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These Are The End Times, the newspapers proclaim. Sharp letters in black-and-white that are printed on the front page of every major publication across the world.
The television networks pretend that they’re above such blatant scare tactics. They invite men in neat suits to round-table discussions, who talk a lot but say nothing, while bold text scrolls across the bottom of the screen. The difference in approach is irrelevant, really. Whether it’s through ink and paper or pixels and sound waves, the acrid smell of doom permeates through the exact same way.
The fact of the matter is that everyone knows. What else is there to do but let it all play out?
Cheonan, 1988
The houses are packed together the same way fish are lined up for sale at the market: in neat rows, with very little space between them, and a price written above their heads. The distinction is that the fish are laid to rest on ice, cool to the touch, while the people of Cheonan slowly bake in the summer air.
Sung Hanbin peers down the narrow street with an opened ice cream bar in one hand. The heat is bad enough today that it radiates off the asphalt in waves and creates tiny mirages in the distance. The sugar melts down his fingers. He licks it up before it gets sticky.
Someone new is moving into the neighbourhood. Two big men help carry boxes from an old car, dipping into one of the characteristic low-to-the-ground houses of their southeastern district. Hanbin watches the commotion with interest from the safety of his house gate, just brave enough to stick one foot onto the road and lean out to get a better look. Their belongings don't amount to much, entire lives stuffed into the back of a vehicle. Hanbin gapes for so long that his mom has to call for him to come inside twice.
There are sounds of construction—and the thick dust that comes with it—all across the city. But Hanbin grew up with the sweet lullabies of car horns, distant music from balconies, and the relentless machine sounds of new apartments being built. At nine years of age, these are everyday things, and the concrete and wires are an adventure rather than a hindrance.
The days pass by slowly. Hanbin catches glimpses of another boy in sudden bursts, like how the sunlight bounces off cars that drive by in quick, shiny flashes. He’s never close enough for Hanbin to really see him. He thinks he might be a ghost.
His existence is confirmed by his mother.
“I think there’s a little boy about your age, a few houses down. Maybe we should say hello?” she asks Hanbin, while teasing his hair up at the front in spikes, just how he likes it. Just like only she knows how. She takes Hanbin to school like that, and he chatters to her the entire way about anything and everything.
Hanbin, curiosity reaching a new peak, tries his best to catch a good look at the new boy over the next few days. His street, a narrow one that can barely fit two cars side by side, is situated on a small hill, a peculiar feature in their relatively flat city. Two doors down on their left lives an old lady with a tiny dog that barks at people walking by. Next door on their right is another family. Hanbin’s mother had told him their kids are sixteen and seventeen. Hanbin thought that was really old.
The first time they meet, it’s under the shade of tall, green trees, where dappled sunlight breaks through the leaves and makes patterns on the playground sand. Hanbin thinks he notices him first. Years later, Hao will tell him that he got it all wrong.
Though Cheonan’s residential streets are cramped, the main roads are six lanes or more. For a kid Hanbin’s age, neither of these places are an appealing place to play. There’s one park several blocks over, with swings that creak and paint that sometimes crumbles off in your hands. Hanbin adores it.
The boy is playing alone, away from everyone else, halfway up a tree. The branches shake under his weight as he tests out where he should place his feet. Hanbin only notices him because he’s wearing a shirt in a fire engine red colour. He could’ve found him from across the city.
Hanbin is a bit shy when he walks over.
“To the left. And then up,” he says, head tilted up and eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun.
The boy stops climbing and looks down at him, an eyebrow raised. He’s backlit, light peeking through the leaves, but Hanbin can just make out his features. He has a beauty mark under one eye and another on the opposite cheek. Hanbin immediately likes them.
When the boy doesn’t say anything, Hanbin repeats what he said, this time with enthusiastic gestures and pointing. He thinks it’s because the boy in the tree can’t see where he needs to step next from his perspective. Behind them, little kids scream and push each other down the slide under the watchful eyes of concerned parents, and the cars on distant roads thunder across the pavement.
“Okay, I’m coming up too,” Hanbin announces. He shrugs off his backpack, and it collapses into itself in a tri-colour heap by the roots and long grasses. He wipes his hands on his shorts so they’re not sweaty, then hoists himself up. The other boy makes room for him where he’s sitting on a branch, shuffling over across rough bark that snags at his printed shorts. Hanbin settles beside him. Both of their legs dangle. Under the shade of the tree, the air is cooler, providing some needed relief from the mid-afternoon sun.
Hanbin studies him out of the corner of his eye. He’s smaller than Hanbin is, but they look like they’re the same age.
“How do we get down?” the boy asks, after a while. It’s the first thing he ever says.
Hanbin shrugs. “I guess we jump.” And he does it without thinking twice. He looks down at the dirt, makes a calculated risk, then slides off the branch in a free-fall. He lands with two feet, though he feels the shocks go through his legs like needles. They were higher up than he thought.
The boy looks down at him like Hanbin had unbuckled himself on a rollercoaster. Hanbin laughs, then calls up, “It’s fine.”
Not wanting to be outdone, the boy’s eyebrows narrow in concentration. He mutters something to himself, hesitating for only a second before he all but launches himself to the ground. He stumbles but catches himself. The eyes that meet Hanbin’s are challenging.
“I’m Sung Hanbin,” he introduces. Formally, like he’s seen adults do.
“Zhang Hao,” the other boy answers.
“Do you want to be friends?” Hanbin asks, without hesitation. Because he wants to know him so desperately.
“Okay,” Hao agrees.
Like all things between them, it comes easy.
Cheonan, 1992
“I didn’t know what you meant,” Hao grumbles. “Had I known you would spend the rest of your life speaking informally, disrespectfully, to me—”
Hanbin swipes the chip right out of Hao’s fingers. “What’s a bit of informality between best friends? Besides, how was I supposed to know that you’re older than I am?”
“You took advantage of me,” Hao mourns. Doubly so for his stolen food.
Sung Hanbin had just turned thirteen, and Zhang Hao would soon turn fourteen. From that moment in the tree, they’d been inseparable. To escape the winter chill, they huddled together in Hao’s tiny room, knees pressed together as they read from the same manhwa volume. To escape the summer heat, they sat outside on mats under trees, or right on the cool, rough concrete of shaded curbs. They lounged on Hanbin’s brown, faux-leather couch that was too slippery to enjoy without a blanket underneath your ass, and Hanbin taught Hao how to ride a bike within the confines of their neighbourhood block.
The week their families met, Hanbin’s mother had become immediately taken with Hao’s mother. Hanbin’s dad gazed on in exasperation as Hanbin’s mom brought out the large plastic bucket and made, what everyone had roughly estimated to be, enough kimchi to feed a family of fourteen for a year. Even Areum, nine at the time, looked on in concern from the doorway.
Headstrong, Hanbin’s mother was the force of a hurricane on even her calmer days—which was exactly the reason why his father loved her so much.
“What if they don’t like kimchi?” Hanbin’s father had asked, trying his best to be supportive.
“What?” his mother had cried. “Don’t say something like that.”
She had knocked on their door, handed over a bag with plastic containers stacked inside, and ran off. Over her shoulder, she had called, “If you don’t like it, don’t tell me!”
Hao’s mother had returned with zheng jiao, neatly wrapped. Hanbin remembered that Hao had been behind her in their doorway, with a bashful look on his face.
There weren’t that many foreigners in Seoul, let alone Cheonan, but Hanbin hadn’t registered this as a problem, whilst Hao was painfully aware of it. When they had first met, Hao’s Korean had been shaky at best, though he could hold a conversation with Hanbin just fine.
“I have to hear you say it,” Hao had grumbled when Hanbin tried to explain the subtleties of certain words and the nuances in pronunciation. Hanbin does what he’s told.
Six months after meeting Hanbin, Hao had caught up enough with the language that he raced ahead of his peers in school. Clearly, the kid who was first in Hao’s class had only been there to warm up the seat for Hao. Hao’s classmates weren’t happy about it, but Hanbin was.
They were in different years, but Hanbin watched Hao closely, catching flashes of him through open windows or in crowded hallways between classes. Hao became a near-perpetual presence in the Sung household, and Hanbin’s mother celebrated Hao’s achievements as though he was her own son. Even Hao’s mother often joked that she had somehow acquired another kid.
Somehow, Hanbin managed to convince Hao to teach him some Mandarin; in his own words, as a thank you for his continued patience and guidance and friendship and benevolent demeanour. Completely blundering the pronunciation (sometimes on purpose, though mostly not), Hanbin enjoyed hearing Hao laugh. At times, it was a light sound. In others, it was loud and guttural. He liked them both, for they had different meanings.
During that first summer, Hanbin had written down Hao’s phone number on a piece of paper and stuck it to the wall beside his bed to learn it faster. He had whispered the digits under his breath as he fell asleep.
Now, he punches in the buttons without thinking, knowing the correct movements better than the actual string of numbers. It’s muscle memory in the same way he imagines dancing is, and his heart always races as he hears the familiar dial tone.
He and Hao ride their bikes up narrow streets, finally old enough to taste real freedom, yet still too young to feel the hefty weight of the future upon them. They press their noses against the glass windows of storefronts, gaping at displays and advertisements of things they can’t afford. This week it’s a Nintendo game console: a new wave of technological innovation, with realistic graphics and a re-designed controller that fits better in your hand.
The shopkeeper catches them leaving smudgy handprints on the glass, which are barely noticeable on from the outside, but garish blotches when viewed from the inside. He opens the door, bell jingling, and shouts at them to get away from his store if they’re just going to make a mess. Hanbin and Hao flee, and Hanbin shouts as he pedals that, Ahjussi, it’s free to look!
Both of them ask for a Nintendo for their birthdays. Both of their parents say no. Looking back, Hanbin thinks the one in the window probably wasn’t even the real thing.
Hanbin gets some pocket money occasionally. It’s not a lot by any stretch, but he’s thankful for it nonetheless. He spends it with Hao on convenience store ice cream and salty snacks in crinkly bags and arcade tokens. There’s a vacant lot closer to the mountains, a mess of rugged asphalt and overgrown weeds and whatever junk people have decided to toss there. Hanbin and Hao far prefer it over the playground they used to go to, wow too old to find anything appealing about it . They take winding bike rides to that crude bit of pavement on weekends when they want to escape the city.
“Do you think you could build a house here?” Hao asks.
Hanbin, whose fingers are greasy and stained with oil from trying to fix the fallen chain on his bike, answers, “Here?”
“Like right here. Where we’re standing.”
He scratches his nose, getting a nice smudge on the side. “I’m not sure how to build a house from nothing. But if you wanted one, I could learn.”
Hao laughs. He leans forward over the handlebars of Hanbin’s bike, forcing his full attention. “Good. Because I want a huge one, with seven bedrooms and a yard for all my dogs.”
“You don’t have any dogs,” Hanbin points out.
“We can get some.” Hao reaches forward and wipes the black grease off his face with the side of his hand.
Hao sometimes speaks of the future like that, in ways Hanbin can’t always figure out. He talks of tremendous adventures and ostentatious futures that sometimes feel less like a fairytale and more like a vanishing act. Hanbin can’t quite piece together what he wants or what these far-reaching dreams really mean, but he likes, for reasons he doesn’t understand yet, that Hao wants to share them with him.
If Hanbin was asked what it is about Hao he likes so much, he doesn’t know if he could answer in a succinct way. He’s thirteen and volatile, unsure of how he feels about himself, let alone others. He turns most of his focus inwards, analysing others only if they have traits that stand out as particularly desirable or disagreeable. He’s hard on himself in ways which make his mother frown at him, and compels Hao to squeeze his arm in a reassuring gesture.
Grander concepts, such as Zhang Hao and the complicated feelings that are beginning to arise, are things to be handled later. For now, he can sum up his thoughts on the matter quite simply.
Hanbin likes that Hao is up for anything. He decides that this is the chemical reaction that forms a best friend: a willingness to go along with any hairbrained scheme he has—and he has his fair share. Ultimately harmless in their nature, Hao and Hanbin’s ruses are most concerned with racing up and down the streets, past tiny storefronts with colourful signage, and exploring every inch of the place they call home.
They pay 500 won for noodles and slurp them on concrete steps, just as dusk begins to fall. Shops and restaurants are interspersed between mid-rise condos and unevenly built homes and even the odd church—those are starting to pop up everywhere. Hao and Hanbin people-watch as cars pass and kids their age spend entire nights under neon lights above shop displays, beating back the evening chill beside the puffs of hot steam that rise from food carts. Those are parked at almost every street corner.
“Do you wanna go?” Hanbin questions.
Hao finishes off the noodles, despite trying valiantly to feed Hanbin the rest and Hanbin resisting. “Mmm?” he gets out, mouth full and cheeks round.
Hanbin should find it gross. Instead, he finds it endearing. “We can still go to the arcade like you wanted to. We have some time.”
His mom had given Hanbin a watch—a bulky, dark blue plastic thing—and would send him off with instructions to be back by a certain time. When he complained that Hao didn’t have to wear something so dorky, his mother had said, “Well that’s because he’s always with you. Why would we need two?”
Arcades have a certain atmosphere, one that sends a thrill through Hanbin’s body as though he’s a live wire. The rush, the exhilaration, the array of vibrant colours—it’s almost overpowering. Hao says going there feels like it’s your birthday. That’s probably the closest they could get to describing it.
It’s loud when they get inside. Lights flash on stand-up video game machines and kids roar their defeats over 8-bit graphics. A crowd of eager, excited teens surround Street Fighter II, as two players face off for some kind record. Even the carpet has its own smell. Flat and low-pile, it glowed in the dark—at least the parts without stains from sodas and other liquids did.
Hao isn’t that interested tonight. He tries his hand at the claw machine in the back, next to posters of new game releases and flyers advertising local bands. Hanbin indulges him as he wastes too many won trying for a stuffed cat, before Hanbin nudges him over and inserts his own coins.
“The cat,” Hao directs, tapping at Hanbin’s arm.
Hanbin hovers over a rabbit. “Oh, sorry, you meant this one right?”
Hao makes a growly-whiny sound. Hanbin laughs.
After a few more tries than he would like, Hao is now the owner of a little black and white cat toy. Hao sticks it into the front of his baggy jeans, so that it looks like it’s poking out to say hello.
“I’ll treasure him forever,” vows Hao seriously. Hanbin’s heart beats.
It’s dark outside when they finally leave, pockets lighter but smiles wider. Hanbin’s watch beeps out an alarm that cuts through their light conversation.
“Damn,” Hanbin laments. Time-out already.
They’re in the part of the city, not too far from home, where there are seafood restaurants and dim cafés on every block, alongside newly opened things called noraebangs. The summer night is alive with people crossing streets without looking, with trendy (and some not-so-trendy) music pouring out from open doors. That Seo Taiji and Boys song had come out a few months earlier, and it was still the only thing playing on speakers and radios. The singer begged his lover not to leave over peppy, hip-hop beats. Hao sings along under his breath and copies some of the arm movements.
Hao’s bicycle had gotten a flat tire a couple of days ago. After assessing the damage, Hanbin had screwed pegs onto the back wheels of his own bike so that they could still get around. It’s a bit more taxing to pedal this way, but they make it work for now. Hanbin kind of likes the closeness of it.
On the way home, Hao stands on the back of Hanbin’s bike with his hands on Hanbin’s shoulders, June wind running its fingers through their hair. Hao whoops and cries out as Hanbin purposefully makes sharp turns and unnecessary zigzags on the city’s side streets. Hao grips onto him tightly under yellow streetlights, the buzz fading as they venture back into the quieter districts.
“You’ll get us in trouble,” Hanbin scolds, laughing as house lights begin to turn upon hearing Hao’s cries.
“Drive us correctly, then,” Hao shoots back, between giggles.
Hanbin drops Hao off at his house gate, making sure he gets in safe. Hao waves and only flicks his porch light off when he sees Hanbin’s own go out. Inside, his mother scolds him for being back a few minutes later than he should. She’d been watching the news again. He inclines his head in apology.
Hanbin falls asleep, in those years, as soon as his cheek meets the pillow, and he wants for nothing.
Cheonan, 1994
The earlier years are always a burden to remember. Hanbin recalls not so much tangible memories as he does feelings and brief moments. He remembers the sunshine and the smell of frying pork in the air and the brief, prismatic flashes of Hao glancing back at him with a wide smile. These are the foundations of his childhood.
Hanbin is fifteen now and more cognisant of his own flaws than ever before.
Hao has become increasingly studious. Not that he wasn’t when he was younger, but now he’s less inclined to indulge Hanbin in his foolish adventures, citing books and studying as his biggest priorities. Hanbin feels the loss.
In school, Hanbin begins to understand that Hao has admirers, and not just of the academic variety. Though Hao insists on biking home with him every day, Hanbin sometimes has to wait by the school gate for Hao to show up. It’s never too long, but other students pass by and glance at him curiously.
“What’s that?” he asks, nodding towards a letter in Hao’s hands.
Hao sighs, as if it’s a giant burden. “A classmate gave me this.”
“A love letter,” Hanbin teases, although there’s a newfound, twisting sensation in his stomach. This is a growing thing, a mass inside him. He doesn’t know what it means yet or why it’s happening, but it’s becoming more frequent. It’s a persistent ache. Hanbin’s answer to this is to pretend it isn’t there, hoping it’s indigestion and that it’ll go away.
In response to Hanbin’s light-hearted jokes, Hao just breathes air out of his nose. He doesn’t like to talk about it when Hanbin asks.
For some reason, Hanbin just can’t let it go today. “Suitors just lining up down the block,” he continues. “What a day this is. Such promising prospects. Marriage material, for sure.”
“Stop it,” Hao laughs, waving him off with a gesture. “It’s not like that.”
“A spring wedding would be lovely, you know. We’ll get someone in to pick an auspicious date.”
“You’re the worst. I’m just not interested.”
Hanbin doesn’t know what he does with those letters, or if he even reads them. Hanbin thinks he would probably read all of them, out of curiosity, if it were him.
At school, Hao’s reputation is one of cold distance; someone you could fall in love with across several desks but know deep down you don’t have a chance. He’s a safe sort of crush. A blank slate, a fantasy, an easy answer if prompted. Hao doesn’t engage with this sort of thing. He accepts all confessions with textbook politeness, receives love letters with two hands outstretched and lowered eyes. He ultimately turns them all down, but does so in a way that’s so kind that most people’s crushes continue to beat red hot.
Hanbin knows this because he observes Hao from a distance. He studies Hao with fine-tuned precision, his most captivating subject. Though in doing so, Hanbin also turns inwards, and begins to dissect the pieces of himself.
His biggest questions are these: why does he taste such a sharp bitterness, why does he feel as though he exists on the fringes of the world, and—the biggest question of them all—what reason does Hao have to still be around him when he’s so desired?
With maturity beyond his years, he looks back and thinks he used to be so much bolder and much more carefree as a kid. It had only been a few years, yet he hadn’t noticed the change until he was too far gone. Where did that Hanbin go? And who was he now?
These are things he works through slowly. He’s a multi-tasker, so it’s part self-flagellation, part seething motivation to do and be better. Funnily enough, he thinks about these things most when he’s alone. When he’s around Hao, everything just slots into place, and his mind (which growls and snarls and bites) is quiet.
Seasons pass. The vivid spring—welcoming fresh buds in pinks and whites which bloom into fragrant flowers—morphs into the unwelcome humidity of their rainiest summer in years. Hao and Hanbin share an umbrella if they venture out. For most of the time, however, they sit with elbows against windowsills, peering out with bored expressions. It’s a huge difference from the biting winters, where Hanbin would smother Hao in blankets despite the thick layers, and pieces of Hao’s hair would stand up on end, charged from the fleece.
Hanbin divides his time between his own family and Hao’s. Their house smells like incense, and it’s smaller than Hanbin’s own. Understandable, as Hao’s family is made up of him, his mother, and his grandmother—who had only been able to make the move a couple of years after them. Hanbin thinks of Hao’s family as sewing a sleeve onto a sweater; near-seamless integration, like there had never been a point without it.
Hao’s grandma (whom Hanbin also calls grandma, which she seems to adore) had an affinity for card games and the relentless propensity to challenge unwilling participants. Basically, Hanbin always got roped into playing with her and lost a lot of the time. Hao is absolutely no help. The rain sounds echo through the house as the drops fall down hard on the roof.
“Why is your grandma so energetic?” Hanbin wonders out loud, in Korean.
Hao is lying beside him on the floor reading a book. One of his legs is bent at the knee and resting against Hanbin’s back, possibly to torment him further. He nudges him with his knee periodically, and does so again now. “What do you mean by that? She’s not even seventy years old yet. Also, I really think this game is supposed to be played with four people, not two.”
“When I’m seventy, I’m going to be hiking up Bonghwasan Mountain, not playing games against teenagers. I think this one requires math. And we clearly don't have that many people.”
“She just likes to win.”
“You can play against her, then,” Hanbin huffs.
“As I said. She likes to win.”
Hao’s grandma flips over another card. “Got you,” she says cheerfully.
“Congratulations,” he says to her, in perfect tones that Hao has long drilled into him. To Hao he mutters, “Tell her I’d like to see her give Matgo a try.”
Hao happily translates. Hao’s grandma sets up a game of solitaire mahjong instead.
It’s around this time that another shift happens. Hao tells him that his mom has finally gotten a new job. It’s at a consulting firm in the foreign affairs and policy division. When Hanbin had been younger (and, admittedly, stupider), he had sometimes wondered why Hao said no to a lot of things: to arcade games and food convenience stores and new books. The non-essentials.
In China, Hao’s mother had worked in law, but had only been able to get an administrative position for the first years. After a while, she moved into translation work, and as a result, Hao had wanted to stay home with his grandmother, to keep her company and help with more strenuous tasks. Hanbin spent time in Hao’s house during these long months.
Hanbin may not have understood the whys and hows of it all, but from the time he was little, he had always broken his cookies in half to share. He thought a lot about the feelings and desires of others. He never considered anything else.
He continues to do that with Hao whenever he can. Hao shows his gratitude by resting his head on Hanbin’s shoulder, by grasping at his arm, by letting Hanbin vent at him and listening intently and brushing Hanbin’s hair back out of his eyes.
Hanbin’s heart threatens to burst. He reinforces each atrium with thread spun from his own self-deprecating thoughts and willful ignorance. The needle is sharp when it pokes through. He ponders what all of that means, why it insists on tugging at the seams.
Their birthdays arrive, first Hanbin’s and now Hao’s. The cicadas are silent in the evening, but during the daylight they hiss deafeningly, announcing their presence yet hiding high up in trees. The moths—tiny, white fluttering things—encircle the porch light that Hanbin uses to guide his way. Hanbin unlocks Hao’s gate and ducks around to Hao’s window, which is alight with a warm glow from his desk lamp.
The damp grass softens his steps. Hanbin knocks softly on the window, but Hao startles anyways, dropping his pen onto his notes with one hand clutched over his heart.
When Hao opens the window, slides it open carefully so as to not wake anyone in the house, Hanbin whispers, “Happy birthday.”
“Hanbin,” Hao gets out, surprised. Hanbin’s leaning up to meet him. He doesn’t have the money for a proper gift, but he’s made Hao a card and gotten him gopchang from the food cart right by that tacky hair salon.
“I’m right on time, aren’t I?”
Hao glances at the small clock beside him, reading the numbers. “Right on time,” he repeats. He smiles.
Hanbin makes a point of being the first to wish him a happy birthday every year. In return, Hao does well to do the same for him. It makes a warmth bloom inside Hanbin. He swings a leg over the windowsill and they eat Hao’s birthday gift on his carpeted floor in hushed voices.
Summer gifts them storm after storm. It breaks in August, finally, and temperatures reach new heights. The citizens of Cheonan complain about the fickle nature of the weather and the ceaseless humidity. Hao and Hanbin act as though the door to their cage has finally been unlatched.
His dad gets a pager, and it drives his mother insane the way it beeps incessantly. He wears it on the waistband of his pants because he thinks it's coolest like this. It’s anything but.
“Why would anyone send you messages?” Hanbin asks. He says that outright because he’s a teen without boundaries, possessing wavering respect for his parents that manifests in small rebellions like this. His father is a teacher, who coaches the baseball team. He isn’t home very often, though Hanbin thinks that the people who need him were most likely around him already.
“I’m a very popular guy,” Hanbin’s dad answers.
“And you would you want to be bothered like that all the time?” Areum cuts in. The sarcastic tone is a new and seemingly permanent feature on her. She’s growing taller and has started to hang pictures of celebrities on her walls. Hanbin takes her to dusty music stores, and they look through rows and rows of cassette tapes and new CDs.
Their father doesn’t necessarily get it. Earlier that year, Areum begged him to get her a cassette tape from a place in Seoul when he went. He did so just to make her smile.
Money is tight, it always is, but Hanbin’s mother, who runs a café, remains optimistic about the future. She says Korea is finally starting to flourish, and that things can only get better for them. Hanbin overhears her chatting with Hao’s mother about it. Both of them are career-driven. It’s yet another thing they have in common.
His mother decides to provide her own thoughts on the pager issue. “Leave your father alone,” she chastises. “I think it’s lovely.”
It proves to be an annoying device, truthfully, often going off during dinnertime or causing Hanbin’s dad to excuse himself from a conversation. His mother sighs around the house.
Later on, Hanbin catches his mother sending messages to his dad’s pager while he’s coaching on the weekend. She looks at Hanbin, phone in hand, and says, “Did you know these things have special codes?”
He tells Hao about it, and they agree it’s both cute and revolting at the same time.
Although school—and cram school—takes up a significant portion of their lives, the summers belonged entirely to the two of them. Hao and Hanbin’s school friends sometimes invite them to hang out, but there was an unspoken rule that time with each other came first.
The summer of 1994 was a crucial one for Hanbin. He doesn’t understand why until the very end of it. By August, with its relentless heat and scorching sun, Hanbin felt a kind of weighty finality that he couldn’t put into words.
Hao and Hanbin lie on the floor of Hanbin’s house, eating the last of the watermelon before Areum and his parents come back. They have a fan spinning around, completely useless in the fever of late-afternoon. Out on the street, through closed windows, they can hear kids playing a game with a ball, their kicks and shrieks bouncing off the brick and cinder block walls. One of their older neighbours shouts at them to be quiet.
Hao picks out a single, black watermelon seed and places it underneath Hanbin’s right eye. “Now we match,” Hao laughs.
Hanbin’s body lights up like a cityscape at night, centered on the point at which Hao lightly touched his face. “How do I look? Could we be twins?”
“Hmm. Not quite.”
Hanbin pouts over-exaggeratedly, in a way that always makes Hao smile. “You wound me. Hyung, that hurts.”
“I don’t know if the twins thing works for us,” Hao snorts.
He doesn't know what Hao meant by that. Hanbin likes the idea of them matching as much on the outside as they do on the inside. He doesn’t say that out loud, however. Instead, he picks the seed off his face and sticks it on Hao’s own, uncaring of the other’s complaints.
They breathe together. Ins and outs in opposite rhythms, rising and falling. The refrigerator in the kitchen turns on with a low hum. They’ve closed all the curtains, but the floor gets warm underneath them despite it, absorbing their body heat in a way that probably makes them sweat even more.
“Do you ever think about who we will be?” asks Hao, breaking the comfortable silence.
This makes Hanbin roll over onto his side, using his arm to prop his head up. They’re so close, Hao just an arm’s length away. Hao smells like he always does: kind of fresh and powdery, like laundry out of the wash, mixed in with whatever soap he uses. Hanbin is extraordinarily aware of him, taking in the deep brown of his eyes and the darkness of his hair against his face and the way the corners of his mouth turn downwards.
He’s good-looking. This is an objective truth. Yet Hanbin thinks he’s beautiful in a way that’s incomparable to anyone else. His ambition makes his eyes sharper and his geniality makes smile incandescent. These things shine through.
Hanbin stops worrying his lip between his teeth when he accidentally bites down too hard and is met with a sting. “What do you mean by that?”
Hao lets out a breath—not the kind that happens when he’s annoyed, but rather one that follows contentment settling in. “In ten years, for example. Where are we? What are we doing?”
He once told Hanbin that he thought of age like notches on a ruler. A measure of achievement.
“I’ll be twenty-five. And you’ll be twenty-six,” Hanbin muses. “We’ll have jobs and we’ll be old.”
“Almost retirement age.”
“Married with three daughters,” teases Hanbin.
“That would be a future, for sure,” Hao replies. There’s a strange tone to his voice that Hanbin cannot place. It sounds a bit sad.
“You don’t think about marriage? I think I’d like to be married.” He considers the possibility, sure. In a purely speculative sense.
“I think about marriage,” Hao answers. He doesn’t elaborate.
Hanbin hums lightly. “What if we’re both very rich? We drive around in fancy cars and people we don’t know take pictures of us. We're on the front pages of all the newspapers.”
“I think this is more achievable.”
“You can have the house you wanted. Do you remember? The one with the dogs.”
Hao laughs. “God, you remember that?”
“I have to know what you want, so I can tell people exactly how to build it for you.”
“I wasn’t aware you could afford this.”
“We’re rich, remember?” Hanbin teases. “Very rich, and also famous. I’d like to be famous, I think.”
“Ah, I forgot,” Hao says. He’s quiet again for a moment, before he speaks again. “But seriously, where do you think we will be?”
“In ten years? I don’t know.” That’s far, far off in the distance. “I could have a fancy job in Seoul. I could still be here, in this city. On this street, even.”
“But what is it that you want?” Hao asks seriously.
Hanbin had only really thought of things like this abstractly, not too concerned with minor details, so sure he’d figure it out when the time came. These were large questions for Hanbin, who was only fifteen. He had grown up on busy roads illuminated by neon lights, on narrow streets made safe by walled gates. Everything he wanted right now was here.
“What is it that you want?” He flips the question. He shifts closer.
Hao stares up at him with half-closed eyes, with an arm pillowed underneath his head. “I’m afraid I can’t say, else it won’t come true.”
“Ugh,” Hanbin responds, making a face. “You would say that.”
“It’s very boring. That’s the truth.” Hao reaches out to pat Hanbin’s belly. “Forget I said anything, okay?”
“We’re still friends, though, right?” Hanbin asks, tentatively. “In the future?” He holds his breath as he waits for Hao to answer.
Hao’s face softens. “Of course.”
The tension leaks from Hanbin. He reaches out to bat at Hao’s face playfully. Hao pushes him away, then hauls himself up to grab more soda from the fridge, stepping over Hanbin. The floor is hot beneath him.
Hanbin ruminates over this conversation in the lethargic days that pass. Hao, in contrast, doesn’t seem affected by their conversation.
Though Hao has reevaluated his priorities, as he puts it, there are moments where the lighter parts of him break free of their self-inflicted confines.
The lady with the dog still lives beside Hanbin, two doors on his left. The house has tall white walls topped with blue shingles, which are warped with age. Though the dog barks whenever someone walks or cycles past the gate—frightening the absolute shit out of them each time—neither Hao nor Hanbin have ever seen it.
Hao bets it's one of medium-sized white ones. “It’s yappy,” he explains.
Hanbin thinks it’s probably a poodle because its barks are too deep. They tell Hanbin’s dad about it and he jokes that it’s a cat. Hao laughs politely as Hanbin groans.
In any case, they decide to investigate. It’s the end of August, and the worst of the heat has cooled, producing cracked pavement on the roads, dry grasses on the mountainside, and brilliant sunsets of liquid gold and blue agate.
Hanbin kneels in the rocky streetside dirt as Hao climbs on his shoulders. Hao has hit his growth spurt first, and he stands a head taller than Hanbin. Nevertheless, Hao has notoriously awful balance and Hanbin considers himself a stabler base.
“Don’t drop me,” Hao warns.
Hanbin grunts as Hao wobbles and almost knees him in the ribs. “I’ll try my best.”
Regardless, he manages to get up there relatively easily. Hanbin clutches at Hao’s calves as he rights himself, standing up to his full height so that Hao can see over the wall. It's strangely quiet.
“What do you see?” he asks.
Hao’s fingers curl over the crumbling brick. “Nothing, really. Just a house and some grass. I wonder where the dog i—”
Rabid growls and barks start up, and they startle Hao so much that he jerks back, making Hanbin lose his balance.
“Oh my god—”
“Hyung, don’t lean back like that—”
“It’s really mad,” Hao interrupts. There’s unrelenting barking and the sickening sound of animal claws scraping against the gate, causing the metal to rattle on its hinges. It creaks under the force. Hanbin realizes there’s only an old gate between them and the dog.
Then the latch on the gate gives a little, and the door opens enough for Hanbin to catch a flurry of dark fur.
“Go go go,” Hao directs, tipping over sideways to try and get down. At the last second, Hanbin bends all the way over so Hao can tumble right off his shoulders. Then Hanbin grabs Hao’s hand, linking their fingers together tightly as they take off down the street. They sprint, then push through the gate of Hao’s house, locking it behind them.
They heave and pant with their backs against the interior wall, staring at each other as their hearts threaten to beat right out of their rib cages. And it’s like the old times, just for a brief second.
The dog is still barking down the street. A door slams. An old lady shouts. A car honks across the city. Hanbin’s shoulders are turning pink underneath the hot sun. Life continues.
“What kind of dog was it?” Hanbin gasps out, after a minute.
Hao pauses for a second to catch his breath. “Brown,” he says.
Hanbin lets out a puff of laughter, the kind that makes his knees give out a little bit. “Hey, seriously…”
Hao’s mother appears from around the side of the house with a basket of laundry. “What’s wrong with you two?” she asks, peering at them with a look of distrust.
“Nothing,” Hao answers, though he’s still laughing.
If Hanbin had his way, he would’ve chosen to live in this moment forever. As it was, this was probably the summer that Hanbin knew.
Cheonan, 1996
Concerning matters of love, Hanbin considers himself a hapless beginner.
Autumns are characterized by exams and relentless cramming instead of the striking colours of the leaves turning, as the season should’ve been. Winters are winters: cold and dark, with most of the days blanketed by ash-coloured clouds overhead. But springs are something else altogether. To Hanbin, they feel like awakening after a long, deep sleep, while summers are a big, delicious stretch before falling back into a lazy nap by the end of August.
Hanbin sits in his itchy uniform pants, at a desk that wobbles so terribly that he has to stick a folded piece of paper underneath one of the legs. He used to glance out the window, onto the lines of the track and the trees that surround it, and dream of being anywhere else. Now he keeps his head down, as though a single blink will make him miss something important. His hand cramps from writing so quickly. He creates deep grooves on the paper from pressure.
Areum picks up on the change in him. Over the years they’ve fluctuated between exceptionally close and almost distant strangers. She’s thirteen now and they’ve cycled back to the former. “You’ve become so studious,” she teases. “Who are you?”
“I’m just taking things seriously, is all,” he grouches.
“Fascinating,” she comments, in a tone that suggests she’s discovered something.
He’s never felt any particular way about school. It’s just always been a place he had to go. He likes sitting on the steps on warmer days, gossiping with his friends while drinking from juice boxes; likes the soft tapping sounds of chalk on the board and the dust it coughs up; likes casually leaning out of open windows to see Hao racing to classes from high above.
It’s the last summer he and Hao have before he leaves for university. He doesn’t want to spend an entire year without Hao.
Hanbin knew it was coming—of course he did—but that doesn’t mean he’s ready. He’s lived the last year with simmering distress as a near-constant companion. Time slips away from them. It feels like the end of things.
The day Hao gets the news about acceptance, Hanbin holds him tighter than ever before. He grasps at the fabric of Hao’s shirt as though it’s a life raft and he’s lost at sea, while breathing in the smell of what is distinctly Zhang Hao. He’s infinitely proud and also so unsure of where it leaves them.
In the past, Hao had considered adopting the Korean form of his name, Haneul.
“I like Zhang Hao the best,” Hanbin had said, knowing that he’d always be Hao hyung to him regardless.
And Hao had smiled, a genuine movement that had reached his eyes.
Hanbin is newly seventeen, and he’s managed to cast off the insecurity and trepidation of his youth. He’s also caught up to Hao’s height, finally, though Hao stands just a bit taller. Hanbin placates himself with the knowledge that his own shoulders are a little wider and his own strength a little greater. He likes being solid, a reliable presence. He’s opened Hao’s bottles for him ever since they’ve met. He doubts this will ever change, and he doesn’t ever want it to.
Somewhere between the clumsiness and naïveté of his earlier years and the newfound insight of seventeen, Hanbin sorts out his feelings for Zhang Hao.
It’s not like being struck by a bolt of lightning. It’s not a world-ending catastrophe. It simply is . One day he has no idea, and then the next he’s listening to Hao explain something, completely aware. Hao is guarded with others, but wildly expressive with Hanbin. He watches as Hao’s features on his face shift and change, and studies the way his hands reach out for Hanbin to ensure that he’s paying full attention. And then Hanbin thinks, “ Ah .” He wants this forever.
But it’s the last summer.
Hao’s grandma says the world is going to end. Explains that the clocks can’t handle the new numbers. The trashier magazines, always low in stock at the stand outside the convenience store, propose that the Earth wasn’t meant to continue for this long, that this was divined in ancient texts. On the news, computer engineers, who sweat and avoid eye contact, are interviewed about date code errors. Hanbin, like everyone else, writes this off.
There are exactly six weeks in the middle of summer where he and Hao are the same age. They’ve always felt like equals to Hanbin—who never ever considered formal speech with him—but this, in a funny way, is a small stretch of time where they technically are. He’s unsure how he feels about that. It fluctuates depending on his mood. Hao, on the other hand, has never cared about things like that.
Hao was, and remains, busy. He had agonized over papers and exams for so long that Hanbin understands the absence of that immense pressure is strange. Hanbin stayed long after dark at school, until the temperatures had dipped sharply and the sky was only stars and planes and satellites, but Hao had always stayed even longer. Hanbin had joked that he should bring a blanket and pillow for Hao and he could just sleep right there on the tile floor. Hao had pouted at that.
Weeks later, Hao had thanked Hanbin for always waiting for him, so that he didn’t have to go home alone every day. Hanbin didn’t know how to explain that he was happy to do it, so he had just shrugged.
In July, after Hao’s birthday, they decide to visit Seoul, just the two of them.
“As a birthday present?” Hao inquires.
“I already gave you one,” Hanbin sighs. And he did. This year, Hao had given him a pair of goofy sunglasses. Hanbin had gotten him a pair of ridiculous socks.
“No reason why this can’t be part of it, too,” Hao teases.
“Doesn’t that make your gift look meager in comparison?”
“My company is my gift. It’s priceless.”
Hanbin laughs at that.
It’s a journey, one they have to wake up disgustingly early for to make worthwhile. They take the bus to the train station, then take the Saemaeul-ho, with its multi-colour carriages and plush seats. Hanbin is slightly surprised that his parents didn’t put up more of a fight when he begged to go.
It’s his turn with the walkman—he and Areum have to share—and he sneaked it into his backpack so he could draw it out now. Hanbin offers the headphones to Hao, whose eyes light up. Hao slides them over his ears gratefully; he doesn’t like the speed or the height of the train.
He gazes out the window as Hao rests his head on Hanbin’s shoulder. Hanbin can hear the soft beats of the music come through faintly. When Hao finishes the whole album, he rewinds the cassette, and passes over the headphones to Hanbin.
They take another bus to the city center. Full beyond capacity with impatient commuters and even some important-looking professionals in Western-style suits—who hold newspapers and books and drinks in their hands—Hao and Hanbin end up pressed together. Hanbin feels Hao’s breath tickle his neck and he concentrates all of his brain power on reading headlines from within the clutches of other passengers.
Seoul’s streets pulse with something alive. People crowd the sidewalks: teens in small clusters, businessmen hurrying to work, small kids running ahead of their parents. Hao wrinkles his nose when the wind changes, as strange and rancid smells waft through the air. Buildings in the city are plastered with signs for restaurants and posters for upcoming movies and advertisements for new products. It’s every colour at once.
Neither of them have a plan, content instead to explore the streets littered with cigarette butts and discover narrow stores sandwiched within whatever leftover spaces are available. Then they hop on a bus again when they get tired of that neighbourhood.
Hao and Hanbin spend an entire hour in a music store and another trying on clothes they have no intention of buying—until the owner shouts at them, suspecting them of stealing, and they scatter. There’s construction on every block, vacant lots of dirt roped off and new, tall buildings sprouting up from the ground. The city is a patchwork quilt, perfect in its crudeness. At main intersections, men and women hand out pamphlets quoting religious texts, speaking of the final days. People seem much busier here.
Hao takes it in like he does with most things: quietly, with a mind that compartmentalizes information at speeds remarkable to Hanbin.
“I’ll live here soon,” he says softly.
“Yeah,” Hanbin agrees. His stomach twists around like it’s trying to tie itself in a knot. He looks at Hao in profile, with this sloped nose and his curved jaw and his messy hair—strands made messier by travel and the wind.
Hao moves closer to Hanbin as others push past. “It’ll take some getting used to.”
The people here are more stylish than they are. Hao and Hanbin glance at boys their age with hair parted right down the middle, grown out on the sides in long strands, or even spiked up with gel. Hao thinks it's hilarious to try and mimic these on Hanbin while they rest on one of the public seating installations with a group of strangers. Hanbin poses for him just to see him laugh.
“You’ll be fine, I think.” Hanbin thinks back to earlier when Hao made Hanbin order food for them at the restaurant they went to. “You might have to order for yourself, though.”
“I’m quiet,” Hao sniffs.
“Quiet? You’re not quiet.”
Hao rolls his eyes. “Not around you.”
Hanbin wonders how different Hao is to others around him. With Hanbin, Hao is playful and teasing. He complains loudly about things that don’t really bother him and shuts up when they do. Hao is eighteen and knows exactly who he is. Hanbin is completely enamoured.
On the way home, Hao takes the window seat on the train, but he falls asleep on Hanbin’s shoulder. Over his head, Hanbin looks out over the speeding landscapes with eyes half-shut, all to the backdrop of Hao’s intermittent snores. The fiery blaze of orange-red signals the last few minutes of sun, before it blinks away over the silhouette of distant mountains. Hanbin doesn’t let his eyes close fully until the sky fades from vivid warmth to teal to deep navy and then finally pitch black.
His mother and father greet him when he gets home. He talks about the trip tiredly, then kisses his mother’s cheek in goodnight. On television, a program plays about meteorites and the celestial bodies in the outer reaches of their solar system.
In the hallway, he’s intercepted by Areum. “Did you buy anything?”
“No, not really,” he shrugs.
“Did you see the river? Was it pretty?”
He nods, nonchalantly. “We did. It was fine.”
“So you think you’ll live there?”
“Why would you say that?”
She stares at him like the inside of his head is empty. “You really have no idea, huh?”
He brushes her off. She wishes him goodnight with more irritated mutterings over her shoulder.
Hanbin lies in bed that night, mirroring countless other nights, ruminating over the events of the day. He’s had some crushes on boys in his school in the past—a senior classmate with long hair, the new foreign boy in Hao’s grade, and even one of the athletes visiting their school for a competition—so he thought he knew what that sensation was. He acknowledges now that he doesn’t.
Hanbin understands that there’s a divide between how he feels about his other friends and how he feels about Hao. When they were nine and ten, Hanbin used to whisper secrets into Hao’s ear, and he knows Hao has kept all of them. He can’t say the same for anyone else.
All of the simmering, contorted feelings towards the love letters Hao had received—and, by extension, the newfound time away from Hanbin—boil over. The ache and his chest, the craving hunger to be closer, the ease in which they converse. Now these things make sense. Admittedly, Hanbin struggles with some subjects, but the answers have been on the paper in front of him all along. He just had to add them up.
In Hanbin’s perspective, the process of falling in love with Hao is not something he could quantify. Looking back, there’s no singular moment, nor is there anything that Hao had said. It flows like a river, it’s incorporeal like summer clouds, it’s as comforting as being tucked into bed after a long day.
Loving Hao is as much a part of him—that grew as he did—as anything else.
He realizes that he doesn’t just like Hao because they’re similar—though he loves the way he can think of something and Hao is already looking back at him, with an expression that says he’s thinking the same thing. He likes Hao because they’re distinct, and that’s how they click together. Hao makes up the spaces where Hanbin lacks, and Hanbin does the same for Hao. At least, he hopes he does.
Hanbin is seventeen, wide-eyed and unsure. There are steps he cannot, and will not, take. This is one of them.
It’s a week to September, and Hao wears big sweaters with his shorts in the evenings. They sit outside on a neighbour’s steps (one of the only houses on their street to have them) as the sun dies in the west. Down the street, three kids kick a ball around. Hao insisted on buying ice cream despite Hanbin pointing out that he gets cold too easily, and now they share bites.
“I think I’ll miss this,” Hao reflects.
“It’ll still be here when you get back,” Hanbin promises. He can’t keep the melancholy out of his voice.
Hao hums in response.
Two days afterwards, Hao leaves.
Seoul, 1998
Hanbin finds his footing and stumbles, then finds his footing again. To the east are the green mountains. To the west is the sea. Zhang Hao pulls him to Seoul. His north star.
The year Hao left for university, 1996, Hanbin started studying like he had never had before. He wakes up countless days with the indentation of a textbook on his face and a pen still clutched in one hand. He tells his mother that he was going to get into Seoul National University, too. She’s supportive, but Hanbin can tell she hesitates, ready to comfort him if it doesn’t happen. He understands. These are exalted dreams for anyone, let alone him.
His friends joke relentlessly about it. They tease him with, “You’ve never even liked math,” and, “He’s trying to beat Zhang Hao sunbae’s record, I guess,” and, “Hey Sung Hanbin, you’ll get a permanent crease between your eyes if you keep frowning at your book like that.”
It takes some sort of miracle, but he does it. When they get the news, his family holds him tight—even Areum, who has distanced herself from Hanbin recently. Like Hao, he applies for scholarships. He can’t really afford the fees, though his dad is adamant that they can. Hanbin feels hollow as his parents stack unpaid bills in the corner of their kitchen table. Soon they have a small tower.
He receives some financial aid, and the lines on their faces ease slightly. Though it’s a year of great importance, it passes by Hanbin in a half-awake blur.
Hanbin gets a job. He finds an ad in the paper for a barista position, smiles wide at the café owner, and then it’s done. It’s stressful work, with low pay and terrible customers, but there’s parts of it that he likes. In another situation, he would enjoy the flow of the movements around the bar when he gets into a rhythm, as well as the personability that working the cash register affords.
He hears about Hao from third parties. Each time it makes something inside him sink; it almost gives him motion sickness. He exhales with shaky breaths and grips onto things to steady himself, as he realizes he could’ve tried to talk to him, but didn’t. He thinks of himself as pathetic. He carries on.
On some days, he visits Hao’s mom and grandma, both of whom are getting older. They say that Hao sometimes calls from pay phones and they don’t have a lot of time to chat. Despite that, Hao is doing well. Hanbin smiles when he hears that. Hao’s grandma insists on pinching his cheek and inviting him to watch television with her.
Then Hanbin, too, leaves.
Seoul is just as he remembers, although there is a demoralized pang in the air that wasn’t so prevalent before.
Still, restaurants seem to only get better, and the traffic problem seems to be slowly sorting itself out—to an extent, anyway. Food smells carry on the wind, between puffs of ashy cigarette smoke, seeping out from open windows and bakeries. Bars light up as soon as dusk hits, though they close long before the PC bangs, with their almost exclusively young adult patrons, do.
Hanbin has Hao’s address on a crumpled piece of paper, stuffed into his pocket for safe keeping. Maybe he could’ve even found Hao without it. He has a duffle bag over one shoulder and another bag swinging from one hand. Both carry all his possessions.
When they finally meet again, it’s been a whole year, and Hanbin wonders how the time has passed, and why they separated like they had.
Hao leans against a wall outside a bank as people pass by. He’s just the same, but his hair has changed. It’s cut in a new way. Hao wears clothes Hanbin’s never seen before, a denim jacket over loose pants, and his face has gotten slimmer. The last remnants of baby fat have been lost, and Hanbin wonders if he looks like that too: his own likeness, but fully settled into his features. Hao sees Hanbin approach, and his cheeks poke out as he smiles wide, just like they always have.
“You made it,” Hao greets.
It’s possibly the best thing Hanbin has ever heard.
They reach for each other, with one of Hanbin’s arms around Hao’s shoulders and the other around his waist. Hao smells a little bit different. It’s a mixture of denim and shampoo and some new cologne, though the powdery scent underneath is unchanged. They both hang on probably too long, yet neither of them care. An old man reprimands them as he walks past, “ Hey, do you two idiots have to do this in the middle of the sidewalk? ” and they finally break free with snorts of laughter.
“That bus is awful, I know,” Hao sighs. “I’ll buy you a soda to make up for it.”
“I don’t think one will do it,” Hanbin responds, and he pretends to be more exhausted than he feels, sagging his shoulders pathetically. “It’ll have to be two. And also a snack.”
“What am I, made of money?” Hao complains. He concedes regardless.
That first year is a scramble. The colours of everything seem far too saturated. The forested campus is too big, the workload is overwhelming. Hanbin spends half of the time in a state of panicked confusion, and the other half writing notes in the margins, too stressed to even register the rush.
It helps that Hao feels just the same. Hanbin massages Hao’s shoulders to ease the strain in them. Hao stays up late to help him revise for his classes and then sticks his cold hands underneath Hanbin’s sweater to warm them up. Hanbin gasps at the shock.
His heart counts down to its inevitable detonation, big numbers glowing red. Though years have passed, he and Hao have remained the one constant; a fixed number in an equation, the invariable peaks of Seoul’s mountains that are almost as old as the Earth itself.
Throughout it all, Hanbin falls deeper in love. Each day he’s surprised at how much further it seems to sink into his bones.
Hanbin makes his own school friends, and collects some of Hao’s, too. They’re a bit of a package deal, as others come to know.
“How’d you two meet?” one of their friends inquires.
Hanbin chews thoughtfully. “Us?”
Hao is stealthily moving food from his own bowl into Hanbin’s, and vice versa. Hanbin barely acknowledges this.
“We grew up together, on the same street,” Hao shrugs. “I’ve known Hanbin-ie half my life.”
“Wow,” another one of their friends says. “That’s kind of insane.”
Hao does not say anything about this in response. Hanbin tries to bite his hand.
They sometimes go out together (and sometimes go alone). Hao and Hanbin aren’t uncontrollable drinkers, but they like to get tipsy every so often. Hao jokes that Seoul was built around bars, and that appears to be true. Hanbin doesn’t usually go home with anyone. He tried that a few times. It felt hollow. Hao doesn’t typically do that either. So, nights end with Hanbin’s arm around Hao’s shoulders more often than not, with Hao laughing into his neck.
The living situation is dreadful, and one that takes long, long months to sort out. Eventually, Hao and Hanbin settle in a place together, just a bus ride away from campus. Neighbourhoods in the city are located in hilly, narrow districts, with homes practically stacked on top of one another. Many of them smell like garbage and car exhaust fumes.
They rent out an apartment in a small, brick building on a residential street. Down the hill, someone has a fruit tree that hangs over the street. With two bedrooms and one tiny bathroom, it’s a pretty good deal, even if the entrance to the complex smells like mold. It also has bars on the windows, standard of these neighbourhoods, which Hanbin sells to Hao as added security: Isn’t it wonderful, hyung?
They’re lucky enough to get a place with an aircon unit, although it’s strapped to the window with three screws and hope, and barely helps. The thing lets out a metallic whirr every so often that sounds like claws stripping metal. Despite that, they stick their faces up against it as soon as the weather warms up in spring.
In summer, Hanbin tucks tissues underneath his bangs to absorb the sweat, sometimes just giving up altogether after a long shift at work. In winter, Hao and Habin crowd together on the floor by the space heater they bought, a blanket wrapped around their shoulders as they watch television. On the windowsill, Hao places a tiny black and white cat plushie, now slightly ragged with age.
In 1998, Hanbin wakes up to Hao slicing fruit and swearing as the microwave beeps. Hanbin shuffles in with bare feet and weight of sleep still pressing down. He’s nineteen and the entire world is still an unsolvable mystery, a great wild that he’s only beginning to discover. The only exception is Zhang Hao.
An S.E.S song plays on the radio. There’s sunlight beaming in through the windows. When it hits just the right angle—as it does right now—tiny prisms appear on the floor in intricate patterns.
Hanbin has class in a few hours. Hao has to leave soon if he wants to make it on time. The bus is notoriously awful for keeping to its schedule. It feels like home.
One month, they forget to pay their phone bill. He remembers how he and Hao had crammed themselves within the plastic walls of the pay phone a few blocks over, with a stack of change and desperation, asking their parents how to fix it. There was something to be said about how both of them—Hao’s mom and Hanbin’s dad—asked to speak to each son in order to catch up. Somewhere along the line, their families had merged. Something fond grows in Hanbin’s chest.
Hanbin has seen Hao overtake him in height, been there when Hao ranked first in his class, and celebrated every single birthday. Hao, similarly, has witnessed all iterations of Hanbin, and for some reason stayed.
There’s never been a good time to do this. For some reason, it bursts free from him now.
“I love you,” Hanbin says, like it’s nothing. It’s everything, of course. Those words have been a lump in his throat for so long that he’s almost forgotten what it was like before. Perhaps there had never been a before at all.
Hao looks up at him and smiles from the kitchen counter. “I love you, too,” he laughs. “We’re out of eggs.”
If that’s all it can be, then Hanbin is content with that. He smiles back.
Seoul & Cheonan, 1999
The radio and television networks break the news about five months before the end. True to the way the world has always worked, those with money and power have known for much longer. This is them simply giving up trying to hide it. After all, it’s rather pointless. It ends the same for everyone.
In the past, Hao’s edges had been too jagged, and Hanbin had been too amicable. It had been a long process, but they had both regained their balance. If Hao were to ask Hanbin the same question now, What do you want? , Hanbin would have a clearer understanding and a much bolder answer. And maybe if Hanbin told Hao he loved him slightly differently, Hao might’ve taken him seriously.
Things have changed. Things remain the same. Hao and Hanbin circle around each other like stars around a central point, spinning endlessly.
The days leading up to it are like any other.
It’s the last vestiges of summer. The leaves are still green, but the ends are turning crispy, and the uncompromising heat unmistakable of Seoul Julys has finally ebbed away. It’s the last week of August. Hanbin is twenty years old and glowing brighter than ever before.
Hanbin tells Hao about this new game, Dance Dance Revolution. Hao is initially reluctant, not loving the lights and loud sounds as much as he used to. Two hours later, they were almost sweating through their shirts.
It’s a simple game mechanically, all you have to do is step on the squares in rhythm, and Hao is exceptionally good at it. He and Hao hit every beat together, Hanbin laughing as Hao makes noises of distress as the songs get harder. They even attract a bit of a crowd. Hanbin blinks and they’re kids again, staying out too late.
They walk home together in the night air, having just got off the last bus for the evening. They’ve sufficiently cooled off from the cardio, and now there’s a chill that makes Hao shiver underneath his light jacket. Hao has his hand wrapped around Hanbin’s bicep, a move that has become instinctual over the years.
“Thank you,” Hao says.
Not understanding, Hanbin replies, “For what?”
Hao stops walking, and Hanbin, who had been keeping his pace, stops too. They’re two streets away from their lovely—but completely shitty—apartment. Lights are on in nearby houses. The scarce street lamps on buildings wash the road in yellow-orange.
It takes Hao a moment to speak. “For everything. For all these years. For climbing up that tree with me that day.”
“Oh? All of a sudden?” Hanbin huffs out.
Hao frowns at him, and he knows he didn’t say the right thing. “I just wanted to say that. I don’t think I ever did. I think things would’ve been very different for me if you hadn’t.”
Hanbin looks at Hao, really looks. He reads the sincerity in his tone and the bittersweet expression on his face. He doesn’t understand why Hao is saying these things, right now of all times, but he feels so grateful to hear them.
Perhaps that’s why Hanbin breaks—because he no longer has anything to lose. He’s lived so many years biting down hard into his feelings in hopes of suppressing them. He’s older now, bolder now, and things he once thought were complex he now understands as simple.
Hanbin takes a deep breath, in chilly evening air. “I mean it when I say that I love you, you know. Every single time.”
Hao stares right back at him. Then he steps forward, shrinking the already small distance between their bodies. “Tell me exactly what you mean by that,” he demands. It comes out just above a whisper.
Between them, something sparks. Hanbin’s heart jumpstarts, like electricity running through cables to bring a car back to life. He’s dreamt of having Hao, of their mouths pressing together and Hao’s hands upon his bare skin and the ways they could come together. He’s tormented himself with cold showers, then hopelessly indulging in his own fantasies in his head, before returning to shameful, cold showers. With each touch, he craves. He’s longed for a thousand and one years.
His exhale is shaky, and he watches Hao take note of that.
“Hyung, I’ve been so, completely in love with you.”
Hao’s eyes dart down to his mouth and back up again. “For how long?” he asks. This time it really is a whisper, barely audible.
There are only centimeters between their lips. Hao’s eyes are half-closed. Hanbin could count his eyelashes if he wanted to. “For as long as I can remember.”
Hao’s breath is warm against his face. Then Hanbin lets go and presses their lips together, under a flickering streetlight.
It starts off chaste, easy. Hanbin draws back a little. Then Hao makes a sound, reaches a hand up to grip the hair at the nape of Hanbin’s neck, and draws them together again.
This time, it’s heated, heavy. Hanbin chases the taste of Hao, clutches at his waist to ground him as his knees feel weak. His head spins, his mouth tingles.
“Oh god,” Hao moans into his mouth. “ Finally .”
Hanbin whines back in response. Hao’s tongue flicks into his mouth.
Hao is warm in his hands and he tastes like soda. He loses track of time. It’s everything he’s ever wanted.
They link fingers, sprint laughing the last two streets to their apartment. As soon as the door closes behind them, Hao is kissing him again, and Hanbin blindly helps him yank off his jacket. He throws it onto the floor, uncaring of where it lands. Hao jumps into his arms and Hanbin yelps as he scrambles to catch him underneath his ass and thighs. They almost bonk their noses together, and Hao laughs against him.
It’s neither of their first times for anything, but it sort of feels like the first. For Hanbin, it’s monumental.
They fuck on Hanbin’s bed, chosen not only because it’s the closest, but because Hao has always felt comfortable there. It’s a little bit inelegant. They’re desperate, needing to get their hands on each other unless they’ll die, fumbling with buttons and zippers and the logistics of things. It’s even a bit rough, though Hao is extraordinarily careful when he presses into Hanbin for the first time. Hanbin begs for it harder, faster. Hao’s hot breath is in his ear until Hanbin twists around and swallows his soft moans.
Afterwards, Hao complains he’s tired when Hanbin kisses down his chest, though his legs widen to accommodate Hanbin’s body. Hanbin takes his time unravelling Hao, learning what makes him pant and whine and later cry. Hao digs his fingernails into Hanbin’s back, limp and moaning loudly as Hanbin moves inside him.
Hanbin wants this to last.
“For how long?” Hanbin asks later, when he’s feeling raw and open, and bursting with devotion. “For as long as you can remember?”
“Even longer,” Hao replies.
The next week, at the very beginning of September, they turn on their television and learn about the end of the world. Experts with charts and graphs, wearing wide-rimmed glasses to give off the illusion of authority, explain that there’s nothing anyone can do. They’ve crunched the numbers, they’ve tallied the data, they’ve called in specialists from every corner of the globe.
Just like that, it all concludes.
It’s an odd sort of thing. What Hanbin didn’t expect about total annihilation is that nothing much changes.
There’s enough time between now and inevitable catastrophe that somehow everything keeps going. People go to work and take the bus and, yes, while classes are cancelled, students still read from their textbooks and farmers still harvest their crops. Everyone is panicking, some more overtly than others, but the sun still rises each morning, and everyone still has to eat.
There’s nothing to be done, so people just continue.
Hao and Hanbin spring into action early enough to still catch a train out of Seoul. Others aren’t as lucky. The roads are dysfunctional, rendered unusable by blocked vehicles. Planes fly for a while, then inevitably are grounded. Hanbin doesn’t know about boats, but it’s probably a similar situation. Hanbin holds Hao’s hands within his own for the entire journey.
Their neighbourhood in Cheonan looks different with a new perspective. The houses seem so small, so run-down, and the shops seem rather quaint. There’s so much space on the larger roads. They’re wider, not as maintained. Seoul and Cheonan smell different, too.
They spend the last few months together as a family, merged. Areum has grown since Hanbin last saw her. His parents both look older. He mentions this to Hao, and he thinks his mom and grandmother have aged the same way.
Hanbin doesn’t say anything in particular to his parents about Hao, but he thinks his mother knows. She wraps him into a hug and says, sadly, that he looks happier.
It’s such a shame that this is the way things turn out. But Hao and Hanbin have always been on borrowed time. This is the way it is.
Days pass in half-time, slowed by apprehension and doom and aimlessness. Hao leans in for kisses as often as he can, and Hanbin is more than happy to give them to him. Hanbin wraps his arms around Hao’s waist, slides his hands under the bulk of Hao’s sweater, and presses his nose to Hao’s neck to remember.
When they have sex now, it’s both intense and heart-wrenchingly tender. Hanbin twines their fingers together and doesn’t let go.
With the end of the year comes the darkness. The clocks tick on, the sounds of the hands matching Hanbin’s heartbeat. He lounges with Hao in his childhood bed, and the walls are just the same. They’ve given up any sort of pretense of being platonic around their families. Hanbin knew they wouldn’t care, but it’s nice to know for sure. Hanbin breathes in the scent of Hao, committing him to memory.
“What would we be doing?” Hanbin asks him. “If this wasn’t how it had gone down?”
Hao plays with their interlocked fingers. “Probably still this,” he answers, but voice is desolate.
“Are you sad about it?”
“Of course.”
Hanbin sighs against him. “I always want more time. Am I greedy?”
“No,” Hao shrugs. “I sometimes thought if I—we—hadn’t been so stupid, we would’ve had this for longer. But I think of it like this: I’ve already spent almost all my life with you. I couldn’t really ask for more.”
Hanbin thinks it's nice that maybe somewhere, he and Hao are just meeting for the first time. In another timeline, in another universe, they’re having their first kiss or their first time or they’re celebrating a milestone anniversary. They might be married, might live together in a house of their own. Maybe they’re even rich and famous in one of their lives, like he had mentioned to Hao once.
“Let’s look forward to the next one, then?” Hanbin whispers, and his voice cracks on the last few syllables.
Hao’s eyes are wet, too. “Yeah,” he agrees brokenly, trying his best to smile.
The very last day is the worst. The clock ticks down on the final day of their lives and neither of them have slept. Down the street, a dog barks for that entire morning, as the stars slip slowly out of alignment and the sky darkens. Hanbin’s body is heavy with stress and restlessness.
He wonders if he can die prematurely of a broken heart.
His family—his mom, his dad, his sister, Hao’s mother, Hao’s grandmother—sit and wait it out together on the floor of Hanbin’s living room. Hao’s grandmother, who had been saving an antique tea set for a special occasion, brings it out now.
They watch the last minutes slip away in silence, unsure of what to say or do. Hanbin tells his family he loves them, then whispers the same thing against Hao’s ear as he places a kiss on his cheek.
Hao links their pinky fingers together. Overhead, the sun drops out of the sky.
A blast. A bang. A blip.
Then it’s over. They combine and turn to dust.
Outside of Seoul, 2022
In another universe, in another timeline, Sung Hanbin is twenty-one years old, and he wakes from a deep sleep.