Chapter Text
It’s ten o’clock on Friday night. The balmy mid-September air feels good on Niki’s bare forearms. He has never set foot in this part of town before, but he might as well be out for a casual trip to the mailbox. He’s calm, cool, and collected in his black T-shirt and khakis, like this is nothing but an evening stroll.
His best friend Sunoo, on the other hand, is acting like a complete nerd. Niki cracks a smile, watching out of the corner of his eye as the smaller boy cranes his neck around nervously, like he’s keeping watch for some unknown enemy, or a pair of spying authoritarian eyes…
As if anyone would pay any attention to two random sophomores.
“Don’t freak out; I got you,” Niki murmurs. He slings a long arm around Sunoo’s shoulders and pulls him close as they approach.
Today is the day they’ve been waiting for. They’re on a mission here, and Niki will be damned if he can’t get this done for Sunoo.
They’d been hearing the telltale sounds of people milling about, talking, and laughing over the thrum of faraway music from a block away, and as soon as they round the corner onto Goretti Avenue the source of all the noise comes into view. The front yards of several houses on this street are overflowing with college age students who spill onto the road. Niki scans the rows of houses for the one he’s looking for.
There it is. Big, black decorative beams over gray-purple shingling, three stories with a wrap around porch: The Beta Theta Phi fraternity house, two doors down from the street corner. It’s an eyesore in an otherwise unassuming suburban neighborhood close to the University.
“Oh my god, how are you even supposed to walk?” Sunoo complains, a dramatic lilt in his voice as the two of them get pushed onto the curb by the throng of people. “It’s packed.”
Niki glances down at his friend and gives him a reassuring smile. “Better get used to it if you wanna live here.”
This really isn’t either of their ‘scenes’. The idea to pledge came as a necessity.
University was expensive. Niki was from a low-income family. He’d gotten enough financial aid to scrape by on ramen and pizza in the dorms, but the only way Sunoo could afford it was through the work-study program.
Four nights a week, Sunoo was supposed to sit at the sign-in desk at the U-Gym, swiping students’ ID cards on their way to the equipment. That was the second place the two of them met—the place where they realized they were going to be great friends.
Niki was nothing like the rest of the meatheads, jocks, and wannabes who swiped their cards at Sunoo’s desk before hitting the weights. “Fancy seeing you here,” Sunoo razzed him. They'd only spoken once before in a classroom setting, but apparently Sunoo already knew that Niki was eternally out of place.
They both came from very religious families. They were both from out of town, from more rural areas, and they each had a lingering darkness in their personalities, a quiet, deep well of emotion that most people couldn’t see or understand. For as different as they were from one another, they had experienced similar enough things in several areas and their unlikely friendship grew from there. Soon Niki was planning his workouts toward the end of Sunoo's shifts so that they could finish up at the same time grab a bite together.
Unfortunately, even with the work study situation, Sunoo was finding it hard to make ends meet. Now that all the kids were out of the house, his parents had called it quits after twenty years of fighting. All of a sudden, his starched-collar of a father was seeing a twenty-seven year old bartender. Chipping in for Sunoo’s tuition payments was apparently the last thing on his mind.
“You’re going to have to find an apartment off campus, Sunoo,” his mother said over the phone one day. “We can’t keep paying these damn dorm fees.”
“ Damn dorm fees,” Sunoo parroted back to Niki after the call. “It’s like I don’t even know these people anymore! When I lived at home, my parents were so religious, if I so much as glanced at a Cosmo magazine in the check-out aisle they would scold me. Did I tell you I wasn’t allowed to say oh my god ? Apparently it’s a sin. Taking the Lord’s name in vain…”
“Mmhm. Same.”
“Oh yeah. We talked about this before.” Sunoo plopped down on the old worn beanbag chair in the corner of Niki’s dorm room and sighed. “And now they’re cussing and dating twenty-year-olds. What a bunch of hypocrites.”
“Your mom’s dating someone too?” Niki asked, glancing up from his chemistry homework. “Good for her.”
“Well… no. Just my dad. But you know what I mean. It’s ridiculous!”
“I’m sorry, man. People change. It’s crazy.” Niki’s words might have been simple, even calloused, but his eyes were full of empathy. The knowing gaze made Sunoo soften just like always. “You can always stay in my room if you can’t find a place,” Niki offered.
That didn’t work out, though. Niki’s roommate didn’t want a third guy in their dormitory long term. It was cramped enough as it was with two nineteen, twenty year old guys in that joke of a double.
“Why don’t we get an apartment together, then,” Niki suggested. “Maybe I can sublet my dorm spot. There has to be someone who wants it.” Personally he was getting bored of the dorm life. Aside from Sunoo, Niki hadn’t met anyone interesting at University so far. Everyone he met in the dorms was shallow and stupid—a bunch of rich kids who didn’t know much about life—just as he'd expected. He could drink and party and do all of the same old University things, but it didn’t do anything for him. So, the two of them started looking for a place nearby.
That didn’t work out either.
Neither of them could contribute much since Niki’s financial aid couldn’t be applied to off-campus living. Even the less desirable places were out of their price range. The only unit they could theoretically afford was a thirty minute drive from the University, but neither boy had a car. Sunoo would still need to do his work study program to afford tuition, plus he’d have to pick up a part time job off-campus to have any hope of contributing to their rent. Things weren’t looking good.
“Whelp…looks like I’m done for, huh?” Sunoo lamented one afternoon at the end of their freshman year. “Have a nice life, darling. I guess I won’t be joining you next year after all.”
Niki didn't want to lose Sunoo as a friend over something stupid like finances. He was determined to work something out for the other boy. He’d been thinking about possible solutions all semester. “There’s one more thing we could try.”
“We’ve done everything we can, Niki. It’s okay. At this point, I’m content to be that sad little drop-out.”
Even beneath that dramatic tone of voice, it was so obvious to Niki that Sunoo was lying. A whole year of his life would go to waste if he dropped out now! He’d have to go back to his family when he just got used to being out. How was he supposed to go back to living in the closet? Niki wasn’t going to let that happen to him.
But the solution he’d come up with wasn’t a great one, “We could pledge next semester.”
Sunoo stared at Niki for a second. Then his jaw dropped. “You did not just suggest we pledge.”
“Yeah.”
“To a fraternity? Have you lost your mind?”
Niki chuckled defensively. “No, think about it. I know, it’s not really our thing, but—”
“Not really our thing?! Niki!” His over-the-top reaction settled down and he lowered his voice seriously, “You know I can’t be around those jocks.”
Niki quickly nodded. Sunoo didn’t have to say anything. Niki knew. “No. I meant Beta Theta Phi.”
The reaction to that was even more delayed. Even more dramatic. “You did not— Are you— Bro, you have lost your mind!” Sunoo fell to his knees on the floor and whisper-screamed, “Beta Theta Phi?!!?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed the nervous lump in his throat and smiled instead. “They don’t hang out with any of the athletes on campus. They keep to themselves, mostly. It’s more…our thing…kinda.”
“It is not our thing. Niki! I’ve heard a lot of bad things…”
Of course, Niki had too. Beta Theta Phi were the crazy kids. “Picture the emo kids from high school on meth,” someone told him once, but that didn't phase Niki. Most people would probably call him an emo kid, and he doubted that anyone in this posh university town was on meth. Whatever drugs they did, Niki was sure he'd tried them before.
“They’re fucking vampires. They eat people,” he heard from someone else at a mixer once. But it was all drama. Beta Theta Phi couldn’t be worse than any other frat.
The most important thing was that none of the guys in that house would have anything to do with Sunoo’s ex.
“If we pledge, you can live there for free, Sunoo.”
“I’m not living there alone!”
“I’ll go with you.”
At last, Sunoo seemed to slow down and listen. A vulnerable look of hopefulness crossed over his expression. “You will?”
“Yeah. Of course. We’ll stick together. We’ll look out for each other, right?”
Sunoo nodded, looking deep in thought as he mulled it over. He was nibbling on his lip, which meant he was interested.
Niki leaned forward, elbows on his knees to assure him, “It’ll probably suck—the pledging part—but we’ll be fine. You can make friends with literally anyone. You’re so likable. And if things get weird I will handle it.”
They survived the long summer months apart by texting on an hourly basis, mostly for Sunoo’s sanity. Seeing how unhappy Sunoo was to be back with his family, Niki felt reassured that they were making the right decision. It would be awkward at first. Pledging would be rough. Niki might have to step up for Sunoo here and there, but in the end Sunoo would fit right in. Niki had a feeling that Sunoo would get along with the Beta Theta Phi guys before long and his financial crisis would be averted. Niki wouldn’t lose him.
So here they are. The summer has come and gone. They’ve been back on campus for a few weeks, Sunoo crashing in Niki’s room on a very temporary basis until the time finally came.
As they make their way through the throng of students, Niki occupies himself by guessing who’s trying to get into which house. Some of the groups are obviously athletes. Sunoo must see someone he knows because he ducks his head and leans into Niki’s big frame just a little more.
“You good?” Niki checks at once.
“Fuck that guy.”
Niki looks around, but for all he knows about Sunoo he wouldn’t recognize anyone. Still, he agrees, “Fuck that guy. You’re good,” and gives Sunoo’s arm a little squeeze.
BEEP! BEEEEEEEP!
Niki whips his head around to see a large black SUV trying to make its way through the crowds. A group of girls in tiny dresses scramble up onto the sidewalk across the street from the two boys, their heels clacking loudly. The engine growls impatiently and before the last of the girls is fully out of the street, the car is driving on by.
They get a glimpse of the driver as it rolls past: a tall looking, pale-faced guy with black hair.
“Sheesh! He almost ran them over…” Sunoo shakes his head, wide-eyed.
Niki follows the car with his gaze as it rolls through the mob of students and up the long driveway of the Beta Theta Phi House. “That’s our house,” he announces, trying to keep his voice sounding cheerful. Sunoo gapes at him. Niki rolls his eyes.
It’s always drama with Sunoo. Shock and drama, and Niki is exactly the opposite. He’s happy enough to shock other people, or more accurately, he's used to shocking people, but he’ll never let himself be surprised. Whatever happens, he’s fine. Whatever happens, Sunoo will come up with a wild story of how not-fine it was. Maybe that’s why they’ve gotten along so well—some kind of yin and yang thing.
With Sunoo’s eyes still on him expectantly, Niki jerks his chin at the front door of the black and purple house. “Let’s go. Stick with me. Nothing crazy is gonna happen tonight.”
“How do you know?!” They’re close to the house now and the thrumming beat of a bass guitar over loudspeakers makes it hard to hear, so Niki doesn’t bother to answer.
There aren’t as many people inside the Beta Theta Phi House as they might have expected based on the crowd outside, but Niki isn’t surprised. This is the off-beat fraternity for the antisocial kids. As soon as they get inside, the front door closes behind then with a weighted, creaking bang and then the light of day ceases to exist. All of the walls have been painted black or purple or red. The windows are covered over with black-out curtains, the only source of light being red string lights, black lights in neon tubes, or the flickering glow of candles. Not ten feet inside, a young man with six or seven safety pins through his nose comes pushing past them.
“Is this hell?” Sunoo all but laughs, wide eyes darting all over the place.
Niki bends his neck down to speak in Sunoo’s ear. “Try not to look so shocked, alright? Just roll with it.” But for as much as Sunoo likes to act horrified, Niki sees that he’s actually enthralled by this seedy atmosphere. He can see it in the excitable sparkle in the boy’s eyes.
They wander around the rooms side by side until they find a blood red punch bowl surrounded by shots that glow in the dark. “Be careful~” a random guy with snake contact lenses teases Sunoo when he eyes the concoction a little too long to be cool. “It’s toxic.”
Niki quickly picks up a second shot glass, as if for Sunoo, and nudges the smaller boy away.
“I don’t want to drink that,” Sunoo calls up at him once they’re out of ear shot. “I heard someone say there’s acid in there.”
In the shots? Niki doubts it. LSD in a drink sounds like a stupid idea. If anything were spiked, he imagines it would be the punch, but he takes half a shot from one glass just to check for Sunoo and deftly chucks the other one in a potted cactus plant they find halfway to what appears to be the bathroom.
Just as they pass it, the door swings open and a tall guy with brown hair comes sauntering out in a cloud of smoke.
“Boys!” he cries, like he's greeting long lost friends. He throws both arms around Niki and Sunoo and scoops them up into an uncomfortable little huddle. Niki sees Sunoo wrinkle his nose at the heavy smell of weed wafting off the guy’s clothes. “Welcome to the nest,” he says just inches from Niki’s cheek, his voice low and velvety. There's a silver ring in his nose, through his septum. He’s wearing a leather BDSM harness over a black cashmere turtleneck. “I’m Heeseung,” he's saying. He raises an index finger to touch a lock of blonde hair dangling over Niki’s forehead.
Niki says flatly, “Hey, what’s up.”
“And you?” Heeseung sing-songs, swiveling his head over in Sunoo’s direction.
“Hi, I’m Sunoo.” As usual, he puts on a charming, bashful smile and Heeseung’s grin doubles in size.
“You guys trying to pledge?”
“Yes~ We are,” Sunoo admits, sounding like a naughty confession. He isn’t trying to hide his apparent terror, but he’s still smiling.
Heeseung swings his gaze back at Niki. “You too, cupcake?”
Niki scoffs lightly. “If you guys have room, we’re down.”
Heeseung fixes him with a teasing, thoughtful look. “We shall see.” The weight of his arms lifts away from their shoulders. “Meet in the red room at midnight,” he says, and then he slinks away down the hall.
When he’s gone, Sunoo calls up into Niki’s ear, “Was he really hot or was that just me?”
Niki shrugs and leads the way into another space.
The entire first floor is a maze of goth paraphernalia. The vampire label makes a lot of sense now that they’re inside. One room has a black disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Another has an actual coffin set out on a dining table—not the kind from a party store or a stage prop, a real one. Niki can't imagine how they got it. He's never seen one outside of a funeral home before.
The two boys mingle for a while. The real fraternity brothers are easy to pick out from the guests and the hopeful pledges because they are dressed in all black with leather harnesses and bits of studded jewelry in just about every visible orifice. Along the way, they meet another aspiring pledge, a boy named Jake. He chats with them about majors and a shared professor, but then one of the brothers comes by with joints and shots and Sunoo gives Niki a panicked look. Niki rushes to take both his and Sunoo’s in the commotion without anyone noticing.
Before they can get back to the conversation, Jake hurries off to the bathroom.
They intend to wait for him but he doesn’t come back for what feels like a long time, and pretty soon Niki’s head is heavy and swirling from the shots and the weed. The loud swell of music of the speakers starts to feel good in his body. Sunoo says he doesn’t want to stand around and Niki doesn’t care, so they wander into other rooms in search of some fun.
In the black light room where splatters of what must be white paint masquerading as something else glows all over the walls, the boys find a group of people playing strip poker. Niki turns his back for half a second to check the time and suddenly Sunoo is tugging on his sleeve.
“They want us to play,” Sunoo gasps, like it’s unfathomable. But Niki sees it in his friend’s brown eyes: he’s already been convinced to play.
Another glance at the clock shows it’s eleven twenty. There isn’t that much time, anyway. They’re supposed to meet in the red room with the hopefuls at midnight, so this shouldn’t get too out of hand.
“Okay,” he agrees, gently grasping Sunoo’s arm just above the elbow. He gives him a quick squeeze and heads over to the group by the coffee table. Sunoo follows along hesitantly—or is he pretending to hesitate? Niki isn’t exactly sure anymore. “Oh, Sunoo,” Niki remembers, “the shots are fine. No LSD,” he tells his friend quietly right before they sit down with the group. He’s not sober, but he’s not tripping acid, that’s for sure
“Oh good, no acid,” Sunoo repeats, far too loud even over the music.
“You guys got acid?” a girl in the poker group asks. She’s already down to a bra, a mini skirt, and a pair of socks.
“Oh no, we thought you all spiked the shots,” Sunoo laughs.
Niki looks around slowly and meets six sets of eyes, all observing him coldly. “That’s not…” Great . Now he looks like an asshole. He shakes his head at Sunoo’s big mouth—his big sober mouth…unreal—and lets it go. Good thing he took those shots for him or who knows what Sunoo might do. Plopping down on the dingy sofa, he asks, “Okay. What are the rules?”
He asks for Sunoo’s sake, assuming the boy hasn’t played before. As for Niki, he’s played only a few times at high school parties or little dorm events. He didn’t find it particularly entertaining, but Sunoo seems excited so he’ll play along.
A scrawny guy with heaps of black eyeliner explains, “It’s five card draw. If you fold, you take off one item. If you lose the hand you take off two items. And since you’re joining up late, you get a penalty buy in.”
Niki assumes they’re going to have to take off at least half of their clothes as the penalty to buy in. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices that guy from the bathroom, Heeseung, coming up to the group from a ways away.
“Oh fuck, really?!” Sunoo’s loud gasp jolts Niki back to attention.
“What’s wrong?”
“Didn’t you hear him? They said we have to burn ourselves with a cigarette to buy in or whatever.” Sunoo breaks into a fit of nervous giggling. Niki glances around the group. Two of the guys are smoking, hot red embers glaring back at them in the darkness, but his eyes wander back to Heeseung again. The older boy is hovering just behind the group now, a glass of that bloody red punch in hand, watching intently.
“Do you still want to play, Sunoo?” Niki asks casually, still watching Heeseung approach. What is that guy staring at me for?
“Um…” Niki feels Sunoo’s thigh vibrating against the side of his leg as he taps his foot repeatedly. “I do want to play. I’m scared though. Does it hurt really bad? Can I take a shot or something?”
“One shot?” someone scoffs.
“Are you kidding?”
Heeseung arrives at the back of the sofa across from where Niki and Sunoo are sitting. He puts two hands on the back of the couch, his eyes never leaving Niki’s face.
The older boy's wordless gaze feels like a tractor beam on Niki. That look is familiar—intense—almost like a glare. Like he wants something.
Maybe it's the weed twisting Niki's perception or maybe he just has a dirty mind, but he's pretty sure he knows exactly what that looks means.
Niki clears his throat and forces himself to look away despite the hazy thrall. “Come on, let him play. He’s never played before. Don’t try to scare him.” This has nothing to do with actually pledging. These people aren’t even Beta Theta Phi yet, they’re just some punks.
The skinny guy shrugs, smirks, “Buy in.”
Niki scoffs under his breath. Before anyone can stop him, he snatches the two cigarettes from their fingers and snuffs them out on the meat of his own forearm without flinching. There is a harsh sizzle that makes Sunoo shriek with surprise, cupping his hands around his mouth to hide a horrified, reflexive smile.
When the cigarettes go out, he offers them back to their rightful owners.
No one moves.
Niki can feel Sunoo gaping at him, open mouthed from a foot away. There is a steady stinging sensation on his forearm. He doesn’t have to look down to know there are two big, white welts ringed in angry red flesh under the black and gray ash that’s smeared into his skin.
After a moment, he just sets the crumpled cigarettes down on the table as a peace offering and then leans back into the couch. “Okay. Deal us in.”
The cards are dealt, conversation returns to the circle one person at a time, and Heeseung takes the rest of his drink as a shot before walking away without a word.
“Are you okay?” Sunoo asks him only once, again, much too loud. Everyone stares, so Niki gives a single, solid nod.
“Let’s play.”
As expected, the game is completely uneventful. Sunoo seems innocently titillated, though. They get through five hands, the girl who was already losing ends up in her bra and a thong. Sunoo takes off one single sock, somehow they let him get away with it even though that's against the rules, and then a series of loud chimes rings out over the grungy party music.
Niki glances up from his hand in search of the noise.
“It’s midnight,” someone says.
“Midnight!”
And all of a sudden, boys from all over the house drop what they’re doing. Conversations stutter to a halt, cards are put down, and dancing partners separate as people start picking through the clusters of people: all of the hopeful pledges making their way to the red room toward the back of the house.
“Oh my god, it’s time?” Sunoo cries, sounding much more excited than nervous now. Apparently he’s warmed up to this atmosphere just like Niki predicted. He quickly puts his sock back on and leaps up to join the stream of bodies.
“Stay with me, though, right?” Niki reminds him, touching his arm as they make their way to the back room. He isn’t sure what’s going to happen now. He imagines they’ll have to drink and say some weird words and swear fealty moving forward. Probably sign their names on some list and come back tomorrow to start all of the pledging bullshit. Who knows. Whatever it is, it’ll be fine. He just needs to keep an eye on Sunoo so nothing bad happens to him.
When they file in with the rest of the pledges, they see that a straight line is already forming along the nearest wall.
“Get in line, boys! Backs on the wall,” one of the brothers is calling out, his voice low and hard. Niki counts twelve Beta Theta Phi guys in long hooded robes. At the sight of them, Sunoo jumps and bumps into Niki’s side with a squeal.
“Chill,” Niki chuckles. He wants to tell Sunoo not to draw any extra attention to themselves, but he holds his tongue.
“Backs on the wall. Shut the fuck up,” another one of the brothers snaps from close behind. Niki glances back to get a look at him and recognizes this guy from earlier. He was the one driving the car.
They shuffle into the line and stand as they are told. They notice that guy Jake standing not too far away. Niki is glad to see that he made it back from the bathroom. He’d been looking a little green at the time.
Sunoo is practically shivering beside him as they wait. Niki tries to catch his eye—give him a look to calm him, a little smile, something—but Sunoo won’t look at him. He’s too busy staring at the decor.
The walls of the red room are a deep burgundy red, and all along the far wall are shelves upon shelves of cream and black colored candles that had once been in the shape of skulls. Now, half burned down and dripping, the shelves have become a distorted horror scene. Carefully shaped wax eye sockets have caved in on themselves. Huge gaping holes in the side of disembodied heads filled with pools of glowing wax—
Still a little high, with his vision tracking ever so slightly, Niki finds himself staring at it too. The longer he looks, the more grotesque it becomes.
Down the line from where they’re standing, the brothers are coming around to hand out drinks. “Drink up, boys, your journey is about to begin,” someone says, and then Heeseung is there suddenly blocking Niki’s view of the wall of melting skulls.
“You—” Heeseung starts. His dark, dark eyes crawl up Niki’s face, over his lips and up his nose to meet his gaze evenly, “are a fucking freak, aren’t you?”
A subtle jolt goes through Niki’s chest and then the scathingly familiar feeling sinks into his belly to sit like a stone.
He doesn’t say anything in return. It didn’t feel like a question.
“What's your name?” Heeseung asks.
“Niki.”
A glass is thrust into Niki’s hand. It’s that bloody red punch. When he lifts his eyes again, Heeseung is still there staring. There’s a smirk spreading over the corner of his lips.
“Drink up,” he says after another unnerving moment of silence.
Niki isn’t intimidated by this guy. He shakes off the uncomfortable feeling from that question and gulps down the glass of punch in one go.
Heeseung looks pleased. He moves on to the next boy in line.
When he’s gone, Niki glances over at Sunoo and finds him sipping on his punch. He wonders how many of these they’re going to have to drink. Hopefully, it’s just booze. Niki will be fine even pretty deep under, but what about Sunoo? He doesn’t think his friend has ever done any drugs before.
Luckily the rest of the evening is all bullshit ceremony. The brothers make the hopeful pledges do some weird fucking chanting and burn a bunch of incense. They push them around a little bit, one kid who seemed too jockey gets thrown out, and another nerdy looking freshman gets smacked in the face for commenting on the ludacricy of the whole thing. They all have to drink two more glasses of that punch, and then they get to sign up on the official piece of paper. They will have to return for the real shit to start on Wednesday.
Another round of shots. The guests are told to leave and the hopefuls are made to clean up the party rooms.
Sunoo is swaying on his feet by the time the brothers are kicking them out of the house. Niki holds his arm to steady him.
By the time they’re back in Niki’s dorm room, it’s five o’clock. His roommate is sleeping, so they shuffle in as quietly as possible, but Sunoo is always loud, mumbling, “Tha’ Heeseung guy isso fuckinhot. I wanna suck ‘is dick, Niki. I’mgunna do it.”
“Okay, Sunoo. Let’s get you to bed, dude.”
“You— and you! You burned your–ah–arm… You didn’teven say ow or nothin’! Lemme see it…”
“I’m fine, Sunoo. It doesn’t hurt,” Niki assures him. It’s not a lie. The raw, red circles on his forearm look bad, but the initial sting of it wore off fast and the wounds are completely numb now. He thought it would be more painful. Maybe he just completely killed his nerves.
“You’re a fuckin’ freak, huh? Aren’t ya?” Sunoo slurs, imitating Heeseung’s cadence pretty damn perfectly. “Ha ha huh…”
Niki looks at him sideways. He heard that? It sounds even worse coming out of his friend’s mouth. That same awkward feeling blooms in his chest again, makes it feel tight. “Shut up,” he mutters, tucking the other boy under the covers. If Sunoo’s gonna get this wasted every single time, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. As much as Niki wants his friend to stay at school with him, he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to the guy. He’ll have to think of ways to make it easier on him.
Sunoo falls asleep almost instantly. Niki manages to get a bottle of water on the table next to him and then curls up with a blanket on the floor. As he gets settled, he notices his roommate staring at him from the other bed. The guy grunts his annoyance then rolls over.
Niki falls asleep scheming up ways for Sunoo to pass his liquor over to him without anyone noticing.
The first place Niki and Sunoo ever met was in creative writing class. It was a single semester intensive writing class focusing on poetry, fiction, and autobiography and they were partners for the third assignment. Niki had written a poem titled, “(Sorry) For the Dark” and Sunoo wrote a haiku:
(Sorry) For the Dark
You know,
it isn’t such a big secret.
For all the careful quiet, a roll of thunder
still echoes.
But self-control is an admirable cross.
Still,
late in the night, in the middle of your chest, at the tale end of a dark thought,
wondering, thinking— maybe —
Perhaps is a dirty word.
Don’t turn away; look and see:
It only breaks your balls if you let it.
You can face it—
it won't hurt more than you can take, and
I'll tell you what—
there are pearls in the deep.
But that's not what worries me because
I know
You know
how to swim.
But—
Do you know
how to breathe afterward?
Can you come up again and remember
how to inhale?
Afterward?
You know you have to exhale
first.
Take a deep breath, love, let it
out
slow.
It
would be
okay to let it out,
you know.
Untitled Haiku
Beautiful young man
Look into his eyes; the rest
Stays silent in shame
When they were done reading each other’s work, they stared at the papers awkwardly for a long, long time, not knowing how to tell the other that their words had touched them all the way down the deepest dredges of their souls.
Braver, Niki broke the silence. “Our writing is really different. That’s for sure. But I feel like, maybe…we were writing from the same place.”
“I felt that too.” When Sunoo looked up from Niki’s words, there were actual tears in his eyes. That took Niki aback. People were always moved by his writing, but no one had ever responded to it so viscerally before.
Afterward they tried to be writing partners as often as possible. There was a shared sadness and a strength that they both had. A certain kind of honesty. They didn’t have to say so in any definite terms, but the feeling of their writing was the same.
So often throughout his life, Niki had been misunderstood. Judged. Maybe if Sunoo understood his writing, Sunoo could understand him as a person, too.
After they met up again at the U-Gym, Niki decided they ought to be friends. Sunoo was fun and loud and bright and silly and charming—everything Niki was not. Niki was quiet and stoic with his deep voice and his perpetually serious gaze. He was smart and thoughtful and deep, and he needed someone like Sunoo to understand him. To see him as a friend and care about him for who he really was.
Not very many people could see past Niki’s many self-defense mechanisms. Even Niki himself couldn’t see past them a lot of the time. But maybe Sunoo could. It certainly felt that way every time they connected over their writing or their shared traumas.
“I probably should have known better. Like it’s so obvious,” Sunoo said. Niki shook his head but the other boy went on. “He was always an asshole. I don’t know why I even wanted to date him other than the fact he was hot and popular. I mean, the captain of the football team? And me? It was obviously too good to be true.”
“Not at all,” Niki said flatly. “He just a fucking asshole.”
Sunoo stared at him for a moment and then made a face. Raw, emotional sarcasm, “Yeah. Well turns out I was the asshole.”
Niki scoffed at the double meaning only Sunoo would come up with. He shook his head, a dark little smile on his face. “You're twisted, dude.”
“You get me,” Sunoo chuckled sadly.
“Fuck him.”
“Yeah. I appreciate that you don’t always say, “ Oh Sunoo~ it’s not your fault! You’re so wonderful. You’re so strong~ everytime we talk about this stuff.”
“No, I get it.”
“Thanks, Niki.”
The blonde’s gaze fluttered down and off to the side, just near Sunoo’s feet. “You know all that bullshit is true though, right? It doesn’t make you feel any better, but it’s still true.”
Sunoo grinned. “How do you always know what to say? I feel like…I don’t know. I feel like you get it.”
Get it… Niki shifted uncomfortably. This was always the part of the conversation that he hated, because whenever he gave someone real empathy about something like this, they always expected him to say, #MeToo, or something. And instead, he always ends up having to tell them that he’s actually just a weird slut.
“You can always talk to me about anything,” Niki said solemnly, crossing his arms over his chest. He half-hoped they would move on, but Sunoo pressed him,
“You, too. I hope you know you can open up to me too. I always dump everything on you. It feels kinda one-sided. I hope I’m not draining you.”
He never knew what to say. His experience was too…strange…too weird, and he didn’t want to accidentally lead Sunoo to think the wrong thing about him because that felt like lying. That’s not something to lie about.
“I never got raped or anything, Sunoo,” Niki admitted softly. He almost felt ashamed for saying so. Like somehow he had been doing something wrong just talking to Sunoo about it like he understood when he was never a victim, himself. “It’s just that my first time, I was pretty young so my experience and my…I guess, my view on stuff has been weird.”
“How young?” Sunoo asked. Niki could tell by the look on his face that he was expecting him to say fifteen or sixteen or something. When he said four Sunoo covered his mouth with his hand. After what felt like way too long, he whispered back, “Four?”
Niki coughed once. “Yeah.”
“That's really, really, really, young. Woah.” Niki could see the gears turning behind Sunoo’s eyes as he thought that over—considered the possible causes—
“I was with some friends. We were just messing around; we didn’t know what we were doing,” Niki supplied before Sunoo could jump to any more serious conclusions.
“Friends? You were four?” Sunoo and those damned huge eyes. Niki forced a casual smile and shrugged, trying to brush his own discomfort under the rug. “That’s… Four?! I’ve never heard of that before.” All of a sudden his face was full of pity. It made Niki recoil.
“It’s not like—”
“How old were they?”
“I don’t know. My age probably.” It was so long ago; many of the details were lost to him and he didn’t really want to go digging through memory to talk about this. Still, he made sure to keep his voice flippant so that Sunoo wouldn’t think it mattered. Niki was not trying to make a big deal out of this. And he was definitely not trying to compare his experience to Sunoo’s. Being legitimately date raped and starting to masturbate at the age of four after some weird tickling were completely different. Being a little pervert wasn’t a fucking crime. “I can’t really remember. It was so long ago.”
All of a sudden, Sunoo let out a dramatically hushed gasp. “Niki, do you think this has anything to do with BDSM?”
Niki rubbed at a wrinkle between his eyebrows. “I don’t know.” He’d told Sunoo he was into BDSM a few weeks ago in one of these deeper conversations and it had been a topic of amusement ever since.
“It could be. Four is really young. That has to affect your sexuality somehow.”
He sounded intrigued.
That made Niki feel weird, but then again, it didn’t really matter. Sunoo could muse on it all he wanted. It didn’t have to be a sensitive topic.
It didn’t have to be a bad thing that he’d had his sexual awakening at such a young age. Some people might even envy him. It meant he had a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and about ten years worth of extra orgasms than other guys his age.
Niki changed the topic that day, but these stories came up between them every once in a while as heavy places in the soul often do between good friends. Even if their experiences and their preferences were completely different, Niki knew they still understood each other on that deep level. Sunoo was an invaluable friend to him.
The morning after that first night at Beta Theta Phi, Niki knows Sunoo will wake up hungover and cranky, so as soon as he wakes up he goes out for black coffee and an egg sandwich.
“Here you go, sunshine,” he says, chuckling sympathetically at Sunoo’s expression upon waking. The smaller boy screws his eyes shut with a whine when Niki dares to open the curtain.
“Oh my god. No . I’m going back to sleep.”
“It’s noon. Here. I got you breakfast.”
It takes about thirty minutes for Sunoo to perk up and start talking about last night’s festivities. He comments on every single thing he can remember, from the nameless guests and their attire, to the lighting, to the ridiculous ceremony at the end.
“Did you see that guy passed out in the front yard when we left?”
“I wonder what that punch was made of. Do you think it had cherries in it?”
“Oh my god, did you see that couple on the top of the stairs?”
“No,” Niki replies, sipping on the last dregs of his coffee.
“They were having sex right on the stairs! I thought they were going to come rolling down the stairs and break their necks. Oh my god.” He looks scandalized and disgusted and amused , like he has never seen such a thing before—never even imagined it—and Niki has to stop himself from cringing at the disparity that lurks there between them.
“How shameless do you have to be?” he laughs lightly, smiling. He wolfs down the last bit of his sandwich, apparently feeling much better, and when he looks up and catches Niki’s serious gaze, he asks, “Have you ever done something like that?”
“Like what?”
“Had sex in the middle of a million people,” Sunoo chuckles. “Or just in public? I dunno.”
Niki knows Sunoo only dares to ask him that to his face because he’s been so open about his sexuality all this time. He’d like to say no, but he has a hard time denying things outright. After a few seconds of thought, he tells him, “Not like that. Definitely not on the stairs. That sounds like a dumb way to die.”
“Hm, yeah.”
“So you had fun?” Niki checks, trying to change the topic.
Sunoo sticks his bottom lip out in thought. Then smiles. “Yeah! It was pretty fun. I’m curious to see what happens next.”
“Good.”
“I mean, the place's vibe was kind of gross , to be honest. But it’s all new for me. Do you think it’s always gonna be this crazy?”
“For the next month, yeah. But after that? Day to day, if you decide to crash there it’ll be pretty chill other than parties and stuff,” Niki explains, and Sunoo looks content.
“What is wrong with you?” His mother sounded so disappointed as she loaded him up into the car beside his school things. She was shaking her head, sighing… Niki couldn’t tell if she was mad or sad. He didn’t know what she was thinking. All he knew was that his kindergarten teacher had called his mom and sent him home because he’d been touching himself.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered from the back seat.
The engine roared to life and they peeled out of the school parking lot like they were running away from something.
Niki didn’t say anything on the ride home. Serious eyes kept glancing back at him in the rearview mirror.
After ten minutes of silence in the car, she finally started. “Niki. Listen to me. You can not touch yourself like that. Especially not in school. And if you touch yourself, you need to wash your hands. It’s dirty. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he returned automatically. Although he didn’t really get it. It felt so good. It was better than a hug, better than getting to eat his favorite candy when he was sad or bored. Why wasn’t he supposed to do it?
Even if he’d asked and she managed to explain it to him in terms he could have understood, he realizes looking back that it wouldn’t have mattered. He couldn’t have stopped himself anyway. It was already a habit by then.
All he took away from that conversation was, “You’re dirty,” and “You’d better not do it at school anymore. Do it in secret.”
They’re a week into pledging and everything is falling into a manageable rhythm. Sunoo says it’s fun and interesting seeing what people do. But for Niki, it’s not fun. It’s boring, repetitive and dangerous at the same time. That whole scene is a jungle, but Niki’s okay in the jungle. He’s fine in the mud. He knew what he was getting himself into.
This is just a means to an end.
He has been drinking an ungodly amount since they figured out how to get most of lightweight Sunoo’s liquor into Niki’s cups, though.
There was no need for it if they were just milling around the place, but if the brothers were watching the pledges, Sunoo couldn’t just refrain. He couldn’t spill it into a plant or dribble half of it down the side of the cup onto that filthy floor like he could at other times. So for those kinds of occasions, Niki taught him exactly how to transfer the contents of his cup without making it obvious. They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t look at the cups. Niki would feel the telltale dip in his hand as the weight of his own cup changed, then they would both down their drinks before anyone could notice.
Now Sunoo can enjoy the spectacle without having to do anything he can’t handle and no one is the wiser.
But Niki’s been hungover for a week straight and there’s never any break.
After class every day—whatever classes they manage to make it to by the time they can drag themselves out of bed—they head back to the Beta Theta Phi with the rest of the dwindling group of pledges. Out of the twelve current members of Beta Theta Phi, four of them serve as the pledges task masters. The black haired guy with the car, Sunghoon, makes them do a lot of work like cleaning the frat house, washing that damn car with toothbrushes and tiny little cleaning rags for wiping eyeglasses, doing the shopping, or setting up for parties. Another guy, Jungwon, makes them drink way too much. Jay—who looks suspiciously like a jock for this particular house—enjoys making the pledges entertain the guests by facilitating games or making utter fools of themselves. As for Heeseung, he just lurks around doing whatever the hell he pleases. Mostly staring at Niki. It continues to be unnerving but Niki lets it roll off his back. He's there for Sunoo and Sunoo’s experience seems to be going well so far. He's even making friends with the other pledges just like Niki knew he would.
On the second week of pledging, during a Tuesday night party, a few of the boys have to crawl around in their boxers with trays of shots strapped to their backs like traveling human tables.
Niki ends up being one of the ones to do it. He isn’t sure if he volunteers or if they just pick him. Maybe Sunoo was going to have to do it and he looked uncomfortable, so Niki offered instead? Who knows. He’s too drunk right now to tell the difference.
It's supposed to be humiliating. They want him to feel degraded.
But Niki is much too self-assured to be cowed by something like this. Who gives a fuck?
“Oh my god, don’t spill them, Niki~” Sunoo sniggers, giving him a little pat on the head from somewhere way up high. Niki raises his eyes way, way up to look at him. Pretty Sunoo. He looks happy. He’s pink in the face but he looks surprisingly lucid. That’s good.
“Be careful, horsies,” one of the Beta Theta Phi brothers warns them again. It's Jay this time. He sounds properly threatening but there’s a laugh just barely suppressed under his voice. “Every drop you spill, you’re licking it up off the floor.”
For some reason that makes Niki laugh.
“You like that, you dirty fuck?” someone says. And someone kicks him in the hip and he jolts forward a bit, sending four or five shots tumbling down over his shoulders onto the floor. But he knows that that’s not as many as they wanted. That little prick thought he’d kick Niki over and dump him face first on the floor, didn’t he?
He did . Niki can feel it even when he's this fucked up.
And that makes him laugh even harder. What a jerk.
They don't appreciate his devil-may-care attitude.
An hour later, they’re still making him lick the booze out of the carpet and he’s going to have at least one black eye.
He’s been trying to keep watch over Sunoo even from his stationary place on the floor. For a while, the other boy was nearby, alternatively sitting on the couch or refilling the room’s drink supply, but suddenly he is nowhere to be found.
So Niki gets up to go find him. Permission be damned.
As he’s rushing with slow, drunk fingers to try and get off the belt buckle on his chest that holds the tray on, Heeseung appears, sounding more amused than angry at the disobedience. “Where do you think you’re going, freak?”
Niki scoffs under his breath—doesn’t look at him. “Don’t call me that.” He’s alarmed to hear that the words feel clumsy in his mouth. Apparently he’s drunk too much; he needs to sober up.
All of a sudden, Niki’s staring into Heeseung’s face straight on. It takes a moment before he feels the hand on his face and realizes that Heeseung grabbed him.
“Where’s my friend?” Niki asks thickly. His tongue feels raw from licking the damn floor.
“Sunoo?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you worry about him so much? He’s perfectly fine,” Heeseung says. He’s looking at Niki’s mouth while he speaks, not his eyes. Niki takes a half step back to try and escape the hand clutching his face, but the older boy just digs in harder, his fingers pressing into Niki’s jaw until it actually hurts.
His mouth is smooshed against Heeseung’s face. No, they’re kissing. Actually kissing. Heeseung’s lips are soft and fierce at the same time. The kiss tastes like booze—both the one that Niki was lapping off the floor like a dog and also a different one. A better one. Niki sucks the bottom of a lip in his mouth and nibbles on it. It tastes good.
“Fuck,” he grunts into a hot mouth.
He cracks an eye open and swivels it around the room, ignoring automatic stiffness in his pants. Where did Sunoo go?
“Come upstairs with me,” Heeseung says before Niki has even realized that the kiss ended.
He gives a resolute shake of his head. “I gotta go. I’ll be back tomorrow ‘er…whatever.” Then he goes back to looking for his friend, “Sunoo?”
He can feel Heeseung staring after him looking all pissy. Like he’s done something wrong again. He can feel this energy radiating off the older boy—he’s sad or mad or embarrassed or something—looking at Niki like he’s a dirty little freak.
Or course he does. He was just licking the floor. Niki cracks up all over again.
“Sunoo?” Crossing through the living room and into the kitchen. “Sunoo! Where you at?”
The party has died down quite a bit. Most of the guests have left. Where is Sunoo? Is Heeseung following him? Niki throws a nervous glance over his shoulder and chuckles, rubbing his thumb over the itchy circular burns still healing on his forearm. “Sunoo?!”
“Over here, over here,” comes the familiar voice.
He finds his friend chatting in the kitchen with Jake and a few of the other pledges.
“Hey, I’m probably gonna go soon.”
“Huh?” Sunoo bends an ear toward him, like he can’t hear him over the music. “Are you okay?”
“I’m gonna throw up and I'll be back.”
“Your eye!" Sunoo shouts over the bass, pointing dramatically to make his point. He and Jake and another guy are all staring at Niki’s face.
Yes. What? It’s fine. He needs a toilet or he’s gonna hurl on the floor. He nods, smiles, chuckles at himself, and goes away.
All Niki remembers for the next few minutes are little bits and pieces of cleaning up in the kitchen with Sunoo and the other boys, and then being cold. The bathroom tile is cold.
Heeseung is in the bathroom with him, saying, “Show me what you do.”
“Hmm?” Niki puts up one finger. Hang on, I’m throwing up right now.
—heaving his guts out into filthy porcelain—
He feels dry paper sticking out from his lips. When he exhales he can see his breath. He puts two and two together and discovers there’s a cigarette in his mouth. He runs both hands back through his hair. Feels weird.
“Do it, freak.”
Why did Heeseung sound so serious? If he’s going to say that he should at least be joking.
“Ok, man, chill,” Niki chuckles. His head lolls back and knocks into the tiles. “Whatever.” Sunoo must be almost done cleaning up by now. Niki tastes one more puff on the mystery cigarette and then puts it out on his arm, right next to the other wounds. He’s pretty sure that’s what Heeseung told him to do.
“That doesn’t hurt?” Heeseung asks, grinning this wide, blank thing as he stares at the wound. He’s holding Niki’s forearm face up. He rubs his thumb over it, scruffs off the ash and the blistered skin in two firm swipes.
Niki shrugs down at the circle of raw, wet flesh exposed underneath. “Nah. Feels good,” he mumbles blankly.
“I knew you were fucked in the head.”
“Yeah?”
How? He wonders. Is it that obvious? He’s fine.
“We’re gonna have fun with you, huh?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t give a shit.”
Niki huffs at that. That’s not really true. Only mostly. He looks away from that invasive gaze and accidentally catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Sure enough, there is a puffy bruise over his left eye, under the eyebrow. It’s turning purple. He completely forgot about that. It’s more annoying than anything. It makes it hard to open his eye all the way. “Did you kick me in my fucking face?” For the life of him, Niki cannot remember who did that.
He feels a little ember of anger start to glow somewhere deep down—
“Fuck you, Niki!” She slapped him so hard his teeth rattled. His other cheek crashed into the pillow—soft and wet.
None of this was meant for him. He didn’t speak until he turned back to meet her gaze, putting two reassuring hands on her thighs, by the thickness of her waist. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
“Fuck him!” She was weeping over him, long ginger waves hanging down around her head like a veil and quivering with the sobs. He could feel it every time—every racking cry made her pussy tighten around him.
“Fuck him. You’re okay,” he muttered reassuringly.
He had a black eye after that too—can’t remember how many times she hit him—
“Niki?” Suddenly, Sunoo’s head pops in the sliver of visible doorway space behind Heeseung’s body. At the sight of him, Niki forgets all about the remembered pain and breaks into a massive smile.
“Sunoo! There you are! Lezzgohome.” Screw this Heeseung guy. All Niki wants is to go to sleep in Sunoo’s arms. Just fall asleep. He’s actually so fucking tired…
“Be here tomorrow,” Heeseung snaps at Niki as he brushes past to leave with his friend.
The next day, Niki sleeps through his first three classes. He doesn’t manage to get up until after noon, and his head is pounding. He eats a light lunch alone in the dorm. His roommate is long gone. Sunoo is gone too. He must have made it to class.
The black eye is just a little lump—not too bad—but he doesn’t like to see it there. Not because it hurts, just because he can’t remember it happening. There is a strange, nagging feeling of shame that scratches around the edges of Niki’s consciousness every time he passes a reflective surface, but he refuses to acknowledge it.
Maybe Sunoo can start drinking a little bit more of his own booze. Thinking back to what he can remember from last night, Niki thinks the other boy was practically sober.
He tells him as much when they meet up for dinner in the U-Commons later that day. “I was kinda wasted last night. If we’re doing shots again tonight, can you drink at least half of them, you think?”
“You were a hot mess last night, Niki,” Sunoo says, sounding snarky. He casts Niki a scathing look as he digs into his bowl of pasta. “I figured you were going to hook up with someone, but did it have to be Heeseung?”
“I didn’t hook up with anyone.”
“You knew I wanted to get with him,” Sunoo teases. He sounds like he’s trying to keep this exchange light, but Niki is surprised to see that the other boy actually looks irritated with him.
“I didn’t. What are you talking about?”
“Oh puh-lease. I saw you making out with him after you finished licking the floor .” There’s a look of amused disgust on Sunoo’s face that makes Niki feel uncomfortable. “ And I saw the two of you in the bathroom.”
He had completely forgotten about the kiss. That was not intentional, but he doesn’t consider that ‘hooking up.’ Nothing else happened between them. “We didn’t do anything,” he tries to assure him, but Sunoo still looks put out.
It’s a look that Niki isn’t unfamiliar with. This has happened to him all throughout his life. Somehow people know about Niki—that he’s good in bed, he’s experienced, he’ll do anything, he’s already done everything—he doesn’t know what they say. He tries not to listen to the rumors.
For a lot of people, that’s a turn off. But for the rest, it’s reason enough to get with him, apparently. In high school people were always coming onto him for one reason or another and it rubbed other people the wrong way.
“I’m sorry, man,” Niki offers sincerely, because Sunoo is still looking at him like he did this on purpose.
The other boy huffs out an exasperated sigh. “Are you even gay? I don’t understand you.”
Niki shrinks somewhat at those words, a pang shooting through him.
“I thought you were only into girls now.”
“Um…” It’s true that he has mostly been with girls since high school, but before Niki can try to explain himself, Sunoo is retelling his story for him.
“But you were with guys first right? So okay. Whatever.” He takes another bite of his dinner and grumbles with his mouth full, “I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to get with him anyway.”
There is an awkward little silence and Niki feels like he’s supposed to apologize again. Somehow he’s done something wrong when all he was doing was making a fool of himself to spare Sunoo the experience…
But Sunoo changes the subject before Niki finds the words. “My mom called me today,” he announces, “She wants me to come home for my little cousin’s baptism over the weekend.”
“Oh? Are you gonna go?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad.” For all that religion has done Niki’s head in over the course of his childhood, he still holds a special place in his heart for God. He knows that Sunoo feels the same.
“I told her I couldn’t come because we’re pledging and she freaked out.”
Niki snorted out a short laugh. “Yeah, I bet.”
Pledging—drinking and screwing around doing stupid shit—saying “oh my god” and “fuck” and being gay, having sex outside of marriage, feeling lust, having impure thoughts, touching himself—
It was all sin, sin, sin. And they were going to hell unless they gave it up and behaved properly.
“Repent! You can be renewed. You can be pure again. God will make you new.” The youth pastors said over and over again in their little Wednesday night sermons for the teens, like there was nothing more important than purity. Being clean. Being good.
There was absolutely no hope for Niki when it came to that. Before he even knew what the word ‘masturbation’ meant, he had already been doing it for seven years. It was shocking to learn at the age of eleven that he’d been sinning, sexually, for as long as he could remember.
The other youth group kids bought purity rings to proclaim their virginity and their innocence to each other, and their parents were so proud. Sunoo had one of those rings at one point, he told Niki early on when they were still getting to know each other and finding many things in common.
Those kids were saving themselves for marriage, they said. Purity, innocence, intimacy, dignity… Those things were worth protecting.
But Niki never had anything like that. He couldn’t even conceptualize that. His earliest memories were sexual. He already gave it all away before he knew what he was losing.
He’d always been this way.
There were many, many times when he tried to do better, but a lifelong habit is not easy to break. “Some people just have dirty minds. They can't help themselves,” he heard a girl say one time, and he knew she might as well have been talking about him.
He knew everything. Every dirty thing. He always had. He learned it when he was learning to write the fucking ABCs and do simple math. It was that routine to him.
Still, he repented every time the youth pastors told the teenagers to do so. He swore he would never touch himself again. He would never do these things with anyone, for anyone, ever again!
But his desperate vows never lasted more than a few days.
One time he dared to open up about his struggles with a bible study small group. When he admitted that he’d started all this at the age of four, the other teens looked at him like he was a complete freak. Most of them were virgins, they swore on everything they loved that they’d never looked at porn before—
“Yikes,” one of the boys said, looking down like he couldn’t even look Niki in the eye after that, and it felt exactly the same as when his mother called him dirty in the car on the way home from kindergarten that day years earlier. No one else said anything; they were too busy struggling to swallow their spit and figure out where to look at the same time.
So he never brought it up with church people again either.
Sunoo, on the other hand, was a good boy. The church said his gayness was a problem, but he was pure, naive, and innocent. He told Niki that he had been a virgin until he was eighteen. Even to this day, Sunoo seemed to know very little about sex although he liked to act like he did. The truth always came out in conversation.
Sunoo would ask Niki questions about sex and Niki’s honest answers would shock him every single time.
“Have you ever done a threesome?”
Niki shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
“ Really? When?!”
“I don't really remember it. It was my first time.”
As always, Sunoo looked surprised to be reminded of that strange first time. He quickly skirted around it. “You haven't done it again since then?”
Niki tried to remember. There were a few times with Ellen where they were so high…it was hard to recall. “Nah. I don't think so.”
And another time,
“Have you tried kink?”
That was when Niki told him he'd been into BDSM for years. It was more fun than cutting himself when he felt like a hopeless piece of shit. It wasn’t as lonely.
Sunoo asked him endless questions about that. In the beginning, he’d seemed really curious about how BDSM could work and what exactly Niki had tried before, and Niki didn’t mind giving him honest answers to the questions. If he wanted his friend to understand him, he would have to open up to him, wouldn’t he?
At first, Sunoo was entertained, but the more he asked, the more dramatic his responses to the answers became.
“That’s so crazy ,” he would sometimes say.
Those words didn’t feel good. Maybe Sunoo was just entertaining himself with Niki’s stories. Maybe he wasn’t actually asking in good faith, but more out of morbid curiosity. After that, Niki stopped being quite so open about his experiences. Instead of going into detail, he would mince words when he answered Sunoo’s many questions.
Niki is sure that Sunoo can relate to him in a lot of ways, but the boy is still pretty immature. Or maybe sheltered is a better word. That’s why Niki wants to protect him.
Trying to relate to Sunoo’s current situation, Niki takes a sip of his soda and offers, “I can try to talk to the brothers for you, if you want. Maybe you can sneak home for the weekend and come right back. Your support would probably mean a lot to your cousin and they seem like they like you enough.”
“Nah, I already told her no. I don’t want to miss anything. Only one more week and we’re going to be moving on in~” Sunoo sing-songs, dancing with his elbows. Niki grins, happy to see how well Sunoo has adjusted.
He was debating on whether or not to tell Sunoo that he wasn’t sure about moving in, personally, but he bites his tongue for now, just glad to see Sunoo in a better mood, the Heeseung issue apparently forgotten.
As long as Sunoo isn’t mad at him over something stupid like that…
Even if he can’t fully understand him, even if Sunoo could just understand him somewhat , that’s all Niki can ask for, really.
He’s had a hard time even finding that much over the years.
The next two days at Beta Theta Phi are less eventful. Heeseung is out of town but the other brothers carry on making the pledges’ lives hell. But Niki is relieved. None of it means much to him. Everything just feels lighter without the brown-haired siren staring at him all the time from across the room.
Jay has been making the boys do a brutal workout regimen each night. The worst part of it is the inversion table. Niki can tell how pleased Jay is to have come up with this:
It’s an at-home version of a spinal decompression table. One at a time, the boys have to strap their feet in, then the table gets turned upside down so they’re made to hang from their ankles. They have to hang perfectly still with their hands crossed over their chest like a sleeping bat for two minutes before they are allowed to start the thirty crunches. After the crunches, still upside down, they’re supposed to chug a beer through a straw in thirty seconds or less, or else start over.
The first guy who tries it turned purple in the face and apparently faints half way through the beer because the crunches take him so long.
This is their stupidest idea yet. Niki gets it done as quickly as possible.
Sunoo is aghast but Niki is pleasantly surprised when he manages it on the first try as well.
No one who has to “start over” actually succeeds. One boy takes a four shot penalty in the end, never having succeeded.
Three more pledges drop like flies.
The next day, only eight pledges are left. Jake is still among the group and he has grown particularly close with Sunoo. Niki tries to participate in their conversations as much as possible.
As they scrub the tires on Sunghoon’s big, black car for the millionth time, the topic of conversation turns to girlfriends. Apparently, Jake’s just broke up with him this morning.
“Sorry, man, that sucks,” Niki offers. When he reaches too far to scrub something, his sore muscles protest.
“Yeah,” Jake sighs, long and low. “If you guys know anybody…I’m looking for a rebound.”
“We’re not gonna be your best leads for girls. Sorry,” Sunoo says through a lopsided grin. “I’m the most fabulous gay in Beta Theta Phi and Niki isn’t doing relationships.”
Niki throws Sunoo a questioning look. Why did he say it like that? Now Jake’s going to think he’s a player or something when in reality, Niki is putting relationships on hold to try and make some real friends for once.
He has had two girlfriends over the last four years and Sunoo knows all about them.
First was Ellen—with her wild, ginger mane and her scrawny frame, all full of fire and fury. She had been in Niki’s periphery since childhood. They’d been in the same classes since elementary school. They were acquaintances, sometimes friends, and when she was fourteen and her new stepfather started molesting her, she didn't know what to do with herself except come to Niki.
Niki had a reputation; he was a black hole where she could unload all of her trauma. He wouldn't be shocked and he wouldn't judge her. He would just absorb it, and he would be there to hold her when she was done, and tell her that it was okay, and he understood, and she wasn't alone.
She never wanted to be his girlfriend for real, not in public anyway. They went to the same school but they pretended not to know each other in the hallways, just fucking and dying together in secret.
But they were together for three years on and off.
The first time he messed around with kink for real was with Ellen.
All the drugs he ever did, all of those firsts were with her.
She would call him in the middle of the night sometimes wanting to fuck. And he knew that she’d just been with that asshole and now she wanted Niki to fix it—to replace that horrible feeling and make her forget—to give her back some control of her own body—somehow.
He knew it wasn’t healthy for anyone but if it helped her, he would do it. She didn’t deserve any of it. She was a good girl underneath it all, and he saw that Ellen so clearly even when she didn’t believe in that part of herself anymore.
Besides, they really understood each other so they never had to feel alone with it all.
When her family moved down south at the end of their senior year to put her in a rehabilitation facility some uncle owned, she called Niki to say goodbye.
“Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t do anything dumb. You’d better keep your promise to me.”
“I will,” he tried to say, but she talked over him.
“I love you.” It was the first and last time she ever said it to him. Before he could say it back, Ellen said, “Bye,” and the line went dead.
He never heard from her again.
Then, in the first semester at University, Niki met Cami.
It was as if she was from another world. She was perfect. Gorgeous. Caramel brown skin and sparkling hazel eyes.
Cami was a foreign exchange student from France. And he could tell immediately that she was pure. He hadn’t been able to understand the meaning of that before. Being a virgin or being a prude or whatever the church said purity was, none of that made sense to Niki. But Cami was like pristine water. No one had ever touched her wrong. No one could disrespect her. She was this wonderful, kind, intelligent, good person who was beyond reproach.
Somehow, she was interested in Niki. As a person.
He didn’t know if it was the language barrier or what, but she didn’t seem aware of his reputation. Or perhaps it was too early into this new situation at University and his reputation just hadn’t followed him from school yet? Either way, her English was good enough that they connected over his writing at a spoken word event in the dorms and the rest was history.
They dated for three months. For the longest time in his life, they did not have sex. It felt like she was too good for him to do that to her.
His sex was dirty. It was jaded. He was desensitized.
Cami deserved better than that.
So instead of all the things he usually did, he scraped together money to take Cami to dinner and the movies off campus. He even attempted swing dancing in the Student Union to amuse her. But mostly they just talked, and Niki’s mind and his heart fell desperately in love with her.
She took him to bed in the last week of the semester. He was almost scared to do it, thinking she might finally realize he was garbage if he touched her too skillfully or did something that he probably shouldn’t know how to do. So instead, he just held her. It was slow, soft, intimate and perfect. It was so different from all the other sexual experiences he’d had all those years. It felt so good and so special that he almost cried.
“Maybe I’ll be able to come back next summer,” she told him a few days later, her hand soft and warm on his cheek. There was a hopeful smile crinkling the skin around her eyes, but Niki’s grin was terribly forced. Losing her now felt like his life was ending right as it had begun. He was being born again in her arms. She was the only thing that had ever made him feel like he could become something new, something different. Something better than he was.
And then she was gone too.
Niki hasn’t been with anyone since Cami.
He’s still in love with her and even though he knows he’ll probably never see her again, the least he can do is use the little bit of shine she left on him to try and become a better guy, make some friends… Something.
That’s why he’s so worried about helping Sunoo stay in school. Niki never really wanted to be here in the first place. He only came to University to keep his promise to Ellen, and he definitely doesn’t want to be here alone.
Plus he can’t lose another friend, and Sunoo is kind of the only one he has.
He knows he isn’t Sunoo’s only friend, though. Sunoo is popular. He can get along with everyone. He makes new friends everyday.
Jake is still grumbling about his ex. He and Sunoo have moved on to another tire on the other side of Sunghoon’s car. But Niki lingers behind on the rear passenger side, still lost in his thoughts.
On the last day of pledging before the initiation ceremony, Niki and Sunoo arrive at the Beta Theta Phi house around six o’clock. They’re supposed to have a quick meeting with the brothers and the remaining six pledges before they set up for the big party that starts at nine.
Niki’s stomach has been playing tricks on him all day. He was nauseous after breakfast, but that’s not unusual these days. His hangover has become a permanent feature. He’s probably becoming an alcoholic from all of this, he thinks, so he resolves to quit drinking altogether after this stupid pledging process is over. At lunch time he had absolutely no appetite, and ever since then he’s had the feeling of butterflies flapping around in his belly and chest. Hopefully it’s not fucking heart palpations or something.
Just one more night…
Sunoo is practically skipping beside him as they approach the house, but he claims to be nervous. “Jake told me he heard that they’re making cocktails. Jungwon sent him to the store for cherry liqueur. I don’t know if he’s going to be there for the meeting. He said there’s crazy traffic on the highway.”
At rush hour on a Friday? Of course there is. Niki doesn’t respond. He’s too busy glancing around the crowded lawns of Goretti Avenue. It’s as packed today as it was on that first day, a whole month ago now. This is going to be one of the biggest parties they’ve had.
He has a bad feeling.
“Try to stay close tonight?” he asks, putting an arm around Sunoo. He’s been going off with Jake and the others, and that’s fine, but Niki can sense the paramount nature of tonight’s event. It’s the last test. “They’re probably gonna do some crazy shit tonight.” If Sunoo ended up getting in over his head on the very last night, Niki would feel terrible for putting them through all this.
Sunoo turns his face up to wink at him. “You too, darling~”
Somehow Jake does make it back before the meeting. At six o’clock, six pledges and twelve Beta Theta Phi brothers are standing around in the red room. Heeseung is there, looking taller than usual in high waisted leather pants. He glances at Niki only once while the pledge masters drill the rules and expectations into the boys’ heads.
As the meeting ends, they wheel out a rolling table topped with the same glass punch bowl from the very first night. It’s only half full, a dark, cloudy looking liquid sitting in the bottom.
“Soon-to-be-brother Jake,” Jungwon says grandly. “The cherry.”
Jake hands over a large liqueur bottle and Jungwon makes a big show of pouring the entire thing into the bowl. As soon as the cherry liqueur hits the surface of the drink below, the punch bowl swirls to life. Big bands of dark purple cocktail glitter explode upward, rippling and churning over themselves in spirals. It looks alive. A bottle of whiskey gets dumped in next and then the brothers start parceling out servings into prearranged red cups.
That’s a lot of booze. Niki doesn’t get the point of the cherry liqueur since it’s bound to taste horrible anyway.
Sunoo is bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet beside him.
The rest of the cups are properly portioned out. Jay, Sunghoon, and Heeseung grab two cups each and deliver them to the line of pledges with their usual air of superiority. It has slowly started to rub Niki the wrong way, but as always, he lets the unease roll off his back and rolls with it. He’s not surprised when Heeseung is the one that comes to them, handing Sunoo and Niki the two glasses from his hands.
He is surprised when the older boy doesn’t leave, though. He just stands there, giving Sunoo a short smile and then looking at Niki in that way that makes his skin crawl as Jungwon starts making a speech.
“Tonight,” Jungwon is saying, holding up a cup, “drink up, have fun, be yourself, go wild.” His eyes swivel around the room, moving to each boy in turn. Niki does his best to focus on the silly benediction instead of glancing back at Heeseung’s looming presence straight ahead. Jungwon's voice drops dramatically. “Tonight we feast and tomorrow…we’re brothers.”
A murmur of excitement runs through the group.
Then Jungwon shouts, “Beta Theta Phi!” and the rest of the boys shout it back at him.
In the midst of the noise, Niki feels a subtle dip in the cup in his hand near his side. He tenses his forearm to accommodate the change as the weight nearly doubles.
“Drink up, assholes,” Jungwon says.
Out of the corner of his eye, Niki sees Sunoo rush to raise his cup. He does a good job pretending to drink for longer than necessary, just like Niki taught him.
Niki catches Heeseung’s eye as he does the same. The drink is even nastier than he expected. It’s bitter but it’s sickly sweet at the same time, like the knowing grin on Heeseung’s face as he just stares —
He keeps his throat open to let the poison pour down as fast as he can.
“Cheers,” Heeseung says when Niki’s cup is finally empty.