Chapter Seven #2
I meet Hongjoong at an upscale department store in Gangnam for a suit fitting, something related to a public event that he mentioned offhandedly over text last week without giving me any details beyond the date and a vague reference to “industry thing, boring, need moral support.” I assumed he just wanted company while he shopped, which is why I’m currently sitting in a plush velvet chair outside the fitting area with a complimentary espresso in my hand, watching as Hongjoong stands on the tailor’s raised platform with his arms held out at his sides while an attendant crouches behind him pinning the shoulders of a dark charcoal suit jacket.
I secretly don’t mind the view. Hongjoong’s shoulders look broad and sharp in the tailored lines, the fabric pulling across his back, highlighting the taper of his waist, and the combination of the polished suit with his blonde hair and silver ear piercings gives the whole look an edge that shouldn’t work together but absolutely does.
He catches me looking in the three-panel mirror and I drop my gaze to my espresso, taking a sip.
“I’m still not sure why I need to be here for this,” I say, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back in the chair. “You don’t need my opinion on suits. You’ve never needed anyone’s opinion on clothes in your life.”
Hongjoong catches my eye in the mirror and grins, a sharp satisfied grin that always means he’s about to say something I won’t like. “Because you need to be fitted too.”
I frown. “Why would I need to be fitted?”
He gestures to one of the hovering employees without looking away from my reflection, beckoning them over with a flick of his fingers. “Because you’re coming to the event with me. As my guest.”
I blink. The espresso cup pauses halfway to my mouth and I set it down on the side table, sitting up straighter in the chair. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
I glance at the attendant still pinning his jacket, at the two employees standing nearby with fabric swatches draped over their arms, and lower my voice. “What are you going to introduce me as, Hongjoong? Your rut partner?”
He arches a brow at me in the mirror, entirely unbothered by the question or the audience. “No,” he says calmly. “I’m going to introduce you as my friend. Which you are.” He turns his head slightly, meeting my eyes directly now instead of through the glass. “I want you there at my side.”
The word friend makes my lungs feel tight, a feeling that’s half warm and half painful, because he says it so simply, like it’s obvious, like fifteen years of silence and secrets haven’t made the word heavier than it should be. I bite the inside of my lip and look down at my hands. I should say no.
But when the employees approach me with polite smiles and gestures toward the dressing room, I don’t refuse.
I set my espresso down and stand, following them past racks of suits in garment bags and into a private fitting room with soft lighting and a full-length mirror.
They take my measurements with quick competent hands, noting numbers on a tablet, and then they bring out options, holding jackets up against my chest, draping fabric over my shoulder for color comparison.
The suit they put me in is dark navy, almost black in certain light, with a subtle texture to the weave that catches when I move.
The jacket fits close through the shoulders and chest, the trousers tapered and hemmed to break just above my shoes.
The shirt underneath is crisp white, open at the collar, the attendant says it suits my build better than a tie would.
When I look at myself in the mirror I barely recognize the person looking back.
I look like someone who belongs in Hongjoong’s world.
Someone polished and put together. The man in the mirror has my face but he doesn’t have my life, and for a disorienting second I can’t seperate the two, the version of me standing here in navy wool and the version who goes home to a small apartment and counts won in his head at the grocery store.
Hongjoong appears in the doorway of the fitting room, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, already changed back into his own clothes.
He looks me over from head to toe, slowly.
His teasing grin fades, his eyes traveling from the line of my shoulders down to the hem of the jacket and back up again.
“Well?” I say, because the silence is making my neck hot.
He pushes off the doorframe and walks toward me, reaching out to adjust the collar of my jacket with both hands, tugging it straight, his fingers brushing the sides of my neck as he smooths the fabric down.
He’s standing close enough that I can smell his cologne and the warm alpha scent underneath it, and his eyes meet mine in the mirror over my shoulder.
“You look good, Jae,” he says quietly. No grin, no teasing, no dimple. Just the words, delivered with a sincerity that makes my throat tight.
I look away first.
The attendant packages both suits into garment bags while we wait, and I watch her fold tissue paper around the navy fabric with careful hands, thinking about how I’m going to explain this to Sungyoon if he sees it hanging in my closet.
I don’t own anything this nice. The closest thing I have to formalwear is a dark button-down I bought secondhand three years ago for Sungyoon’s middle school graduation ceremony, and even that has a small stain on the cuff that I’ve never been able to get out.
Hongjoong signs for everything at the register without letting me see the total, which I’ve learned by now is on purpose.
He takes both garment bags before I can reach for mine, draping them over his arm, and we walk out of the fitting area and back onto the main floor of the department store.
The space is bright and sprawling, polished floors reflecting the overhead lights, displays of watches and leather goods and perfume arranged on glass counters that we pass as we head toward the exit.
“Should we eat?” Hongjoong asks, shifting the garment bags to his other arm. “There’s a place around the corner that does good jjigae, or we could find something in the food hall downstairs if you want something quick.”
I’m opening my mouth to answer but right then a voice cuts across the floor, loud and carrying.
“No fucking way. Hongjoong? Is that Jung Yoonjae?”
My blood goes cold. I know that voice. I haven’t heard it in over a decade but I know it the way you know the sound of your own name, something burned into memory from years of hearing it shout across schoolyards and rooftops and the backs of convenience stores.
I turn slowly, already bracing myself, and see Wonjoon crossing the department store floor toward us with a shopping bag swinging from one hand and a grin splitting his face wide open.
He looks good, I’ll give him that. Broader than he was in high school, filled out the way alphas tend to in their thirties, his hair cropped short and his jaw heavier, but the same open friendly face and the same booming energy that always made him one the loudest people in any room.
He reaches Hongjoong first and they clasp hands hard, pulling each other into one of those back-slapping alpha hugs that sounds like it hurts, Wonjoon laughing and saying something about Hongjoong’s hair being even more ridiculous than it was the last time he saw him.
Then Wonjoon turns to me and his eyes go wide, his whole face lighting up with genuine shock and delight.
“Holy shit, it really is you,” he says, reaching out and gripping my shoulder, giving me a shake.
“I thought I was seeing things. Yoonjae, man, where the hell have you been? You look good, you look really good.”
I manage a smile that I hope looks natural and not like I’m fighting the urge to bolt. “Hey, Wonjoon. It’s been a while.”
“A while?” He laughs, incredulous. “Try a lifetime. You just vanished, dude. One day you were there and the next, poof, gone like smoke. Nobody could find you, nobody had your number, it was like you fell off the planet.”
I shift my weight and rub the back of my neck, the old familiar gesture I default to when I’m cornered. “Yeah, I just... got busy. You know how it is, life gets away from you and before you know it years have passed.”
Wonjoon shakes his head like that answer doesn’t even begin to satisfy him, but before he can press further Hongjoong steps in, slinging an arm around Wonjoon’s shoulders and steering the conversation with effortless social command, that always comes naturally to him.
“We were just about to grab food,” he says, flashing an easy grin.
“Come with us, let’s catch up properly. When’s the last time the three of us were in the same room? ”
I want to protest. I want to make up an excuse about needing to get home, about Sungyoon expecting me, about anything that would extract me from this situation before it goes somewhere I can’t control.
But Wonjoon is already nodding enthusiastically and Hongjoong is already walking, and refusing now would draw exactly the kind of attention I’m trying to avoid, so I press my lips together and follow them out of the department store and down the block to a restaurant with warm lighting and wooden booths.
We slide into a booth near the back, me next to Hongjoong on one side and Wonjoon across from us, and I arrange my face into something pleasant and engaged as the two of them fall into easy conversation.
It’s not hard to listen. Wonjoon was always one of the more likeable guys in our group, never mean-spirited, never the type to push too hard or ask questions designed to make you squirm.
He and Hongjoong swap updates about mutual friends from the old days, who got bonded, who moved abroad, who’s still in the city, and I nod along and laugh at the right moments and offer the occasional comment when it feels safe.