the theory of relativity | heehoon

ten.

"Hey."

Sunghoon drops his files on the empty chair next to his seat before he sits down opposite Heeseung. "Hey. You're early."

Heeseung had taken him up on his offer for lunch another time after all; the younger boy had suggested they visit, upon Heeseung's prompting, the cafe that used to be their go-to spot for dates back when the semester had first started. Their trips to the cafe had dropped sharply since, and he couldn't help but feel a certain sense of reminiscence from the moment he walked in.

"I was on time," Heeseung points out. "You were late."

Sunghoon gives him a sort of rueful smile. "My bad, I was caught up with some work. I hope you didn't wait long."

"I didn't. Come on, let's eat."

They give their food orders to the server the next time she passes by, but the silence between the server leaving with their order and returning with their food is unbroken by either of them. Heeseung occupies himself with tracing the lines along the table with his eyes, and he thinks of two pens and three pencils, Sunghoon's delicate fingers arranging them into neat lines to form a graph, his smile reaching his eyes as he explained with excitement what he was learning in class.

"How's your classes recently?" Heeseung is the first to break the silence after their food arrives, unwilling to let the tension drag any longer. "I remember you telling me about this thing when we were here at the start of the year- was it the Theory of Relativity? That was cool."

He doesn't remember when the last time he unironically used the word 'cool' was, but he doesn't think about that right now.

"Ah, that," Sunghoon answers, trailing off. "We're past that chapter in class, we've moved on to biomechanics now. I suppose there's some relation, to an extent, but that's that. It's just somewhat similar, but really it's nothing close to being the same."

"Right, of course."

"Yeah, but it's fascinating to think about, honestly. People don't notice it often, but the theories of physics affect almost every aspect of our life."

He can tell Sunghoon is rambling to fill the spaces between. Heeseung doesn't recall when it became so painfully awkward to talk to him, but the sinking, drowning realisation that he's struck a point where he doesn't know what to say anymore isn't one that's easy to bear.

His relief is barely concealed when someone rings Sunghoon not half an hour later, calling him away for some project or another. The younger boy is effusively apologetic as he packs up his things and leaves, and Heeseung mirrors the sentiment with some measure of genuineness.

He thinks about it on his way back. It reminds him a little of taking out an old charging cable and realising it no longer carries electricity. Something that used to be there, something that used to work. Something lost.

"Was it something I said to make you feel like you're a burden?

Oh, and if I could take it all back

I swear that I would pull you from the tide"

─

"Sunghoon, are we still meeting for lunch today?"

"Sorry baby, I only have thirty minutes! I need to meet Jake to ask him about the quiz on biomechanics next week."

It isn't rare for Sunghoon's mechanical engineering and Jake's engineering physics course to intersect on certain topics in the syllabus, and it's not like Heeseung can be of any help to him when it comes to the biowhatever anyway.