 18:21 bring me tokyo banana: keep me updated 18:22 bring me tokyo banana: it’s snowing p badly here 2 20:01 overrated tokyo banana: idk if u alr saw but we r snowed in 20:02 bring me tokyo banana: i saw yeah 20:02 bring me tokyo banana: did they say when the next plane can leave? 20:03 overrated tokyo banana: no…. 20:03 overrated tokyo banana: they said they r moving us out 20:03 overrated tokyo banana: theres a hotel next to the airport i think they r gonna shuttle us there 20:07 bring me tokyo banana: call me when u get there or if anything else happens
sungjong doesn’t come home until new year’s.
howon had planned to take him out that night, christmas eve night, that sungjong should have landed had the snowstorm not escalated into the worst blizzard that both seoul and tokyo had seen in a fair decade. he’d planned to take sungjong to the christmas festival that they used to go to together when sungjong was in university, and then to see the display of christmas trees that had been put up near the square of shops beside their apartment complex.
sungyeol and myungsoo had also thrown a christmas party, expecting sungjong to have been home by then, and while they all still laughed and talked and drank until it wasn’t even christmas anymore, howon knows he isn’t the only one that felt the empty space - that they were all missing the person they were supposed to tease mercilessly and lovingly.
sungjong had video-called howon from the hotel room the airport had put him in later that night, the night he was supposed to come home. i had to wash my boxers in the sink and dry them on a chair, he’d said to howon’s unsympathetic guffawing. no stores are open so i couldn’t even buy new underwear, hyung, stop laughing.
that night howon listened to a good, solid two hours of sungjong ranting about the inadequacies of the airport staff and the various people who he’d watched make scenes in the middle of the airport and also the hotel lobby - from entertaining and dramatic to full-blown annoying and inconsiderate to the fact that everyone is stuck because of the snow and everyone had places to be.
maybe i should’ve just hopped on my suitcase and rowed my way back - it’s not that far, right? sungjong joked wearily, leaning back on the pillows and pulling his laptop closer to himself on the bed.
this is why you almost failed physics if it weren’t for me, howon teased, and sungjong smiled.
i almost failed physics even with you, hyung.
howon didn’t remember who had fallen asleep first that night. he just remembered waking up to his laptop having hibernated on its own, and a slew of messages in all of the chats he was in - from his group chat with woohyun and sungyeol, telling him to remember to bring quality alcohol or he’s not allowed in the house, to myungsoo reminding him to bring enough alcohol for the two of them once everyone else has passed out, to sunggyu threatening him not to give sunggyu presents for his unborn children because there’s been enough of that and to bring sunggyu something, to dongwoo pleading for him to bring food because no one else will remember to.
he opened all of the messages but replied to none of them yet.
before he went back to sort anything else out, he opened the messages he had saved for last.
08:22 i hate snow: merry christmas hyung!! !!!!!! 08:38 i hate snow: Image sent. 08:38 i hate snow: Image sent. 08:38 i hate snow: Image sent. 08:40 i hate snow: have fun getting trashed 08:41 i hate snow: beat myungsoo-hyung this time
they were photos of sungjong out in the snow, despite what he had changed his name in the chat to while howon was asleep. howon still has those photos saved to his phone, unable to stop flipping back and forth through them as he waits now at the gate for sungjong to arrive finally - six days later than he was supposed to be home, but howon would rather wait as long as it took if that meant sungjong would be flown over in safer weather.
howon assumes sungjong had taken these photos somewhere near the hotel - possibly just even in the parking lot or on the sidewalk, even though it really was snowing so hard, howon could barely make out sungjong’s face through the snowflakes and wind blowing his scarf around his face. it had snowed straight through the next three days before the storm finally stopped, and then it took another three days before conditions were safe enough and the weather wasn’t too dangerous for the engines.
sungjong had told howon yesterday that he was going to be on the first flight out the following day, and howon had only barely been able to sleep.
he’s done this so many times now - he’s fairly sure a good portion of the airport staff around all shifts know him - the people who work the bakeries and cafes around the perimeter of the arrival gates definitely know him, but for some reason, his heart still pounds loudly in his chest whenever he’s waiting for sungjong.
he’ll never say it’s easy because it isn’t. none of this is ever easy, and all of it has been so romanticised, but there is nothing fun or romantic or sweet about having lived together with sungjong for so many years now - the omega’s name is on the lease along with howon’s - but it hardly feels like they’ve shared a home at all. absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder is a load of bullshit because all sungjong’s absence does is make howon miss him so much, there are times he’ll just be gazing into sungjong’s eyes through the screen of his laptop or phone, and the realization of the situation will hit him with crippling pain - that sungjong is miles upon miles away and howon isn’t looking into his eyes - just an image inside a machine.
there have been so many people who have no idea what it’s like giving howon advice - whether it’s from his colleagues, to friends of friends who hear about his and sungjong’s situation from the others, to his brothers, to even his relatives. some of them have told him it’ll get easier, some of them have told him that long-distance strengthens relationships.
he doesn’t think it’ll ever get easier, and he doesn’t think he’s in any place to judge how strong or weak he and sungjong are together.
all he knows is that no matter how hard it gets -
“good news or bad news first,” sungjong breathes against howon’s shoulder, seconds after the omega has thrown himself straight into howon, backpack half off his shoulders and suitcase crashed to the floor at their feet.
howon clenches his eyes shut and holds sungjong so tightly that he’s pretty sure the straps of sungjong’s backpack will leave indents in howon’s arms even through the sleeves of the alpha’s thick coat. “my tokyo bananas got squished?”
“okay - that was the bad news,” sungjong’s voice is more muffled now because both he and howon are hugging each other so closely, howon doesn’t think he could breathe even if he tried. “the good news is - “
“you’re home?” howon asks, and lets sungjong pull away slightly - just enough so he can look up into the younger man’s face.
sungjong presses his smile against howon’s mouth briefly - too, too briefly. “that, too,” the omega says, “but also, sunggyu-hyung’s box wasn’t squished so we can just give him the squished ones.”
when howon surges forward to kiss sungjong back this time, sungjong’s beanie flies off his head.
name: lee/howon
from/to: icn/cdg
depart: 22:00
flight: tk 89
“you know,” sungyeol says, as he walks howon down to the security checkpoint, “i should technically be ripping your boarding pass in half right about now.”
howon grins. “you know, he’s going to come home in a week so regardless, in about a week’s time, you’re going to be seeing that ring on his finger and - regardless - soon we’re gonna be a real fami - “
“literally, you disgust me,” sungyeol cuts him off. “i should have killed you and fed your remains to my cats while i had the chance, but now my parents are expecting sungjong to come back engaged and he can’t be engaged to a box of organs.”
even though there are still quite a fair few people in the airport at this time of night, not yet so late that the flow of flights has slowed, it’s quieter than the usual hustle and bustle during peak time a few hours ago in the evening and late afternoon. the workers at the cafe howon always gets coffee from, sometimes with sungjong and sometimes for sungjong, while he’s waiting actually stared at him for a good few seconds upon seeing his suitcase as he and sungyeol grabbed a quick bite before going to check howon in.
he has a long wait until his flight actually leaves because it’s an international flight and he had to arrive two hours beforehand to get his boarding pass, so he plans to eat more once he’s inside and there are more actual restaurants. he’ll eat his fill at the airport and then opt out of eating on the plane. he plans to attempt to sleep as much as he can to minimize his jet lag once he arrives, although he has a feeling that no matter how exhausted he is when he gets there, he won’t be able to feel any of the tiredness.
howon pauses when they arrive at the passageway that leads into security. he turns to face sungyeol, and his best friend is looking back at him with some combination of exasperation, pride, and affection. “wish me luck,” howon says.
sungyeol snorts, yanking him forward into a hug and thumping his back fiercely. “you don’t need it, you cradlerobber.”
09:13 hoguma: r u up 09:18 jjongah: yeah 09:18 jjongah: we have today off 09:18 jjongah: skype? 09:20 hoguma: can u get the door first 09:20 jjongah: what 09:21 hoguma: get the door
when sungjong opens the door, he yells so loudly that howon has to push him into the room and close the door behind them before kissing him silent so that they don’t startle the entire floor. sungjong stares, open-mouthed at howon, nearly stuttering when he asks faintly what howon is doing here - in paris - when he had told sungjong just two days ago that he would be in jeju for a conference.
sungjong is still in thin, gray joggers and a black t-shirt. his hair is wet and messy, and howon is fairly sure that he’d just woken up an hour before howon had messaged him. howon himself had arrived near the middle of the night, getting to the airport hotel sometime early in the morning, showering, and eating quickly before driving into the city. he’d only slept on the plane, over twelve hours ago now, but he’s never felt more awake in his life.
howon answers without words what he flew out of the country for - he answers with a broad grin as he lowers himself onto one knee in front of the person he’s loved for the past ten years of his life and that he’ll love for hundreds more. he opens the box he’d brought all the way from their home, thousands of miles away, and he says, “i promise to follow you wherever you go, if you promise to always come home to me.”
something between a gasp and a sob slips past sungjong’s lips before he presses the back of his hand over his mouth, eyebrows furrowing like he’s determined not to cry even though that’s a fairly lost cause, in howon’s opinion, judging by the way the younger man’s eyes are already brimming. “will you marry me, lee sungjong?”
howon barely gets the entire name out before he’s being kissed within an inch of his life. the ring nearly goes flying out of howon’s hand from the force that sungjong throws himself forward with. howon lands flat on his back on the floor, toppling over with sungjong on top of him, dampness forming against the collar of howon’s shirt.
“yes,” sungjong whispers, leaning back and smiling, swiping at the wetness on his face with the back of his hand. howon catches the tears with his thumb. “yes,” sungjong repeats, louder, voice slightly hoarse before he dips in and covers howon’s mouth with his own.
