Work Text:
all i want is a fight to fight
anything but quiet.
part one: freshman year, the start
Ricky’s not sure when it started, exactly, with Gyuvin. But he knows, with one-hundred percent certainty, when it ended.
It goes something like this-
The first time Ricky sees Gyuvin is freshman year, Japanese class. They’re at Shell Creek Academy, which he learned within the first ten minutes of homeroom is not-so-affectionately nicknamed ‘Hell Creek.’ On the roster, his name is Kevin Kim, but he finds out from eavesdropping that his real name is Gyuvin.
The desks are pushed into lopsided squares, four to a unit. They don’t talk, and Gyuvin doesn’t even return his glance, but Ricky can’t help but feel drawn to him. Something about the other has definitely caught his attention- maybe it’s his warm brown hair, it’s still not so common for guys their age to dye their hair. Ricky knows he sticks out like a sore thumb with his soft pink.
Some sense of desperation fills him- he needs to know this guy, he’s so cool- it’s the first day of high school, yet Gyuvin’s already friends with the people at his table. His nonchalance towards Ricky only motivates him more. They’re talking and laughing and Ricky thinks he’s really good looking, for a guy. He feels, though, that he doesn’t fit in there.
The people Gyuvin is sitting with, they all share the same aura, clean-cut and not at all like himself, smack in the middle of his emo phase. Ricky’s the complete opposite of them, with all-black clothes and his eyes accented with dark liner, doodles of ink absentmindedly drawn on his arms.
Ricky learns in the weeks that pass that Gyuvin is inseparable from his best friend, Yujin- and Yujin is better than Ricky in every way he can think of. He actually speaks Japanese, he dances, and he’s put together. Just like Gyuvin, he’s clean and organized, all his pens accounted for and not a single stray paper. His lunch is salad every day and he always carries one of those overpriced water tumblers. Ricky can’t even begin to compare to him.
Ricky’s pens are loose in the bottom of his backpack, and his papers are all crumbled, even the ones he tried to save by hole-punching them into his binder. Ricky’s lunch is whatever his mom decides to make him and a bag of chips with a plastic water bottle that crunches loudly every time he takes a sip. He hates Yujin, he decides. He can’t stand him, because he’s everything Ricky isn’t (and everything that Gyuvin pays attention to, but that realization comes later).
Ricky watches from afar in their one shared class, as Gyuvin and Yujin laugh and talk together. Ricky wants to be a part of that, too. Gyuvin is so cool, but he’s too intimidated to talk to him. He looks mean anyways, with his intense eyes, and he’s a bit scared of having to get through Yujin first if he wants to join their circle. He’s almost untouchable, Ricky’s beginning to think.
Eventually, Gyuvin becomes an afterthought as the school year properly starts up, still paying no mind to Ricky’s thoughts. He makes his own friends, one of them being a girl named Dayeon. They meet in art class, making jokes quietly as they work on their pieces side by side. It doesn’t surprise Ricky when one day, as they exchange colored pencils, Dayeon asks him to be her boyfriend. Naturally, he says yes, taking in her glowing expression and the way her hair bounces around her shoulders as she smiles at him. After all, they were close, and isn’t this what girls and boys do?
Their friends have been teasing them about it for ages, so it just makes sense that they should be together. However, this is Ricky’s first relationship, and he doesn’t really know what to do. It’s not coming as naturally as he’d hoped. They hold hands all the time under the table, careful not to get scolded by the teachers, but Ricky finds himself questioning if he really understands what it means to like someone.
Dayeon is cool, and funny, but holding her hand, he doesn’t really get what the hype is all about. The only feeling he’s having found is awkwardness in the clamminess of their palms- he wonders if she feels it, too? It’s nothing like the movies, with magic and butterflies and whatnot. Ricky thinks maybe these things come with time, since they’re still young, anyways. But something is still digging into the back of his mind, something distinctly off but he just can’t put his finger on it yet.
It isn’t until after winter break, the start of the second semester, that things begin to change. Like a grace from God, the Japanese teacher has implemented a seating chart for the second half of the year. Luckily, he’s now at the same table as Gyuvin- directly across from him, making them not just seatmates and designated Japanese practice partners, but also meaning that they have to work together on their final presentation.
Yujin is across the classroom, much to Ricky’s satisfaction. He starts studying Japanese a little more seriously, so he doesn’t embarrass himself in front of his new deskmate. Ricky’s not sure why exactly he wants Gyuvin’s approval so badly, but the universe (and his Japanese teacher) seems to be working in his favor.
He thought things would be awkward at first, when Ricky’s not sure what to say or how to make Gyuvin think he’s deservingly cool. Instead, everything falls into place naturally, and they warm up to each other with easy banter through their daily assignments. Japanese class becomes Ricky’s favorite part of the day, even though he sucks at it. Despite his efforts, he ends the class with a headache every time- he complains about it to Gyuvin, and finds out that he gets headaches from foreign languages, too.
Ricky’s surprised to hear that, much to Gyuvin’s amusement. The other just seems like the kind of person where nothing bad has ever happened to him, as if headaches would be below him. Ricky finds himself staring at his forehead, at Gyuvin’s smooth skin. He can’t believe that his skin is so smooth, not a speck of acne, unlike himself. Gyuvin groans, complaining about the ache in his skull, so Ricky pokes him there, square between the eyes, and says, “Acupuncture,” which folds Gyuvin over the desk with laughter. It wasn’t really that funny, but since it’s them, it is.
Soon after, Ricky is invited to lunch with Gyuvin and his friends. He sits down next to him to find, among Yujin, a few other people that he vaguely recognizes- Gunwook, from Japanese and Algebra II, Ollie from Japanese, Seungon from Literature, and some others he doesn’t know. He’s introduced to them all, one by one, soon easing into the conversation- everyone is taking turns rapping their favorite SUGA verse. It’s rambunctious, and so entertaining, and Ricky thinks he might have been wrong, earlier. Maybe he does belong here, with Gyuvin and Yujin, after all.
Ricky notices at lunch, all Gyuvin has is a Sparkling Ice water, some fruit flavored soda brand that he’s never heard of before in his life. He looks oddly sophisticated, sipping it, making their ugly school polos look good somehow. He doesn’t think anyone can pull off such a vile shade of teal, except for Gyuvin. It works well with his overall appearance, the collared edges matching his clean angles.
Why can’t I be more like him? Ricky thinks to himself.
Ricky goes home that day and begs his mom to bring back a pack of Ice from the grocery store. If Gyuvin likes them, they must be good.
-
The next day, Ricky shows up with his own bottle of Ice, and meekly asks, like he’s been cast in Mean Girls,
“My girlfriend… can she sit with us?”
Shocked faces stare back at him, but not in horror- in awe.
“Man, of course!” smiles Gyuvin. “That’s so cool, I really want a girlfriend, but I haven’t dated anyone before.”
It’s Ricky’s turn to be surprised- “But how? You’re so good looking.”
He really is, it’s not a lie. Gyuvin has this clean-cut fresh golden retriever boy thing going for him, and Ricky’s never seen him have a bad hair day, or a bad anything day.
Gyuvin just shrugs, and drinks his Ice. Dayeon joins them that day and every day after that, fitting in perfectly with Gyuvin’s circle. Ricky’s other friends come with her, successfully completing a Friend Group Merge.
The day that Dayeon joins, Gyuvin brings up a new topic, something fresh for Ricky to catalog about him. He wants to talk about astrology, which Ricky has a (very) rough understanding of, thanks to his mom.
Gyuvin is a Virgo, he learns. When Ricky tells him that he’s a Taurus, Gyuvin cringes a bit.
“We’re hit or miss, then,” Gyuvin says warily, “but I think we’re in luck.”
Ricky nods and smiles, trying to pretend he doesn’t feel dramatically dejected. It must come off a bit weak, because Dayeon jumps in to save him.
“I’m a Cancer, Ricky, that’s what’s important!” She’s smiling sweetly at him, her eyeliner making her eyes look like a puppy’s. Gyuvin’s kind of look like that, too, but without makeup.
“What does that mean for us?” he asks.
“That we’re a great match,” Dayeon laughs, holding onto his arm.
“That’s a relief.” Ricky sighs. At least he doesn’t need to worry about her.
“Yeah, it doesn’t matter if we’re compatible, Ricky-yah,” Gyuvin jokes. “I'm not your girlfriend.”
Ricky laughs at that, loudly. Maybe a little too loud, and kind of forced, but nobody seems to notice. His stomach feels a bit queasy for some reason, vaguely unsettled.
After that lunch, Ricky learns more about astrology, because Gyuvin, and Dayeon, both love it. A Cancer is someone emotional and kind, like her- Ricky likes having her by his side and holding her hand, even if he’s still waiting for a spark to come. A Virgo is something else entirely, someone hardworking and intelligent. Maybe that’s why he feels so drawn to Gyuvin, because of astrology. It’s a fair evaluation, Ricky decides.
The rest of the school year just goes like that, for Ricky. He mostly just does his thing and works on getting closer to Gyuvin. He’s still going steady with Dayeon, he thinks. She recently texted him a link to Centuries by Fall Out Boy and said it reminded her of them, which sounded like a good sign. Or, maybe it’s because she’s a Cancer and he’s a Taurus, Ricky doesn’t really know. Gyuvin asks him all kinds of questions about their relationship, because he wants to know why he’s still single, despite apparently wanting a girlfriend very badly. So, yes, Ricky’s still no Yujin, but he can confidently call him a friend now, even if he is a Virgo.
By the end of the school year, after their successful group project, Ricky is proud to say he’s created a nickname of Gyuvin’s- Qyubing, which makes him unjustifiably happy, although it’s technically a joke on his own pronunciation. He intentionally refers to him as Qyubing only for the rest of the day, like a video game character who’s unlocked a new phrase. Dayeon thinks it’s hilarious, Gyuvin rolls his eyes jokingly every time he hears it.
On the last day of school, they promise to keep in touch over the summer, and his mom meets Gyuvin’s mom in the carline. Ricky feels accomplished, having ended his freshman year not too shabbily, if he can say so himself.
-
part two: sophomore year, the realization
Ricky returns to Hell Creek as a sophomore, a year older. His birthday was over summer break, but he didn’t celebrate it with anyone except Dayeon. She bought him bath bombs from Lush, which started his bath bomb and overall Lush mini-obsession that brought him back to school smelling strongly of lemony citrus body spray.
His year is already off to a great start when he finds out he shares almost all of his classes with Gyuvin, while Yujin has not even one. Ricky’s going to get closer to him this year, Virgo or not, it’s his absolute goal. In first period P.E., they sit next to each other and Gyuvin compliments his new perfume. Ricky takes it out and lets him use it, liking the idea that Gyuvin thinks something about him is cool instead of the other way around.
He sees Gyuvin basically all day, except one class, and they sit next to each other in each one. Sadly, he only shares one part of his schedule with Dayeon, which is lunch period, so he doesn’t see her as much, but he feels unbothered. He learns a lot at school, like the fact that Gyuvin is enough to fill the void in her place.
They become a lot closer, and quickly. Ricky visits Gyuvin’s house for the first time on the second weekend of school. His family lives in a gated neighborhood, in a nice one-story on a cul-de-sac. Ricky greets his mother, and she smells strongly of alcohol, which makes his skin crawl, because Ricky’s aunt is an alcoholic and he knows one when he sees one. For the first time, he wonders if this is why his friend doesn’t mention his family. Gyuvin grabs him by the arm and guides him out of the kitchen and to his room. His hand is cold on Ricky’s skin, causing his hairs to stand on edge.
Crosses decorate the doorways of their home. It makes Ricky’s skin prickle- he’d already clawed his way out of going to church after years of fighting with his parents over his unwillingness to participate in organized religion. He knows Gyuvin feels the same, although they’ve never discussed it too deeply. He’s starting to see why- his parents were raised Catholic, just trying to follow tradition, but they weren’t as serious as this. He never had the constant reminder of Jesus nailed to the cross all over his house. It’s deeply unsettling, to say the least.
Ricky feels weird now, like something’s off, but he quickly forgets it once Gyuvin swings the door open. His room is blue-toned and comfortable, with posters of things he didn't even know Gyuvin liked stuck all over, covering every inch and corner of the walls. There’s medals hanging around various places, off his bed frame and hanging from the walls and on the dresser, and…
Gyuvin’s looking at him, something smug on his face.
“I didn’t know you did sports.”
“I used to play a bit of soccer,” Gyuvin replies. His tone is a bit sad, and the finality of his words don’t slip past Ricky. “I had to stop, because of money and stuff.”
Ricky didn’t ask for the specifics, but he files it away in his Gyuvin rolodex all the same. He feels the urge to reach over and grab his hand, the way Dayeon does when he’s upset. That would be weird, though, so he settles for a sincere “I’m sorry,” then redirects his attention to the posters and photos on his walls- singers and other celebrities, he thinks. Gyuvin’s face lights up at the opportunity to talk about them.
Ricky asks about each and every one. They sit together, so close their legs are touching, and watch Gyuvin’s favorite YouTubers, turning on Japanese subtitles to practice and learning about some British guys who live together. Ricky doesn’t get it, but he watches them for Gyuvin. After that, he introduces him to his newest, most favorite album, WILD by Troye Sivan. Ricky gets music a bit easier than he gets British people, so he listens to it on repeat, trying to understand every little thing about Gyuvin. He finds himself looping Troye Sivan’s music more than he’d like to admit.
Later, when it releases, they watch the Fools music video together. Ricky sits very still and pretends there is absolutely nothing off about the vibes between them as it plays.
In school, they become more of each other than individual people, which makes Ricky’s heart sing. It’s not just “Where’s Ricky?” anymore, instead, “Where’s Ricky and Gyuvin?” because they’ve become attached at the hip. One of them isn’t around without the other; they walk laps around the field together during P.E., they sit next to each other at lunch and in every class, Gyuvin even comes home with Ricky sometimes to hang out after school.
Ricky thinks back to his first impression of Gyuvin- he’s proud to be associated with him now, people looking at them with the same regard and longing he used to feel towards their friend group before he was a part of it. People know his name more than they know Yujin’s, not that it’s a competition, but it almost feels like one sometimes.
Outside of school, they’re always together, too.The first time Ricky becomes fully aware of this is when he runs into Gunwook at the mall, who asks him, immediately,
“Where’s Gyuvin?”
“He’s not here,” laughs Ricky.
“Oh, I just assumed,” Gunwook shrugs, “Since you guys are always together. Tell him ‘Hi’ for me.”
That is true. Him and Gyuvin frequent the food court here, because they have blue cookies and cream ice cream. It tastes the same as any other ice cream of the same flavor, but the thrill of it being blue (Cookie Monster themed, if Ricky’s being accurate) is what keeps them coming back.
“Can’t you just tell him yourself?” he replies.
After that, Gunwook says something that leaves Ricky clueless. “It’s just not the same, coming from me.”
Before Ricky can even think of a clarifying question to ask, Gunwook disappears into Hot Topic, leaving him to think about how everyone sees him and Gyuvin as a pair. He feels strangely proud, remembering how jealous he was when it was Gyuvin and Yujin who were inseparable. Gunwook’s words don’t leave his head for the rest of the day.
The next instance comes a week later, at Ricky’s house. Him and Gyuvin are squished next to each other, limbs tangled together, sitting too close together on an armchair by the TV. His arm is around Gyuvin’s shoulders, a comfortable kind of skinship they love to share.
Ricky’s mom’s boyfriend walks by, and announces, “You know you guys don’t have to sit on top of each other, right? There’s an empty couch right next to you.”
Ricky glances to the left, and yes, there is an empty couch right there. He feels himself blush, embarrassingly red. Gyuvin moves his arm off of Ricky’s shoulders, which he didn’t even realize was there in the first place.
Ricky untangles his legs from Gyuvin’s, lanky because he never seems to stop growing, and sits down on the couch. Gyuvin plops down next to him, just as close as they were on the chair. His mom’s boyfriend just throws his hands in the air and leaves with a sigh. They lock eyes and collapse into each other with laughter as Dance Moms plays on the screen.
-
Right- it’s probably time for an update on Dayeon. You know, Ricky’s girlfriend. He knows they’ve been spending a lot less time together lately (because of Gyuvin-related duties, and not having the same classes) but it’s going to be alright. Together, with Gyuvin, he’s hatched a plan.
It starts when they’re sitting on Ricky’s bed in early August, making a list of all the people in their grade that they like and dislike, to see if they’re on the same page. Ricky has just finished adding Ma Jingxiang to the ‘Dislike’ list, right next to Christian fanatic Watanabe Haruto (they’ve been seriously bonding over a hatred of organized religion lately) when Gyuvin asks him, out of the blue,
“Have you kissed Dayeon yet?”
Ricky shakes his head, a clear no.
“Great,” Gyuvin exclaims, to which Ricky raises an eyebrow. “Because I was thinking, at my birthday party, we should play Spin the Bottle.”
“You’re crazy,” Ricky retaliates, with absolutely no bite in his voice. “But it’s your birthday, so, whatever you want.”
Gyuvin grins evilly, and Ricky feels his resolve crumble.
-
Gyuvin’s sixteenth birthday party is exactly the coming-of-age hit he wanted it to be, except for his mom’s mandatory 10pm cutoff time. They start the day swimming at the pool in his community, with all of their friends. Yes, their friends, because it’s at the point where there’s nothing one of them has that the other doesn’t, and that includes people.
Ricky’s not the biggest fan of swimming, if he’s being real. The chlorine is bad for his skin in a way that Lush products just can’t fix and he absolutely despises the feeling of his fingers pruning under the water. He forgets about all of those things the second that Gyuvin cannonballs into the pool. The splash gets his hair wet, but the pink has faded out anyways and he looks so happy that Ricky can’t bring himself to complain.
Gyuvin pops out of the water, smiling so big that Ricky can see his canines, looking so much like a stupid puppy. He pushes his hair out of his face from where he’s plastered on his forehead, and Ricky watches as his nimble fingers rake through the strands. He looks too good for sixteen, glowing under the sun like this.
He wades over to Ricky, so close that he can see the sunscreen streaks on his skin. Under the water, Gyuvin’s arm comes around Ricky’s waist and stays there until someone starts daring Gyuvin to pick them up. Gyuvin’s new interest is working out, and Ricky can see the way his arm muscles are starting to swell. It makes his throat dry, but he’s not quite sure why.
Gyuvin’s moved away from him now, and he’s making a big show of lifting up Elva, one of Dayeon’s friends, out of the water. She shrieks and Gyuvin drops her into the water, causing a big splash that Ricky turns away from to avoid. When he turns back around, Dayeon is looking up at him with her large eyes, asking Ricky if he can try picking her up too.
Ricky laughs nervously. “You know I’m not strong at all, right?”
Dayeon giggles and beckons for him to try anyways. Gyuvin’s watching, hyping him up, although he surely knows Ricky’s too weak to pull this off.
Ricky tries to copy exactly how Gyuvin did it earlier. He puts a hand under the back of Dayeon’s thighs and one in between her shoulder blades and tries to push with all his might. He can feel his nails digging into the supple skin of her thighs as she laughs joyously. Ricky can’t even get her above his chest, but she doesn’t seem bothered, clinging onto his arm for the rest of their time in the pool. Gyuvin doesn’t come near him again until later, and Ricky decidedly misses the skinship.
It’s late at night, after all the cake and singing and celebrating, when Ricky remembers Gyuvin’s final birthday plan- Spin the Bottle. Everyone is sitting on the floor of Gyuvin’s room with the door shut, even though his mom said it needed to be open since girls were in the room. Gyuvin decided to overrule that with his birthday rights, meaning that he’s only gotten away with it because his mom hasn’t noticed yet.
Gyuvin pulls a glass Coca Cola bottle out and everyone gaps as they realize what he’s been plotting, Ricky being the only one in on the secret. They start spinning from Ricky’s left, and he watches the bottle like a hawk. He’s managed to avoid kissing one of his friends- however, he’s so worried about himself that he almost misses it when the bottle lands on Gyuvin.
Ricky’s stomach drops, for some reason. He watches Gyuvin lean over and kiss a girl from their pre-Calc class, and he feels like he might throw up when he sees the way his jaw moves, flexing sharply into her mouth. His hand is around the back of her neck and Ricky feels the sudden need to look away. Gunwook breaks them up shortly after, and everyone congratulates the birthday boy on his birthday kiss. Ricky can’t even look at him in the eye at the moment, still stuck on how Gyuvin looks kissing a girl. Will he look that good when he kisses Dayeon?
Speaking of Dayeon, it’s her turn now. She’s on Ricky’s immediate left, his arm around her, but when she spins the bottle it lands on someone on the other side of the circle. He sees some sort of panic flash in her eyes, but before he can get a word out, Gyuvin reaches into the center and turns the bottle so that it’s landed on Ricky.
“No objections?” Gyuvin asks.
Nobody would argue with him anyways, Ricky knows. He locks eyes with Dayeon- she looks beautiful, he can tell she even redid her eye makeup after the pool. The glitter is reflecting off her cheeks in a way that makes Ricky feel a little bit detached from realityl. He leans in to kiss her, and- well, that’s it. It feels like absolutely nothing at all.
He keeps his eyes shut and focuses on what he’s supposed to be doing, which is kissing, but he feels like he’s missing something. Her lips are soft but it’s just wet and sort of uncomfortable, but she doesn’t pull away, so he kisses her more, a little harder, a mess of lips and tongue until Gyuvin’s hand on his shoulder pulls him out of it. Dayeon looks away shyly, blush dusting her cheeks, and excuses herself to the bathroom to fix her makeup.
Ricky catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror on Gyuvin’s wall- he looks… good. His lips are pink from her lip gloss and flush dusts his cheeks, and it doesn’t get past him that through the mirror, he can see Gyuvin’s eyes fixed on him. It sends a chill up his spine in a way that the make-out session with his girlfriend did not.
Ricky takes a deep breath when Dayeon sits back down, since apparently he’s not exempt from his spin after that (Gyuvin’s rules, again). The bottle spins and spins, and comes to a rest just to Ricky’s right side, where, conveniently, Gyuvin is sitting.
Ricky looks up, unsure. He finds that Gyuvin is mirroring the same confused expression, eyes opened wide like a deer in headlights. He becomes hyper aware of the fact that everyone is watching them right now. Why didn’t Ricky immediately laugh it off and spin again? Why is Gyuvin just staring at him like that? The mood lights in Gyuvin’s room are bouncing off his skin, highlighting all his model-like angles.
Gyuvin blinks, his long eyelashes fluttering, and he tilts his head to the side a bit, like he’s considering something. His gaze flicks up and down, from Ricky’s lips to his eyes so fast it’s barely noticeable. Dayeon’s grip tightens on his arm, and maybe he’s hallucinating but he thinks Gyuvin just got a little closer to his face. However, fate decides that Ricky doesn’t get to find out what happens next, because that’s the moment when Gyuvin’s mom flings the door open to announce that parents have started to arrive, so everyone needs to get ready to leave.
The strange atmosphere disappears immediately, and neither of them mention it ever again.
-
Ricky starts trying to ignore it in October. It’s his favorite month, and Gyuvin’s, too. His mom drove them to a Halloween haunted house, and Gyuvin is scared shitless at the prospect of going in. It’s literally targeted towards children, so he can’t imagine it’ll be that bad, but Gyuvin has no critical thinking skills when he’s scared, of which Ricky is well aware.
They wait in line and Ricky takes in the decorations. Orange and black streamers, paper ghosts, cobwebs, and spiders. He watches the leaves fall outside through the window and breathes in the pure Halloween smell of latex. Halloween is their favorite holiday, and he relishes in the fact that it’s another thing similar between them.
It’s their turn now, and Gyuvin looks at him, gaunt, his eyes as wide as saucers. He grabs Ricky’s hand, and Ricky’s stomach flips. Huh, He thinks. He must be more scared than he realized.
Unsurprisingly, make it through the haunted house in one piece. Gyuvin only screams at the top of his lungs twice, and he doesn’t let go of Ricky’s hand the entire time, squeezing him so hard Ricky’s sure he’ll have Gyuvin-shaped imprints soon. It’s crowded inside when they exit the haunted house, so they step outside to wait for Ricky’s mom to come back. Gyuvin is still holding his hand even though he doesn’t need to and Ricky’s hard-pressed to say that something about this feels different than when he’s doing it with Dayeon.
The autumn breeze is cool on Ricky’s arms as they sit together on the curb. It’s beautiful outside, and the sun is just setting. It’s casting a golden glow on Gyuvin’s face that makes him look godly as the wind ruffles his hair, sunlight breaking through his brown locks like a halo, and the crisp scent of grass pulls at something nostalgic in his heartstrings. Ricky can’t look away, not until a huge leaf blows from the ground straight into Gyuvin’s face, breaking his spell. They laugh so hard that they cry, coming down from the tension the haunted house left on their bodies.
It’s only once they calm down again that Ricky realizes after all that, they’re still holding hands. Looking at their fingers intertwined and resting so casually on the curb, he can’t bring himself to say anything. Despite Gyuvin being only centimeters taller than him, Ricky wonders how his hand could be so much bigger, completely engulfing his own. As he studies their fingers connected, he notices that Gyuvin’s cuticles are ripped up- he must be stressed, recently, but he hasn’t mentioned it to Ricky. A pang of sadness hits him in the chest, since when did Gyuvin stop telling him everything?
The sun has gone down now, thanks to Ricky’s chronically late mother, and the playful October chill has turned into downright cold. He’s regretting wearing only a t-shirt, using Gyuvin’s hand as an anchor for warmth.
The younger glances at the goosebumps that have raised on Ricky’s skin and breaks their grip to pull off his flannel without a word. Ricky puts it on, although the green pattern looks much better on Gyuvin than him. Gyuvin looks at him with something undetectable in his eyes.
“Don’t catch a cold, Ricky-yah,” He chides, tone low and maybe a bit too soft.
Gyuvin grabs his hand to pull him closer. sharing his body heat, and something deep inside Ricky hurts. It’s like he’s seeing Gyuvin for the first time, like they’re different people entirely. For a second, he lets his mind wander- what would it be like if Gyuvin, looking so handsome under the blueish moonlight, had come here with someone else, a girl? Or if he had taken Dayeon instead of his best friend? What if one day, Ricky isn’t the most important person to him anymore?
Ricky’s heart is clenching and he’s actively pretending he doesn’t hear about this very feeling in every form of pop culture media. They sit there, holding hands in the parking lot, backlit by the purple and orange Halloween lights until Gyuvin finally breaks the grip when they see a familiar SUV turn the corner. He can’t identify the vibe, something empty and strange and so not them, and he’s never been more confused. Why is everything so off about them lately?
Ricky decides he doesn’t want to think about it, so he doesn’t. He wipes the memory and presses it deep, deep down, somewhere it won’t cross his mind for a long time.
-
Ricky starts seeing that maybe their friendship isn’t so normal later in his Sophomore year. Him and Gyuvin have befriended the P.E. teacher, a young man called Mr. Sung, who took the job straight out of college. He’s just a few years older than them, which he finds fascinating.
They’re walking the mile around the field and talking his ear off about the five year plan they made up earlier that day, during their future planning lesson- a detailed story of how they’re going to go to the same state college, and they’ll be roommates, and Ricky will be the sober friend who carries Gyuvin’s drunk ass home to their apartment from every Greek life party.
Mr. Sung stops him there. “Why would you do that for him?” He asks Ricky.
He looks at Gyuvin, a few paces behind them, who sat down to tie his shoe a few moments ago. He’s wearing Ricky’s school hoodie, because he’s cold, and he’s clearly not paying attention to their conversation at the moment. What wouldn’t he do for Gyuvin?
“Because he’s my best friend.” Ricky replies. “Also, I don’t want to drink.” And both of these things are true, they are.
Their teacher looks between them, and he suddenly feels the few years that Mr. Sung has on them both. With finality, he looks at Ricky with eyes that are telling him that he knows something about his situation that he doesn’t yet himself.
“That’s not something that friends do for each other.” He breaks the news softly. Ricky is confused at what he means by that, but their teacher doesn’t elaborate, because Gyuvin’s rejoined them now.
-
The next shift comes with Dayeon. She’s been a bit distant since the birthday party, which feels like forever ago. Ricky decides one day to bite the bullet and ask her what’s wrong. In no way did he expect her to bring up Gyuvin.
Unpredictably, she tells Ricky, “I really hate Gyuvin these days.”
He feels offended for him, because what did Gyuvin do wrong? Ricky is around him all the time. If he did something, he’d be the first to know.
Dayeon continues. “Like, I just don’t like him anymore. He kind of... fell off,” Ricky is getting the impression there’s something else she’s trying to say without saying it directly. “I think he’s kind of annoying, and a bad influence on you. Plus, you’re inseparable, and it’s no fun to hang out with both of you together. I feel like I never spend time with you anymore.”
“He’s my best friend,” is all Ricky can say. Is it his fault for wanting to be around Gyuvin all the time? He doesn’t think so. His presence is addicting, anyone would agree.
That was the wrong move, because Dayeon’s eyes sharpen at him in a way he’s never seen from her before.
“He’s not the kind of person you should be around.” She says bitterly.
Ricky’s becoming aware of their surroundings, and he doesn’t want to fight this fight at dismissal, surrounded by their classmates, while he waits for his mom to pick him up, but it seems he doesn’t have a choice.
“Care to elaborate?” He clips back.
Her expression twists all kinds of sour, and the words that leave her mouth sound like gunshots to Ricky. “Don’t you know? Gyuvin is such a fag. You’re better off without him.”
Ricky’s jaw drops. He feels like he’s been smacked. No, he’d rather be smacked, actually. How could Dayeon say something like that about his best friend? It feels personal, the way she’s talking.
“What did you just say about him?” He bites back.
“That he’s a faggot, and if you don’t stop talking to him, we’re done. Didn’t you see how he looked at you at the party? He was actually going to kiss you, Ricky. That’s disgusting, how were you not put off by that?”
Dayeon looks at him expectantly, like she’s made an amazing point. Ricky feels sick hearing that word come out of her mouth. How could she not see that Gyuvin’s obviously straight, anyways? Maybe he never really knew Dayeon at all. He breaks up with her on the spot and turns away when she pleads for him to change his mind, never once looking back.
-
Post-Dayeon ends up being a much overdue soul-searching period in Ricky’s life. He does miss her, to an extent, so he’s been digging on Tumblr to fuel the teen angst- but he’s starting to think that maybe he never really liked her in the first place. As he reads all the dramatic breakup plain text poems, he realizes that he sort of just said yes to her without even stopping to think about if he actually liked her like that. It turns out, just liking someone isn’t enough to like them. He can’t relate to these words, written artistically about someone important enough to be their lover’s whole world.
He doesn’t bring this up to Gyuvin, who’s begging to know why they broke up. Ricky told him they mutually agreed they’re better as friends, which Gyuvin already knows is a lie, because Dayeon bitched him out to everyone and took a chunk of their shared friend group with her. On the other hand, he can’t tell the truth, because he really really really does not need Gyuvin to know the real reason why they’re not together anymore. The reason being that Ricky picked him over her, plain and simple.
The start of Ricky’s decline is also on Tumblr.
He’s alone in his room on some random school night when it happens. On his feed, he sees a post from Tumblr user justgirlythings. He laughs at the corny name, but immediately stops laughing when he reads the post.
It’s a picture of two girls holding hands, and over it, white block text reads,
“Everyone is a little gay for their best friend.”
Oh, Ricky thinks. The words roll over him like a tidal wave, and sink into his pores dreadfully. Oh, no.
He closes his eyes and feels himself shut down because he knows. The second he read those words, something inside Ricky clicked, definitively, and he knows he’s never going to be the same again.
Him and Gyuvin had once spent a few days fixated on who, statistically, would be the one gay person in their friend group. It was one out of seven, or so the internet said. They all bantered back and forth, joking with each other, deciding who’d be the most likely to switch sides. He had never for a moment stopped to think that he was the outlier, and the realization that he’s been so dense hits him like a ton of bricks.
Ricky is not a little bit gay for he’s best friend, he’s a lot gay for him, perhaps too much. Every single moment replays in Ricky’s head- every touch, every glance, everything time they’ve shared that blue ice cream, everything they’ve ever done. And how, deep down, Ricky never, ever wants to let him go.
He’s positively fucked, he decides.
Ricky turns on Fools by Troye Sivan, and tries to pretend that he doesn’t exist.
-
It’s not hard for Ricky to accept that he’s gay, at least partially. When he reflects on it, it honestly makes sense. The issue, and he knows this for a fact, is that he likes Gyuvin. Probably loves him, if what Tumblr writes about love is true. It’s all the things he didn’t feel for Dayeon, that he thought was normal to feel for a friend. A male friend, who happens to also be his best friend, the person he’s become the closest to out of everyone he’s known his entire life..
Ricky’s head hurts. Is he supposed to just keep acting normal now that he knows? Will Gyuvin be able to tell? What will he think?
The next time he sees Gyuvin, he decides that no matter what, he can’t lose him. Ricky is drawn to him like a magnet, has been since before they even met. He’ll endure it until his feelings go away, and Gyuvin never has to know. Crushes don’t usually last long anyways, right? It’s just a waiting game until the feelings fade.
Fate is cruel to Ricky, though. She doesn’t want him to have it easy, because when he returns to school, the newly sixteen-year old proudly tells Ricky that he finally has a girlfriend. It’s the girl from the party that he kissed during Spin the Bottle, and her name is Jess. She’s tall and pretty, Ricky must admit, but he can’t help the pang of jealousy that claws up his chest. Isn’t he tall and pretty, too?
Her and Ricky become friends the same way that Gyuvin and Dayeon were, and it’s fine, it really is. Ricky is absolutely fine. It doesn’t matter that he watches them hold hands and wishes that it was him instead of her, or that Gyuvin’s eyes light up when he sees her, or that they kiss in front of him like it’s nothing. Ricky isn’t bothered. At all.
They only last a month, and Ricky knows he’s a horrible person for how happy he is when Gyuvin comes to school one day looking like a kicked puppy, sadly breaking the news.
Life is cruel, too. Ricky finds out the extent of it when Gyuvin misses school without a single word to anyone, but is sitting square on Ricky’s bed when he gets home that day. He looks sad in a way he’s never seen before, and he’s unnaturally quiet. A duffel bag of his clothes is on the floor, and his things are already set up in the bathroom, like a regular sleepover. Ricky gets the impression that it’s anything but that.
Gyuvin looks at him with nothing but hurt behind his eyes. Ricky sits next to him and they don’t talk, just leaning on each other for support. They flop down his bed, their sides pressed together, and Gyuvin doesn’t speak a word for hours.
Ricky’s mom tells him after dinner that night that Gyuvin will be staying with them for a bit. Apparently, his mom fell down the stairs while drunk, and his dad is staying at the hospital with her, which leaves no one to take care of Gyuvin. Ricky’s pretty sure it’s a bit more complicated than that, but he’s not going to pry.
It’s sick that Ricky feels a twinge of happiness at the fact that Gyuvin’s second home is here, with him. Spending so much time with the other boy does nothing but reinforce that Ricky likes him, and cements the fact that he loves him. He almost feels bad for Dayeon in moments like this. How could he have been so blind to the fact that he didn’t like her at all?
They don’t have an air mattress, so he and Gyuvin lay together on Ricky’s full-sized bed. It’s not quite big enough for two growing boys, but neither of them care enough to complain. Gyuvin hasn’t said much at all, really, which is okay. Ricky’s happy to just be with him. They lay facing each other that night. He likes it a bit too much how Gyuvin looks laying in his bed, resting his head on one of Ricky’s pillows.
He looks real- human, like someone Ricky could actually have. He wants to trace lines over every ridge on his face. Ricky knows he’s staring, but Gyuvin is looking right back with matched concentration.
It’s too tense all of the sudden. Ricky blurts out, “Goodnight, Qyubing,” and rolls over so Gyuvin can’t see his dopey expression.
The next night, Ricky tries not to look at Gyuvin’s bare skin after he asks if he can sleep shirtless. He fails, miserably, of course, which sends Gyuvin into a frat-boyish flexing attack, but Ricky can’t even complain about the cheesiness, because he’s the first real laugh he’s heard from Gyuvin since he arrived. Ricky flexes back and he laughs harder at his absolute lack of muscles.
Ricky watches him get ready for bed every night. It’s sickeningly domestic, Gyuvin looks like he belongs to Ricky’s room, as if Ricky’s furniture likes the other more than him, which he can’t even blame it for. He’s too likable, Gyuvin. As he messes with his hair in the mirror, only one sentence is cascading through Ricky’s brain on repeat: I think I love you. No, I know it. I love you. I love you. I love you.
He can never say it out loud, but it’s the thought that counts.
As they lay next to each other afterwards, Ricky whispers vulnerably, “I wish you could stay here forever.”
Gyuvin looks back at him, something indistinguishable in his eyes. Ricky won’t let himself hope, won’t even give himself the smallest chance. He’s losing but he won’t lose Gyuvin, which is what matters the most.
“We’ll be friends forever, Kim Ricky.” He smiles back. “Five year plan, remember?”
Ricky’s heart jumps at the nickname. What does Kim Ricky mean? Gyuvin must be trying to say that he sees him like a brother. The memory of their assignment comes back to him then, cutting off his thoughts- he truly believes it, that they’ll go to college together and live together. And Ricky will pretend to be unbothered by Gyuvin’s girlfriends until he eventually gets married, and then…
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gyuvin says. He must be able to read Ricky’s expression. “You couldn’t get rid of me even if you tried.”
He smiles at the reassurance. That’s right, Gyuvin isn’t going anywhere, especially not now, since they’re literally sharing a bed. He turns away and Ricky tries not to stare at him, all soft edges and smooth skin and he yearns for him so badly that he doesn’t know how he never realized before.
It’s about two weeks later that Gyuvin’s mom is discharged from the hospital. Ricky doesn’t like watching him leave- it feels foreboding, and the lack of his presence leaves Ricky’s room cold. He knows it’s for the better that he can finally go home, but Ricky is selfish. He was getting used to having Gyuvin with him all the time, practically living under each other’s skin. It was perfect, and the five year plan is the only thing that keeps him sane in his cold bed, surrounded by the Gyuvin deficiency in his room.
-
part three: summer, the beginning of the end
Summer vacation is the beginning of the end. Looking back on it, Ricky’s not sure how he never saw the warning signs before. His rose-colored glasses never came off around Gyuvin, for better or for worse.
Gyuvun’s parents rented a beach house for three days, a few hours away from home, and he was invited, of course. Gyuvin’s parents adore him, as they should. But Ricky doesn’t exactly feel the same towards them. He knows there’s problems at home that Gyuvin doesn’t like to talk about, and their presence tends to make him a little uneasy, though they haven’t technically done anything to deserve his distaste.
His mind flashes back to their choice of decor, every corner burned into his mind now, unlike the first time he visited. Maybe that first impression never really wore off; the crosses everywhere make Ricky feel more and more like a sinner every time he visits.
Him and Gyuvin hit the beach immediately when they arrive. They spend hours outside in the sun, playing in the ocean like they’re kids again. Ricky feels so content like this, loving the sweet vulnerability of trusting Gyuvin with his inner child. It’s hard to believe there was a time he was without him, downright absurd that he spent years at the beach alone every summer. It feels like the younger boy has been here with him the whole time. It’s something Ricky can’t put into words anymore, the depth that he feels.
In the moment, Gyuvin splashes the sea into Ricky’s eyes, and he finds the burn barely bothers him when the one inflicting it is him. Ricky jumps onto his back as he tries to swim away, pressing his chest all the way to Gyuvin’s back to feel their skin connect. Maybe this is all he can have, but he’s making peace with it.
Eventually, they run back inside, delightfully sunburned, because the hosts (read: Gyuvin’s parents) are cooking them dinner. They shower (separately) and slather aloe vera on their reddened skin and everything is perfect. It’s when they finally sit down at the table that things, for the first time between them, go wrong.
It’s simple, really- Ricky moves to eat his pasta, and Gyuvin’s mom laughs lightly, stopping him. “Ricky, why don’t you do the honor of saying grace?”
He freezes. Looks at Gyuvin, who’s refusing to make eye contact. He can’t even recall how many times they’ve talked about this, about how uncomfortable it makes Ricky to be faced with religion, and the expectations it presses on him. Gyuvin had always agreed wholeheartedly, saying he doesn’t believe in it either.
“Gyuvin, I thought you weren’t.. religious?” Ricky says, confused. Sure, he’s seen the interior of their house, but in all the time he’s known them, it’s never come up once with his parents. He just assumed (hoped) it maybe wasn’t all that serious, and Gyuvin always assured him that it wasn’t.
His father laughs loudly, in a way that raises the hair on the back of Ricky’s neck. “That’s just silly. Gyuvin loves the church, he comes with us every Sunday. Did he tell you otherwise?”
Well, yes. Ricky thinks. But this isn’t the time, or the place. He analyzes the food on his plate for a second. The atmosphere has become incredibly awkward and he’s sensing that he might’ve hit a sensitive spot in the family dynamic. “It’s not that,” he starts, but finds himself unable to finish the sentence.
Gyuvin speaks then, looking at him with cautious eyes. “Just go with it, Ricky.” He says it like it should be obvious, and it leaves Ricky feeling blindsided.
“Um, I just don’t know how,” he admits.
“Repeat after me,” Gyuvin says, his tone so neutral that he can’t pick up a thing about how the other is feeling.
So he does, line by line. Ricky forgets everything that he says immediately after the words come out of his mouth. Gyuvin’s father has been looking at him with sharp eyes ever since he spoke out and his anxiety is building up, making him feel like an animal being hunted for sport.
With an “Amen,” they finish, and the table repeats it back like a choir. Ricky tries not to think about it as he’s finally allowed to eat, but he’s found his appetite gone after just a few bites, the food tasting like cardboard. The reason comes to him slowly and then all at once- this is the first time Gyuvin has ever lied to him. In all the time they’ve known each other, he’s never told Ricky anything but the truth, or so he thought.
Gyuvin knows all the details of Ricky’s complicated relationship with religion, the ones he’s never told anyone else before. How he spent hours crying and pleading with his parents not to send him back there, how much he felt out of place every time he stepped in a church, and how much it meant to him when they finally gave him the freedom to choose to step away.
Gyuvin knows Ricky’s distaste comes from the feeling of suffocation and displacement and anxiety he associates with the pressure of religion, yet he kept this from him all the same, knowing he’d be confronted with it here, as if it would have changed something between them. It wouldn’t have, of course. He loves Gyuvin all the same.
Ricky eats about half of his plate before he excuses himself from the uncomfortable tension that has taken over the dinner table, citing a stomach ache as a cop-out to flee the area. He grabs the aloe vera off the counter and disappears into the room that he’s sharing with Gyuvin for the next two nights.
Under the smooth, coolness of sheets that you only find at places away from home, he dozes off until Gyuvin finally joins him a bit later. He slides under the covers gently, close enough that their thighs are sticking together from the tackiness of the aloe vera gel. The familiar fragrance does little to soothe Ricky, who’s teetering more and more on the edge of an anxiety attack the longer they sit in silence.
Finally, he can’t take it anymore. “Why did you lie to me?” Ricky whispers. What he really means is, ”What did I do wrong that made you feel like you couldn’t express yourself truthfully to me?”
He turns his head to look at Gyuvin for the first time. He’s not looking back at Ricky, instead staring straight ahead at the wall, at some ugly beach-themed wall sculpture. “I thought you would hate me,” Gyuvin admits. “And I wanted my parents to like you more, so I told them you believe. I know it was wrong of me.”
At this moment, Ricky thinks getting stabbed in the chest would hurt less. Gyuvin told his parents that he’s faithful to the one thing he’s fought the hardest to get away from. There’s not a single word he can come up with besides disrespect that suits his feelings.
“You always agreed with me, Qyubing, that’s why I spoke so freely,” And because his body is betraying his mind, his voice cracks on his next words. “I couldn’t hate you even if I tried.”
It’s the first time Ricky ever cries in front of Gyuvin, and the last. It’s rare for him to feel so consumed by anxiety these days, and it’s as if all the bad days he hasn’t had recently have come back to hit him all at once. His whole body twitches, and Gyuvin looks at him knowingly- because he knows everything about Ricky, he knows his warning signs, too.
“Talk to me, Kim Ricky,” He urges.
“I just,” Ricky’s hands are shaking now, uncontrollably, and he pulls his legs into his chest. “I feel so uncomfortable. You know it’s not because of you, right?” Gyuvin nods. “You know how bad it was for me, for a while. When people who had more control over my own life than me were trying to make me do whatever they wanted.” Gyuvin knows all of this already, but it’s spilling out again like the waves crashing violently over the beach.
“I’m sorry.” Gyuvin says, and then there’s arms around him, pulling him in tight to Gyuvin’s chest. Ricky rests his head on his collarbone, somewhat uncomfortably, and lets the shakes run their course through his body. Gyuvin’s hand strokes gently over his back, to his shoulder blades, and up his neck. Ricky’s not sure if it’s helping or making it all worse, but he leans into the touch either way.
Suddenly everything is wrong outside of their bubble. The thought of going back to the beach tomorrow, waking up and seeing Gyuvin’s parents, saying grace again, and pretending that he belongs, when he’s like this. When he’s sitting in bed with their son, wishing for so much more. He doesn’t feel safe here anymore.
“Qyubing,” Ricky whispers, a little scared. “I think I need to go home.”
Gyuvin lets go of him all at once, and hands Ricky’s phone to him. He texts his mom quickly, making up some lie about not feeling well and being too sunburned. She responds almost immediately, saying she’ll pick him up tomorrow morning, and asks if he needs to go to the doctor.
The car ride back with Ricky’s mom is tense- she knows something’s wrong and neither of them will say what. She asks him something that surprises him- if anything strange happened with his parents, if they did anything she should know about. Ricky says no, of course, because they didn’t, really- but it solidifies the fact that he’s not the only one uncomfortable around them.
He feels a little guilty making his mother worry about him as if he’s some kind of overbaked potato, but it’s much better than telling her the truth. That for the first time, he felt cracks in the foundation of what him and Gyuvin have.
-
part four: junior year, ending scene
They don’t talk about it. Ricky and Gyuvin go back to being exactly who they are, texting nonstop and being physically attached at all possible times. They don’t have any classes together this year except for a shared lunch period and it drives Ricky insane not being around him all the time, but he survives, because he has Gyuvin anyways.
What Ricky doesn’t know is he doesn’t, anymore. And by the time he finds out, it’s too late.
The end doesn’t look like the end at all. It comes to him delivered in the form of a Halloween homecoming dance- their favorite holiday. Ricky is elated, and so is Gyuvin. They text nonstop, planning matching outfits based off Ricky’s carefully curated Halloween Pinterest board. It’s perfect- they get the costumes together at Spirit Halloween and something about this feels different than before. The idea of going to a dance matching with Gyuvin makes him hope- but he can only hope.
It’s when Ricky’s mom is pulling out of their neighborhood that he realizes something is wrong. Gyuvin hasn’t responded to any of his texts, asking if he’s ready, or if he’s on the way, or asking to see how the costume looks on. They just talked earlier that day, at school- it’s a Friday, not exactly Halloween, just a day earlier. None of the faculty wanted to chaperone on a Saturday night, obviously, so they planned the dance on a school day.
He tries not to let it show on his face- ever since the beach trip, his mom has gotten a little wary of Gyuvin. She wasn’t always the biggest fan of him anyways, for reasons he’ll never understand, but since they grew together so quickly, she gave up her judgements. Ricky doesn’t want to have to defend him again, his mom can always see right through him and he’s getting scared that soon she’ll figure out why it is that he’s so partial to Gyuvin.
He gets dropped off in front of the school and his mom doesn’t spare him from the whole have fun, my baby is all grown up thing. Ricky lets her give him a kiss on the cheek and then he escapes as fast as possible, with only one goal in mind, to find Gyuvin.
It’s a task proving to be impossible. Ricky wades through streamers and cobwebs and all kinds of glowing decorations looking for a telltale round head standing above all the others. Unlike his assumption, Gyuvin’s not at the snack table, nor is he anywhere on the dance floor (which is, to be precise, the cafeteria, with all the tables pushed aside to make a large, empty space), nor is he in the bathrooms. All of Ricky’s texts are still unread, and he sent quite a few, from earlier when he was getting ready, up until just a few seconds ago, asking if the other is okay.
A dreadful, sinking feeling settles into Ricky’s chest. He realizes it slowly, and then all at once, watching his peers blur together as they dance to some song that he doesn’t know the name of. It’s strangely hollow, and he feels blindsided, but somehow not surprised. Ricky should’ve seen it coming, he should’ve known he would scare Gyuvin off eventually. He shouldn’t have assumed the other wouldn’t notice, and now he’s here, wearing one half of a matching costume at a Halloween dance, and Gyuvin has ditched him.
Then, it really sinks in. Gyuvin has ditched him. His best friend of two years, who he stupidly, so stupidly happens to love far beyond the boundaries of friendship, has blown him off without a single word. Ricky needs to sit down.
As he wades through the crowds of people, all grouped off, laughing and dancing and having fun together, he realizes he’s never been so alone in his life. Ricky has spent so much time with Gyuvin that he just simply forgot about everybody else. It’s a chilling feeling, realizing that without Gyuvin, he has no one. He’s nothing.
He’s out of the cafeteria now, just standing around in the hallways, resigning to the fate of eating ghost-shaped cookies under the bright, fluorescent lighting until his mom comes back to pick him up at 11, when he runs into one of his classmates he hasn’t talked to in a while. That would be most of them now, he’s realizing.
It’s Sunoo, they sit next to each other in AP World History, and he seems to notice immediately that something is wrong. Ricky remembers this about Sunoo- he’s always empathetic with the people around them, trying his best to understand everyone’s opinions and situations even during class debates. Not the worst person to run into out here, thankfully.
Sunoo approaches him carefully. He’s dressed as some kind of prep-school vampire, clashing with his soft expression, but it still looks good on him.
Just like the look on his face, his voice is soft, too. “What are you doing out here in the hallway, Ricky?”
He thinks about lying for a split second before he meets Sunoo’s eyes. They’re sharp, fixed on him knowingly, and Ricky can sense he’s not getting out of this easily. He doesn’t have the energy to bother, either, so he just sighs, and vocalizes his worst fears. “I think Gyuvin ditched me.”
Sunoo doesn’t do a good job hiding his reaction. It’s a little bit of understanding and a little bit of pity and a little bit of something else he can’t place. Another thing about Sunoo- he’s one of the few openly gay students at Hell Creek. They’re not really in the same circles, since he doesn’t hang out with anyone sans Gyuvin, but he sees Sunoo and his friends around enough to know, and to overhear occasional whispers about them from other students. From the look he’s giving him alone, Ricky can tell he’s been found out and he’s just hoping his classmate won’t rub salt in the wound.
He doesn’t, thankfully. Instead, he pulls Ricky in for an unexpected but welcomed hug. Since he’s just a big idiot, he mostly thinks about how he hasn’t really touched anyone but Gyuvin in ages while Sunoo does his best to comfort him. Sunoo then invites him to come hang out with him and his friends, which Ricky accepts, of course. He doesn’t have any other options, anyways.
“I didn’t know you…” Sunoo trails off, not to assume. He’s always polite, even outside of class.
Ricky grimaces. In a low voice, he finally acknowledges his biggest secret, which Sunoo managed to pull out of him in about a minute, tops. “Nobody knows.”
It’s the first time he’s admitted it out loud, to another person. Being attracted to Gyuvin, or to men. It’s all the same to Ricky, although he knows the difference is there. Sunoo just links their arms as a response and pulls him back into the dance.
He tries not to think about Gyuvin and Sunoo tries his best to distract him with snacks and dancing and singing and selfies and all his lovely friends. It’s just that Ricky can’t help but see the cobwebs and think of that last October with Gyuvin, waiting outside, too close together in the autumn weather. Ricky yearns for it at the same time he’s realizing it’s over, forever. It hasn’t been the same since the vacation house and maybe even before that, but he’s trying not to think about it right now, he swears.
The bass is booming in his ears and Sunoo is turned away from him for a second, talking to another guy Ricky vaguely knows named Hojin. His head is starting to hurt, so it’s perfect timing when Sunoo turns to him and says, “Are you down to steal a bunch of snacks and sit in the field?” It’s phrased like a question but he knows it’s not, and he absolutely is down for that.
Together, with him and Sunoo and Sunoo’s friends he’s never met before today, they clear as many snacks as possible off the table. It’s all Halloween junk food, pretzels with chocolate and cupcakes and donut holes that look like spiders. It’s not sparking the same joy in Ricky as usual and he tries not to wince when it settles in that Halloween will probably never be the same.
Before making their exit, they take way too many cans of soda and the chaperone, Mr. Sung, pretends not to notice. He was right all that time ago, Ricky has to admit. Friends don’t act the way him and Gyuvin do. He can’t help but wonder if they were ever friends at all- they weren’t lovers, of course. Gyuvin couldn’t see him like that. It was some third, worse thing that Ricky doesn’t know the name of.
He’s pulled out of his thoughts again by Sunoo, who’s dragging him through the hallways and out into the dark, grassy sports field. The school isn’t that big so they do everything here, from soccer to football to track and god knows what else. Ricky was never into sports, not like Gyuvin. He curses himself for thinking of the other again- why does everything always tie back to him?
One of Sunoo’s friends brought alcohol, but Ricky doesn’t want to drink, and they don’t push him, thankfully. They talk and play games and he feels fine for a bit, almost forgetting about the crisis at hand for the hour or so they sit outside. The field is spooky at night, or maybe it’s just the Halloween ambiance. Ricky’s not really sure, a little outside his head, but he’s trying to enjoy it. They take more pictures, something Sunoo seems to love doing, and the time flies by until finally his mom calls to say she’s on the way to pick him up.
Ricky hadn’t checked his phone since he ran into Sunoo- he hadn’t even noticed a text from Gyuvin, a bit over thirty minutes ago, sitting right at the top of the screen.
qyubing 10:14pm
i promised haruto i’d go to overnight church camp with him
He can barely comprehend the words in front of him. Since when did Gyuvin associate with Watanabe Haruto? Ricky knows damn well he’s not talking about the Haruto, Maeda Haruto, that’s sitting across from him right now.
qyubing 10:14pm
this is really important to me, i’m sorry ricky
qyubing 10:15pm
we don’t have our phones usually so i’ll talk to you tomorrow
Gyuvin mowing him down with a car would’ve felt nicer. His expression must completely fall because Sunoo snatches the phone out of his hands and reads the messages. He’s never seen Sunoo look so angry before, not during the worst of the in-class debates.
He shuts the phone off with a click and throws an arm around Ricky, who drops his head onto Sunoo’s shoulder like instinct. Which it is, from countless times in this same position with Gyuvin.
“Watanabe Haruto?” Is the only thing Sunoo says at first, his tone cold. The conversation around them stops and suddenly all of Sunoo’s friends are paying attention too. Right, Haruto W. wouldn’t be too popular among this friend group, despite somehow maintaining somewhat of a status among the rest of the student body.
“He’s hanging out with that homophobic asshole?” Sunoo doesn’t even have to say who the ‘he’ is that they’re talking about. Ricky and Gyuvin are a pair, always. Everyone knows that. They were all nice enough not to mention it, but it’s obvious that something went wrong for Ricky to be seen without him for more than ten minutes outside of class time, much less spending hours without him and instead hanging out with a bunch of strangers he barely knows instead of Gyuvin.
Ricky just shuts his eyes and exhales in response. Hearing it said out loud was the final straw- a tear finally slips out. He never thought Gyuvin would be like this, hanging out with those kinds of people. The thought that somehow, without his closest friend noticing, he became buddies with the notoriously homophobic Christian horrifies him.
He thought he knew everything about Gyuvin but he couldn’t have been more wrong. How long have they been growing apart while Ricky was just falling more in love? And now, Gyuvin might hate Ricky just for who he is, if he ever were to find out. Or, that is, if he doesn’t know already. The thought that he might be homophobic is straight up nauseating and Ricky realizes that he’s crying a little too much on the shoulder of someone he’s had an actual conversation with for the first time today.
Wiping his tears (and smudging his eyeliner, if it’s not already cried off) he sits up and tries to pull it together. Ricky can’t meet the eyes of the people around him out of humiliation. To his surprise, someone other than Sunoo speaks next- it’s Hojin.
“It’s alright, Ricky,” Hojin says in a way that makes him almost believe it. “You have us now.”
He’s still sniffling out thank yous when his mom texts that she’s here. They all get up to send him away and he’s glad he doesn’t have to walk back through the dance alone. He prays his eyes aren’t too red as he hugs them all goodbye and gets in the car. He’d almost rather his mom think he’s high than think that he was crying over Gyuvin on school property.
“How was the dance?” She asks, neutrally.
“It was good,” Ricky says, his tone falling flat. Safe response, just not safe enough!
“How was Gyuvin?” Is her next question.
Well, he may as well rip the band-aid off now. “He didn’t come.”
His mom whips her head to look at him, but Ricky has tactfully angled his body towards the window to totally nonchalantly stare outside so she can’t see his face.
“That rude little shit,” she bites. “What about the matching costumes?”
Ricky just shrugs.
“I’m calling his mom, she’s going to get an earful from me.”
“Okay,” He agrees, defeated, and that’s a sign that something’s really wrong- that he’s not defending Gyuvin from his mom’s critiques. She picks up on this, thankfully, and doesn’t push it any further.
-
Now that he’s away from Sunoo, who swooped in to save the night, it’s all hitting a little too hard, like Ricky’s had a bucket of cold water poured over his head. He focuses on the trees blurring in with the darkness outside the car window and he doesn’t think about it.
He goes home and washes off his tear-streaked makeup and he pretends his mom didn’t see it, pretends she doesn’t know, and he doesn’t think about it.
He does his skincare and lets it absorb for thirty minutes and then he finally thinks about it.
Ricky puts in his headphones and turns on The Quiet by Troye Sivan. It reminds him of Gyuvin in all the ways it shouldn’t, and the sobs wrack through his body before he realizes what's happening. He loops it over and over, crying it out until his body runs out of tears to give. It’s the kind of rock bottom Ricky’s never experienced before in his life, the stuff he only hears about in songs and sees in movies. It hurts like everything and nothing, and all at once he settles down all at once into the worst kind of numbness he’s ever known.
He thinks about Gyuvin despite how hard he tries not to. The way his eyes smile, his big hands and how they’re always on Ricky, his fluffy hair bouncing when he walks. He thinks about how Gyuvin is a boy, and how he’s at church camp right now probably praying that Ricky doesn’t go to Hell for his sins. Or praying he does, like it’ll absolve him personally. If he’s bothering to think about him at all, that is.
He catches his reflection on the phone screen and winces at his appearance, puffy eyes and cheeks shining with tears. He’s exhausted now, both mentally and physically but his mind is nagging at him to message Gyuvin back before sleep takes him for the night.
kim ricky 2:37am
you made a promise to me too gyuvin
And because Ricky’s an instigator, he can’t just leave it there. Not when Gyuvin’s done something like this.
kim ricky 2:37am
i thought we were best friends
He thinks about the last message for a bit, but Ricky’s sure it’s over anyways. There’s no way Gyuvin doesn’t know. He hits send and promptly passes out, into a deep sleep far more peaceful than he expected.
kim ricky 2:40am
am i not important to you
dont you know how i feel gyuvin
part five: after
Ricky wakes up at noon to texts, far more than anticipated, from not just Gyuvin, but their shared friends also, whom Ricky didn’t run into even once last night.
kim sunoo <3 3:09am
[25 photos attached]
qyubing 8:20am
the church is important to my parents
qyubing 8:24am
but it’s important to me too and i shouldnt have lied to you but i felt uncomfortable to express my faith abou [...]
qyubing 8:31am
what did you tell sunoo i have texts from him and like five people i dont even know ricky
gunwook 9:15am
what happened last night
gunwook 9:15am
you can be honest with me
gunwook 9:16am
do you love him
qyubing 10:01 am
are you ignoring me
qyubing 10:01 am
shen quanrui???
qyubing 10:03 am
fine
Ricky sighs and texts Gunwook back, something vague. He settles on Does it really matter, because he’s not giving anyone else the satisfaction of knowing about his doomed, fucked-up friendship.
As for Gyuvin, he doesn’t open the messages. Ricky still feels like shit and it’s only been seconds since he woke up so he’d like to grasp onto whatever semblance of peace he has left before he opens that can of worms.
After a few minutes of staring blankly at the wall, his mom opens his door to deprive him of that peace and then offers Starbucks right after as a silent apology.
She doesn’t say much, just enough to make it hurt all over again. “I got off the phone with Gyuvin’s mom earlier. She said she didn’t know you guys had plans and that she’s so sorry, and she loves you so much and that you’re always welcome in their home.”
Ricky just stares at her. He knows he’s never going to forget those words- you’re always welcome in our home. It’s bittersweet, since he certainly wouldn’t be, if she knew. Again, he doesn’t think about it.
“Also, do you want to go to Starbucks?”
He perks up at that, and she smiles. He won’t turn down the chance for a Starbucks pumpkin muffin on Halloween, not even on his worst days.
-
Eventually, the weekend ends and he goes back to school on Monday. Him and Gyuvin exchanged a few paragraphs of texts over the weekend at some early morning hour, but Ricky was so hysterical that he doesn’t remember a single thing he said, nor does he want to. In some kind of emotional fit the next morning he deleted their conversation and Gyuvin never texted him back, anyways. He’ll never know, and maybe it’s for the better.
They see each other in the hallway and the brief eye contact hurts. Ricky feels like everyone knows, like he’s walking around with a sign that says I fell in love with my best friend and now he hangs out with people who hate people like me, but maybe he’s just being dramatic.
Someone from his old friend group outs him. He doesn’t know how they even knew for sure, and it’s both horribly dramatic and absolutely meaningless at the same time. The only person he cares about already knows, and he already left him for it. What does it matter if the rest of the school finds out too? He sticks with Sunoo and keeps on pushing through.
Since they don’t have any classes together, they don’t see each other up close for the rest of the year. Gyuvin never speaks to him again, and Ricky officially loses him and all the friends they shared since freshman year. He wakes up and acts normal and pretends it’s not killing him every single day.
At the end of Junior year, Ricky’s father gets a promotion, so they move back to China. It’s both a relief and a death sentence. He tries to live with the fact that he’ll probably never see Gyuvin again.
-
Ricky grows up but he never really moves on. He goes back to the States eventually, for college, in a city he hopes Gyuvin will never travel to. Because he’s sick in the head he still follows Gyuvin on Instagram and likes all his posts and Gyuvin never blocked him, surprisingly. That’s how he knows Gyuvin is still in Irvine and that’s why Ricky decides to start over in New York.
He dates men, but it’s nothing like what he felt for the man he was never more than friends with. He can’t trust them fully, anyways, thanks to Gyuvin. Instead, he has hook-ups just to fill the void. It does nothing, and he still misses his best friend, years past the mark.
He makes new friends and buries himself in the thriving queer community in NYC and he still thinks about Gyuvin. He makes new friends and they’re great but Ricky still hasn’t called anyone his best friend since he was in high school and he doesn’t think he’ll ever do it again. All in all, despite the extensive barriers he puts up in his life to stop himself from fucking up like that again, he does a fine job of not thinking about Gyuvin, usually.
Until, one day, he sees a ghost. It’s not Gyuvin- it’s someone else he thought he’d never see again, much less speak to in a drag bar in New York City. It’s Mr. Sung, his old teacher from Hell Creek. He looks equally as shocked to see Ricky, but approaches him anyway. Ricky remembers now that Mr. Sung was only a few years older than him, teaching a bunch of high-schoolers his first year out of college.
He’s not here alone, which puts Ricky at significant ease. He didn’t want to think about any strange possibilities. Mr. Sung tells him that he decided to quit teaching recently in favor of getting his Master’s at NYU, and that he’s here with his husband, Zhang Hao, so no, he’s not Mr. Sung anymore, but also, “Please just call me Hanbin, not Mr. Zhang, because that is so uncomfortable in this situation.”
Ricky finds it funny, so he calls him Mr. Zhang a few times just to freak him out. And because the edible he took before coming to the club was too strong and he’s so high that he can’t feel anything or breathe properly, he tells Hanbin that he was right, back then, about him and his friend. The couple share a look and Hao offers to buy him a drink. Ricky declines, because he still doesn’t drink, and for the first time in so long, the five year plan he made with Gyuvin crosses his mind.
He never imagined a future for himself that didn’t have Gyuvin in it. They didn’t grow up together and they didn’t go to college together and maybe it still hurts the same as it did all those years ago. Suddenly he doesn’t want to be at the drag show anymore. Hanbin gets his contact before he leaves and makes him promise to reach out if he needs anything. Ricky supposes the responsibility of being a teacher never fully leaves, and he probably will text him later to catch up properly, since it’s the only connection remaining to his past life.
He makes excuses to his friends and immediately crashes in his on-campus housing. It was nice running into Hanbin, but the unexpected reminder of what his life could have been throws Ricky into a Gyuvin-induced slump that lasts multiple weeks, until something finally overtakes him. After listening to Waiting Room by Phoebe Bridgers on loop whilst walking around campus for too many days in a row, Ricky finally gives in.
He had arrived thirty minutes early to his morning studio class, and all he can think about is Gyuvin. He opens Instagram and spends a shockingly small amount of time debating it before he messages a simple hey, and surprisingly, Gyuvin responds almost immediately. Huh.
rickyshenn 8:32am
i know it’s been a long time but for some reason i can’t stop thinking about you recently. and there’s something i’d like to say, if you don’t mind
kevin_kim 8:34am
of course
before you say anything, ricky, just so you know, i already knew
rickyshenn 8:35am
i don’t really remember most of what happened to us at the end
but i just want to get it off my chest so maybe i can finally move on
i loved you
kevin_kim 8:37am
i know
i felt the same
i’m drunk can you call me
Ricky shuts his eyes for a second. Looking back, he knew he couldn’t have been alone in what he was feeling, given the nature of their friendship, if it could even be called that, but he never thought Gyuvin would tell him so easily. Or, ever.
Gyuvin doesn’t wait for him to answer. He calls, through Instagram since they don’t have each other’s numbers anymore, and Ricky picks up on the first ring.
“Hi baby,” Gyuvin slurs. And yeah, he’s definitely drunk. Ricky remembers that it’s 5am in California, and he guesses Gyuvin is still out. He refuses to acknowledge Gyuvin calling him baby, but his stupid cat brain preens at it.
“Hi, Gyuvin.” Ricky says, and he’s already regretting this choice.
“What have you been up to?” Gyuvin asks casually, like nothing ever happened.
Ricky tells him about New York and running into Hanbin and a few other random details about his life. It turns out that Gyuvin had it much worse than him after Ricky moved away. His mom passed away, he dropped out of college, and he’s working part-time at a daycare for now. He offers his condolences, despite knowing that Gyuvin’s relationship with his mom wasn’t too great, and he assures him he’s fine. A sick, twisted part of Ricky almost feels satisfied to know he’s somehow doing better than Gyuvin despite how badly Gyuvin has fucked up so much of Ricky’s general life and ability to form relationships. He buries the thought quickly, that’s too cruel even after everything that’s happened between them.
Gyuvin also tells Ricky that he realized he was bisexual because of him, which hurts. And then, he says to Ricky, like it wouldn’t rip his heart out completely, “You were the best friend I ever had.”
It’s at this point that Ricky severely regrets picking up the phone. Gyuvin says it so nonchalantly, like he always did, saying things with so much weight like it means nothing because he has all the love in the world to give. It breaks Ricky’s heart all over again.
Ricky is on autopilot, his chest thrumming, as he stutters whilst telling Gyuvin about his art classes when he hears another voice on the other side of the line.
“Sorry,” Gyuvin says, but it doesn’t really sound like an apology, moreso a formality. “That was my girlfriend. She was just wondering when I’m coming back inside.”
Ouch. Yeah, he can’t do this right now. Girlfriend. He kicks a rock and watches it go flying down the stairs.
Ricky checks the time and notices his studio session starts in four minutes. “That’s okay, Gyuvin. My class is about to start anyways, so I’d better go.”
“Alright, Kim Ricky,” Gyuvin stumbles over the words. He kept up with the drinking part of their five year plan, at least, Ricky thinks bitterly. “Call me later, okay? We have so much more to talk about, when I’m sober.”
“Okay, Qyubing.” One last time, Ricky tells himself. He’ll never say that nickname again.
He hangs up, and Gyuvin texts his schedule so they can call. Ricky checks into his studio period and cracks open a window so he doesn’t suffocate himself with the paint fumes, despite how much he wants to. It’s a chilly October morning and the wounds feel fresh. He lets it all out on canvas. He’s not as excited for Halloween this year, and it’s not just that the novelty has worn off.
Later, Ricky calls him once and Gyuvin doesn’t pick up. Life goes on.
They never talk again. Ricky misses him all the same.