unforgettable summer || park sunghoon

part 2: the unforgettable pohang house

youngha didn't know what to expect when sunghoon asked to speak with her privately. the six of them had pulled over to a jjimdak (steamed chicken) restaurant in andong, with jake saying that he wanted to eat good korean food after a long time in australia, and claire needing to stretch her legs after sitting in the car for nearly two hours.

sunghoon had been slow to turn the key in the ignition back towards himself to turn off the car, facing youngha with a sense of apprehension youngha didn't know sunghoon had. she'd always known him as the self-confident (almost obnoxiously so) boy who chased after his dreams with no sense of guilt or worry.

and most of all, sunghoon never asked to speak to her privately. in fact, in all twenty years of their friendship, youngha can count on both hands the number of times that the two of them had had a long conversation with just the two of them.

so she nods, worried that sunghoon might be in some trouble, and follows him to pretend to be readjusting things in the trunk of the car as the rest of their friends file out of the car and into the restaurant.

"hey, you guys coming?" jay calls out, the last one in the line to enter the restaurant. youngha nods and puts her hand over her eyebrow in an attempt to mimic a hat as she squints at jay under the glaring sun.

"yeah, we're coming! we're just readjusting the bags," youngha replies. jay motions coming over, seemingly asking if the two of them need help but youngha shakes her head, waving him off. jay pauses for a moment, looking at sunghoon and youngha a moment longer, an unreadable look in his eyes before he enters the restaurant.

"what's up, sunghoon? are you okay?" youngha asks. sunghoon sighs before turning around to lean backwards into the trunk so that he was resting on the bags shoved into his trunk.

"have your parents said anything strange to you lately?" he says after a beat of silence. youngha wracks her brain as she tries to recall her parents saying anything particularly strange to her. youngha's parents were known in the friend group for being more on the eclectic side and had always been the 'cool parents' in her own eyes and the eyes of her best friends. as such, them saying things that were out of the norm in other households were likely in the norm in their own household. but even so, she can't seem to pick out anything particularly strange that they might have said.

"no, i don't think so. why?" she asks, stepping forward into the shade that the trunk hood provided.

sunghoon shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "i don't know. my parents said something kinda weird to me the other day and i figured if they were saying stuff, then your parents would be saying stuff too."

youngha wants to press, since it was already strange that sunghoon was saying anything to her out of out people but she figured that sunghoon confiding in her wouldn't be a recurring occurrence if she pushed her luck any further.

"yeah, i haven't really heard them say anything unexpected to me. but if i hear something or if i remember, i'll let you know, okay?" youngha says, offering sunghoon a soft smile. sunghoon watches her for a moment before a quirk of his lips tugs them upwards. not by much, but hey, a win is a win.

just then, jake pops his head out of the clear strips of plastic that served as the door of the tiny chicken restaurant. "guys! you should come in soon - it looks like claire's gonna eat the whole thing and honestly, i'm not too far behind her!"

"coming!" youngha and sunghoon shout back in unison. they close the trunk hood of the car and head inside the restaurant, one of them quick to put the matter out of their mind and the other unable to think of anything but that.

+++

the rest of the trip to pohang is relatively underwhelming, with claire and jake (the main sources of noise pollution in their car) falling asleep. jay and seoyeon were exchanging music recommendations quietly in the back of the car, so neither of them were really paying attention to sunghoon and youngha at the front.