He takes another drag, holds it, lets it go in a slow stream that the wind carries away. Then he turns his head and looks at me sideways, one eyebrow lifting.
“Since when do you smoke?”
I keep my gaze on the skyline. “A while now.”
“Mister health conscious,” he says, I can hear the smirk in his voice without looking. “Wasn’t it always you bitching at us behind the school? Standing there with your arms crossed lecturing us about lung cancer while we tried to enjoy our cigarettes in peace. You used to complain for hours about howthe smell got into your uniform and your mom would think it was you.”
“She did think it was me,” I say flatly. “More than once.”
Hongjoong snorts. “So what happened? What turned the anti-smoking crusader into this?” He gestures at the cigarette between my fingers.
I take a long drag, feel the heat fill my chest, and exhale. The smoke hangs in the still air between us for a moment before the breeze takes it.
“Probably you, honestly.”
He blinks.
“You always looked like it relaxed you,” I say evenly. “Back then, whenever things got stressful, you’d light up and something in your shoulders would just... ease up. I remembered that.” I tap ash off the end of my cigarette and watch it fall. “After particularly hard nights, when my body felt like it had been put through a machine and the mental drop afterward was bad enough that I couldn’t sleep, I started smoking to take my mind off it. To take the edge off. It worked.” I shrug one shoulder. “So I kept doing it.”
Hongjoong doesn’t respond right away. I can feel him watching me, his gaze steady against the side of my face, but when I glance over his expression is veiled. He takes another drag instead, jaw working as he inhales, and turns his attention back to the skyline without commenting.
We smoke in silence for a minute. The city hums below us, distant traffic and the occasional siren threading through the quiet. My phone starts vibrating on the small table behind us, the screen lighting up and casting a blue-white glow across the iron surface. I glance at the caller ID and my stomach does a quick flip.
“Sorry,” I say, straightening up and reaching for it. “I have to take this.”
Hongjoong waves his cigarette hand in a go-ahead gesture, exhaling smoke through his nose.
I answer and angle my body slightly away from him, pressing the phone to my ear. “Hey.”
“Dad.” Sungyoon’s voice comes through clear, it’s the tone he uses when he wants something and is trying to sound casual about it. “So Junhyung’s family is going to their cabin outside the city tomorrow, up past the reservoir? His mom said I could come but she needs parental permission first. Can I go?”
I lean my hip against the railing. “Who else is going?”
“Just Junhyung and his parents and his little sister. It’s not a party or anything, we’re just going to hike and his dad wants to teach us how to fish.” A pause. “I know you’re working this weekend so I figured it’d be fine since I wouldn’t be home anyway.”
The casual way he saysworkingsends a small pang through my chest, even though he doesn’t know what the work actually entails. I rub the bridge of my nose.
“That’s fine. But you stay close to Junhyung’s family, okay? Don’t wander off on your own, keep your phone on you at all times, and if anything feels off you call me. I don’t care what time it is.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Sungyoon.”
“I will, Dad. I promise.”
“Okay.” I soften. “I love you. Be careful.”
“Love you too. Bye.”
The line clicks dead. I lower the phone and stare at the screen for a second, at the contact photo of Sungyoon making a stupid face at the camera that I took last summer, before I lock it and set it back on the table.
When I turn around Hongjoong’s eyebrows are raised, his cigarette paused halfway to his mouth. The unspoken question sits plainly on his face.
“Who was that?” he asks. “Someone you live with?”
I clear my throat and pick my own cigarette back up from where I’d balanced it on the edge of the ashtray. “My son.”
Hongjoong’s eyebrows climb higher. He inhales at the wrong moment and coughs, a short, sharp hack that he covers with the back of his hand, smoke escaping in a messy burst.
