Jacob still remembers the day he fell in love with Kevin.

Kevin Moon who, despite the rather simple name, is as complex as a bright sunshine day with heavy rain. With sharp eyes and an equally sharp tongue, Kevin can be as brash as he can be gentle. A big heart hidden under witty remarks, and eye-rolling bad jokes, and Jacob makes sure to laugh at every single one of them.

Kevin and Jacob, Jacob and Kevin.

The kindergarten teacher and the nurse. Never one without the other, as their friends would say.

And Jacob never disagrees.

Jacob's love for Kevin is eternal. It is pure, like love-letters scribbled on striped notebook paper, passed around in class. It is blowing Dandelions on a summer's day, and it is a suburban home with a white picket fence.

There are times Jacob can't even remember a life before Kevin, and his heart tells him that there never will be an after either. When he counts the stars in the brown eyes looking back at him, and he strokes his fingers through waves of dark curls—when he returns home in the morning, after a night shift at the hospital, and Kevin greets him with the smell of burnt pancakes and soft kisses.

Those are the times, Jacob forgets all about the pain their love has created.

When Kevin plays the old piano, crammed into the corner of the living room, when he brings home yet another plant they don't have room for in the small apartment. The apartment near Ichon station, where the rent is way too high, and the square meter way too few—but it is close to work, and Kevin really likes the view. And Jacob likes it too, when he watches Kevin sit by the windows in the evening, looking over the Han River.

Then, their eyes meet, a gentle gaze through a raised glass and bubbly laughter, and Jacob knows that a love like theirs, is the kind of love people write songs about.

And sure, Kevin can also be stubborn, and Kevin can be impatient and he can be immature. He can roll his eyes and say things he doesn't mean, caught in the heat of the moment.

But he knows he can always find his calm, in the safety of Jacob's hand.

It will always be right there, reaching out for him.

It is in moments like this, where nothing else matters, and all that Jabob knows is that the boy with the last name of Moon, has become his very own sun.

Eyes glancing at his watch, Jacob hurries down the street. He is late, he always is. Always occupied with work, always taking an extra shift to pay off his student debt. The soles of his shoes barely touch the ground, as he sprints the last distance towards his destination. A quick lunch, then back to work. Understaffed and underpaid, but Jacob still loves his job at the Samsung Medical Center.

Although sometimes Kevin nags him for being late, sometimes he even yells and sends angry texts over the phone. But in the end, he always welcomes Jacob with a smile and open arms. Just like today, waving through the tall windows of the café, Kevin lights up as their eyes meet.

"Are you drunk?" Jacob laughs, dragging the light jacket off his shoulders, as he joins the table.

His laughter covers a worry stinging in his heart, but Jacob will save it for later. Now is not the time. Soft fingertips against warm skin, he leaves a quick touch on Kevin's cheek, ignoring how his heart aches—wishing he could have left a kiss instead.

"It's 1 in the afternoon!" Kevin exclaims, hand to his chest, eyes and mouth agape. Offended. "Of course, I am drunk! I spent all week covered in finger-paint, I need this!"

Kevin sways on his seat, dark curls following as he moves, and he hums along to the song playing on the radio, while a glass of white wine is held securely in his hand. Chardonnay, Jacob presumes, as it is Kevin's favorite.

"And how are you?" Jacob asks, bubbly as his friends know him—as he knows he has to be. But still, he does look at his friend with wary eyes. His childhood friend, who's been by his side for years, even before Kevin.

"Oh, you know. Same old." A simple shrug falls from Hyunjae's shoulders, but Jacob knows that there is something else hiding behind the smile Hyunjae so clearly forces over his lips. There always is.

For now he stays quiet. They eat their lunch together, catch up on everything, except the thing Hyunjae keeps hiding under glistening eyes and heartfelt laughter.

"Okay, too drunk. I need to go puke." Hands slam against the table, making the cutlery clank against the white plates. Kevin gets up and staggers towards the bathrooms, unbothered by the stares following him.

Jacob watches as his boyfriend disappears behind the dark wooden door. He then tips the cup of coffee towards his lips, eyes on Hyunjae, curiously.

"So, how are you?"

"You already asked me that?" Hyunjae's brows fall slightly. "I'm fine? You?"

"Is it... About him?"

Hyunjae pauses and a heavy sigh spreads out between them. Jacob waits, aware of the certain look that is painting itself over Hyunjae's face—the particular look, which shows whenever Hyunjae's attention is drawn towards his phone lighting up on the table.

"Isn't it always?" And Hyunjae sighs again. "I'm sorry, I know you have your own things to deal with."

"Don't worry about it. It's actually nice to think about something else. Just once in a while, you know?"

"I guess."

"So. What happened this time?"

It's about Juyeon, of course it is.

Ever since the three of them walked the same high-school hallways, with bowl-cut hair and matching gray uniforms, it has been Juyeon. Ever since Hyunjae was the praised class president and Jacob tried his hardest to fit in with the cool guys on the basketball team. Since Juyeon was just an awkward-looking beanstalk, hiding in the back of the classroom, and since Hyunjae found him with bruises on his lips, and a black eye, crying in the boys' bathroom.

Ever since then, it has always been about Juyeon.

But the seasons changed, and so did they.

Hyunjae went to SNU, and Jacob stopped chasing the shadows of who he thought he should be. And Juyeon? Juyeon grew out of the awkward phase, where his limbs were too lanky for body, and his voice too deep for his skinny frame.

Once high-school friends turned into strangers, and the Juyeon that exists today, is no one Jacob feels the need to know. Arrogant, selfish, a simple fuckboy with no good intentions—this is Jacob's perception of who Lee Juyeon has become. Careless, and ignorant to other people's feelings. To Hyunjae's.

Hyunjae, who has loved him for nearly a decade. And Jacob doesn't have the heart to tell him that the version of Juyeon Hyunjae remembers, wonderful as he may seem, doesn't exist anymore.

Jacob looks at Hyunjae, sipping coffee with eyes full of hurt, when a message lights up his phone again, buzzing against the table.

"It's Juyeon..." A finger lingers on the screen of the phone next Hyunjae's hand, and his eyes do as well, reading the same message over and over.

"What does he want?" Jacob asks, although he really doesn't want to. Because he really doesn't care. Hyunjae deserves better than Juyeon, and can easily do much better.

"He's inviting me to another nightclub opening tonight."

"Are you going?"

"I want to say no," Hyunjae pauses, fingers through dirty-blonde hair, and a heavy sigh. "But we both know that would be a lie, since I'm a fucking idiot."

"Lovesick fool sounds nicer."

"I guess you're right."

Hyunjae chuckles, they both do. But neither of them actually mean it.

When the sun takes a last dance across the rooftops of Seoul, Jacob is finally on his way home. But an uneasy feeling stirs inside of him, and his eyes flicker when he waits for the elevator to reach the eleventh floor.

"Hey, sorry I got home so late" Jacob gently drags his words, peeping into the bathroom. "Are you okay?"

He knows the answer, but he still asks. He always does, he has to. Weary eyes look back at him, red and puffy under messy hair. Kevin nods, slowly. The sun has gone away, not only outside the apartment, and Kevin is falling apart.

On the cold tiles in the bathroom Kevin has been crying again. No tears to be seen at the moment, but Jacob knows. The rosy tint on Kevin's nose, the emptiness in his eyes, it says it all.

"You know the doctor told you not to mix your new medication with alcohol."

Jacob kneels down, swallowing the growing pain sitting in his throat. His arms sling around his boyfriend, pulling him closer until Kevin is resting against his chest.

"I know..." Kevin sighs into the fabric of Jacob's shirt. "Thanks for not rotting me out in front of Hyunjae though."

"Why would I?" Gentle kisses onto dark curls, inhaling the scent Jacob will never get tired of. "Let's go to bed."

Jacob still remembers the day he fell in love with Kevin.

And he remembers the day he helplessly watched, as Kevin's heart shattered right in front of him.

Kevin was fearless, when he approached Jacob in the supermarket the first time they met. One searching through the aisle of spices, and the other drawing nearer, with a carton of milk in his hand.

Kevin was fearless, when he stole a kiss by the Han River at night time. Blushing cheeks and cherry chapstick, and bubbly laughter on their third date.

And Kevin was fearless, when he held Jacob's hand in front of his Christian parents.

But things haven't been the same since that dreadful day, and in his quiet mind, Jacob fears if they'll ever be. If Kevin ever will.

Jacob remembers words so vile, Mr. Moon's heated face and Mrs. Moon's teary eyes. They surely had expected something else, when their one and only son announced he was dating a nurse.

It was the first and last time Jacob ever set foot in the Moon residence, but unfortunately for Kevin, it would be his last as well. A sun to Jacob, but no longer a son to his parents. A disgrace, a filthy sinner, doomed to burn in Hell for his deviant ways.

Kevin hasn't held Jacob's hand outside their home since that day.

An unwanted guest showed up, moved into their home without any permission. To this day, it is still there, hiding in every frail smile and the silence that eats away words too hard to say. It covers Kevin's face with its own, with fake happiness and violent tears. Its nasty claws are dug deep into his heart, tearing it into pieces, and Jacob is desperately trying to put it back together.

Sometimes Jacob cries too. Overwhelmed by guilt, he locks himself in the bathroom, hurting from the thought that his very own sun needs artificial happiness to make him smile.

The darkness has laid itself over the city, like the jet-black locks of hair spread across Jacob's chest. A tiny yawn tickles against his skin, and Kevin looks up at him.

"Coby?"

"Mh?"

"I love you."

It is moments like this, soft and beautiful, that makes everything worth all the pain—what makes Jacob know that no matter what, he will always be there for Kevin. He will lend out his heart, while Kevin's is still broken, carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, until Kevin's hands aren't shaking anymore.

"I love you too."

Kevin reaches out his hand, fingers bent except his pinky, pointing towards Jacob.

"Forever?" he asks.

Jacob links his pinky around Kevin's.

"Forever."

Their love might not be flawless, but to Jacob it is perfect in its own imperfect way.

And he will fight until his dying breath, to make Kevin smile like before.

He has to.