Work Text:
January, 2026.
In hindsight, renting a two bedroom apartment by himself in one of the most central areas of Seoul was a bad idea.
Letting Woonhak, and subsequently everyone else on this goddamn planet, apparently, know that he had recently moved into a two bedroom apartment by himself was an even worse idea. And that Sungho was, in fact, in dire need of a roommate who could help him cover half of this ridiculous rent.
Then again, Woonhak was only trying to help. Sungho understood that. That didn’t mean he’d forgiven Woonhak for what was to come.
Sungho ruminated over these regrets in his head. His teeth chattered, despite the number 27°C blinking neon green on the panels of the air conditioning system. The room was wrapped in an iciness not unfamiliar to him, not since the last time he’d faced his future head-on and realized he had absolutely no idea what to expect—when he realized the world around him as he knew it was on the brink of change.
The telltale sign of intercom static broke the crippling silence in his apartment and Sungho stood up, robotic, and walked across the cold toward the entrance. The button felt cool underneath the pad of his finger.
“Yes?”
“Hey, Sungho. It’s me.”
His voice packed a punch, harder than Sungho had anticipated, harder than he had mentally prepared himself for; harder, still, than when something inside him had cracked as Jaehyun turned and boarded that one-way flight to Chicago without another glance back. The pain was still as sharp and biting as ever, a fresh wound.
Sungho pressed a few more buttons. He hoped his voice sounded neutral enough. “It’s open.”
There was a split second between the moment his finger flew off the button and the moment the line went dead. Sungho raced to end the conversation.
Sungho would be lying if he said he couldn’t remember where they were or what they were doing the first time they’d fucked. It was at one of those orientation parties the student council had organized under the guise of building rapport, beckoning fresh-faced first years to drink their hearts out after a gruelling first week of classes. Right. There were a couple of those, now that he thought about it.
He remembered everything. A small pocha nestled in the alleys of Seongsu; a warm, sticky night toward the tail-end of June. Jaehyun had gone out for a smoke, Sungho for some air. The first cigarette in Sungho’s life. It filled his lungs and he coughed, throat burning, the lingering flavor of Raison French Black lining his teeth.
Jaehyun had then, out of the blue, kissed him. This kiss felt different, different from his usual tricks to rile Sungho up, different from the friendly pecks on the cheek and temple that he’d thus far been able to brush off, weightless. This one was brimming with a hunger unfamiliar to him, a feeling that dug its way into the pit of Sungho’s stomach and took root.
Sungho remembered everything, with painful clarity: but what stayed with him even after all these years was the taste of Jaehyun’s mouth—acidic and sweet, grapefruit soju.
The color orange. Flickering orange lights swaying above them. Sungho remembered hearing a song playing on repeat in the background, the way Jaehyun had a hand on his hip and the other on his face while the alcohol melted away all his senses into a pool on the floor. The name of the song sat on his tongue for years but it never came back to him.
I only want to see you from across the room
You always look, look so good, from far away
I will keep my cool, keep my distance from you
The song ended and they fucked. Again, and again, and again. Until Jaehyun made a home in Sungho’s body by the time the morning sun came pouring through.
Jaehyun stood by his doorway and Sungho couldn’t breathe.
They hadn’t seen each other in two years, not since the last night they’d spent together before Jaehyun quietly slipped to the other side of the world. He seemed to have grown broader, his skin more sun-kissed than before; his face had lost some of its baby fat, in its place a sharpness that left Sungho feeling faint.
“Hi,” Jaehyun ventured, a nervous glint in his eyes. He cleared his throat. Sungho examined the lines on the wooden floor.
“Hey,” Sungho answered after what felt like an eon and a half. He stepped aside and Jaehyun silently crossed the threshold.
The room was cold.
Jaehyun stood in the middle of the apartment like some estranged Sims character. He cleared his throat again and made the first attempt at small talk, a tiny grin appearing on his face, seemingly effortlessly.
“You look good,” Jaehyun began, sliding his two oversized suitcases next to the low coffee table. He glanced at Sungho, eyes lingering on his hair. “Never thought I’d see the day. The blonde really suits you.”
Sungho eyed him wearily. Jaehyun looked good too—not that he was going to tell him that. His hair was back to black, long enough to brush against the nape of his neck; thick-rimmed glasses sat low on his nose and he pushed them up carefully. His varsity jacket framed his build nicely, and already Sungho could feel that telltale rush of blood through him as he watched Jaehyun wipe his palms on his sweater, outlining a body underneath that he was once all-too familiar with.
“This area’s changed so much since I left, I could barely figure out my way here,” Jaehyun continued, seemingly unsure of what to do with his hands. Even after two years, after being oceans apart, Sungho could still catch his every movement like reading fine print. The realization made him nauseous.
“It’s been a minute since you were back,” Sungho forced out, relieved to hear that his voice still sounded friendly enough, composed enough. “You know Seoul. Everything can change overnight.”
The grin on Jaehyun’s face faltered. He tried to maintain it, not so effortlessly this time. Sungho smiled back, barely.
“Hey, how about we go out for dinner tonight? My treat, as thanks for, y’know, letting me—”
“You don’t have to do that,” Sungho cut him off. Bitterness sat heavily on his tongue.
“But—”
Sungho winced. “Jaehyun-ah.” Stop. Stop talking.
Jaehyun stopped talking.
Silence fell, and Sungho felt like he might suffocate if he stayed in Jaehyun’s presence for even a second longer. The space of his living room seemed to shrink, rapidly so, the longer he had to feel Jaehyun’s gaze pierce through him and the brittle armor he’d built around himself in Jaehyun’s absence. Wedging a knife in his heart would hurt less than whatever this was.
“Please, Sungho,” Jaehyun’s voice rose a fraction of an octave.
He tried again, the corners of his mouth curving into a smile that, more than anything, resembled a grimace, a dull pain that mirrored something sequestered deep in a dust-ridden corner of Sungho’s interior life, a part of him he had spent the last two years trying to lock away.
Sungho didn’t smile back this time.
The room felt cold, even with Jaehyun at its center. It wasn’t always like this.
August, 2021.
“Is it just me or is it insanely hot today?”
Sungho opened his eyes and winced a little, white rays of sunlight blurring his vision. The shade underneath the roof of the bus stop provided little relief from the heat, the thin cotton of his shirt sticking to his back like a second skin.
“Mhm,” Sungho hummed, the sound of his voice drowned out by traffic. He stole a glance at the boy sitting next to him, black cap on backwards, exposing a tanned forehead lined with sweat and a face so dazzling Sungho had to force himself to look away.
His new roommate. Myung Jaehyun was his name; an intriguing surname, for an even more intriguing person.
He had shuffled into their tiny dorm room and greeted Sungho as though they’d been friends for their entire lives. Matriculating with the students on the international track, he’d already missed the spring semester of classes, but that didn’t seem to bother him much. Quite the contrary, he seemed eager to settle in, the newness of everything reflecting in his eyes.
It took Jaehyun all but fifteen minutes to unpack. Stacks of clothes haphazardly tossed into the closet, with only a few expensive-looking jackets he’d taken the time to carefully place on hangers. Sungho watched from his side of the room, raising a brow at the disarray. The prospects didn’t look too good, for someone who valued neatness above a great number of things in his life, but somehow Sungho found himself strangely unbothered by it.
“Hey, you want to grab some lunch together? I’m starving.”
Perhaps it was the heat. Perhaps it was Jaehyun’s dimpled grin, brighter than anything Sungho had ever seen in his life.
And then there they were, two strangers with just enough money to spend at the worn-down place that sold homemade kimchi stew a 5-minute walk from their dorm. The auntie who owned the place recognized Sungho and gave him a steaming bowl of gyeranjjim on the house, and in no time she was already conversing with Jaehyun like he was her long-lost son, her bellowing laughter reverberating throughout the tiny restaurant.
Sungho chewed thoughtfully, smiling a little every time Jaehyun’s eyes turned into little crescents at the slew of compliments the auntie tossed in his direction. How dashing, how handsome. Do you have a girlfriend? I have this niece, she is a very nice young lady…
Sungho had never really met anyone like Jaehyun. Someone whose warmth was so distinct and near tangible, so all-encompassing. And he wasn’t afraid to show it either, to anyone who was willing to embrace it.
They ended up walking to a nearby Baskin Robbins after lunch, the sweltering heat making everything around them shimmer. The rainy months had just passed, enveloping the city in a blanket of humidity that made it difficult to breathe at times. The season of the plum rain: it slathered everything in wetness, asphalt hot and slippery beneath the soles of their sneakers. A season of changes, transfigurations.
Here, now, ice creams in hand, Sungho had a sneaking suspicion Jaehyun had brought him out for something much more than just a meager lunch.
“I’d hoped we’d get some time to ourselves,” Jaehyun said then, as though he’d read Sungho’s mind. The plastic spoon dangled from the corner of his mouth. “I wanna get to know you better, Sungho.”
Perhaps it really was the heat. Under normal circumstances, Sungho would probably have declined such out-of-the-blue forwardness as politely as he could; after all, he wasn’t really the type to narrate his entire life story to someone he’d met not even two hours ago. Under normal circumstances, that is.
It didn’t help that Sungho found it surprisingly difficult to say no to Jaehyun—to say no to that overwhelming warmth of his.
The next few hours passed in a blur. Ice cream melted on the tip of their tongues; sweet, exhilarating. Sungho discovered the many similarities the two of them shared: older brothers, loving families, foolish dreams of making a name for themselves out there—wherever there might be.
Sungho learned about Jaehyun’s intense love for music, something he’d been pursuing since he was sixteen years old, his majoring in business administration but a simple backup plan in case all his efforts ended up amounting to nothing. How he had spent countless days and countless nights racing between part-time jobs despite his parents’ gentle protests, how passion burned and bled from every facet of his being. Trials and tribulations, bouts of imposter syndrome, everything in between.
And in return, Sungho imparted a few truths of his own. It felt uncanny, how easy it was to tell Jaehyun about himself: the way art and film constituted the very fabric of his life, the depth of his fascination toward discursive practices of all mediums, the satisfying procedural dance of debates and dialectics. Jaehyun listened attentively as Sungho described the intimacy of a good argument, how conflict could be beautiful and tender in its own way.
Jaehyun jumped in from time to time with thoughts of his own, weighing in on topics few others had been willing to engage in with Sungho. He was perfectly fine holding his ground when Sungho argued against him, getting strangely animated over subjects that, until now, had never found their way out of the many inscrutable essays tucked away in Sungho’s Notes app.
As Sungho rambled on, something settled on Jaehyun’s face, an expression he couldn’t exactly place; it bordered on adoration, endearment, an expression Sungho had decided then to brush off without a second thought.
The sun was hanging low by the time they realized they had sat at the bus stop for the entire afternoon, the streets around them slowly coming alive with new sounds, smells, strokes of neon.
One afternoon was all it took, really, for Sungho to feel like this—unfettered, unbound to anything. With the life he’d chosen for himself, this rocky and unpromising career path few others have deigned to pursue, Sungho had his share of frustrations: doubts from high school teachers, passing remarks from classmates, confused and worried looks from elderly relatives. Thrumming noise, cacophonic.
Not that Sungho was too bothered by all this; he was a perfectionist who cared less about what others thought and more about meeting his own standards for himself—he was his own worst enemy, his oldest enemy. He recognized and acknowledged their concern, their scorn, and used it as fuel to improve, to better himself above all else.
But then there was Myung Jaehyun.
Jaehyun was one of the first people Sungho met who seemed to actually understand why he loved what he loved. This realization made Sungho giddy, his heart strangely full, the shadows created by the orange sun in the horizon concealing the faintest hint of pink dusted across his cheeks.
“It’s getting late. We should head back.”
Jaehyun’s voice traveled through the summer evening air. Droplets began to form around the edges of Sungho’s heart.
The first few days after Jaehyun moved in felt like genuine torture.
Sungho slept fitfully, tossing and turning throughout the night, his pillows always too warm and his body underneath the thin blanket always too cold. His rattled nervous system would wake him up at half past four in the morning, the world quiet and pitch black outside his window. He wouldn’t have to be up for another two hours to get ready for work, but the thought of bumping into Jaehyun was so daunting Sungho calculated the chances of his survivability if he never set foot outside his bedroom door ever again.
His chances were slim to none.
Lying awake, exhausted and irritated, Sungho wanted nothing more than to shove all this turbulence back into that dust-ridden corner where it belonged. All of this—these feelings, these lingering glances, this…this debilitating rush of desire that could topple the world—was beginning to incapacitate him at a level that made Sungho extremely uncomfortable.
Woonhak never should’ve told him that Jaehyun was back from the States, that he was urgently looking for a temporary place to stay; he never should’ve mentioned that name in front of Sungho at all.
Sungho would’ve been fine, perfectly fine, going on about his days for the rest of his life without having to hear anything about Myung Jaehyun ever again (at least, that was what he told himself).
Sungho’s daily routines were elegantly structured, filed and organized based on a tried-and-true system that had been the nexus of his life for as long as he could remember.
Working out. Buying groceries. Monthly deep-cleans. Laundry. Going on dates that were sometimes decent, most of the time terrible. Everything fell into place as easily as breathing, a rhythm that helped Sungho make sense of the world around him and how he was supposed to live in it.
When Jaehyun left, that rhythm faltered for almost exactly two months before Sungho was able to minimize the dissonance created in his wake. Now that he was back, everything was knocked out of order again.
Something in the corner of his room caught his eye. A small keychain, hidden behind a pile of trinkets his friends (mostly Donghyun, really) had gifted him over the years. It was a miniature rendition of a painting Sungho liked, of a cat holding a fish in its mouth, with the words BUSAN MUSEUM OF ART printed on an overarching banner. It glittered in the dark like an ancient relic hidden beneath sand, taken from a different lifetime.
Sungho forced himself to look away.
Checking the time on his phone, Sungho decided it was probably wiser to wash up and escape out into the world before fate, twisted as always, would have him bump directly into Jaehyun in the hallway again like the first night, his body heat lingering uncomfortably on Sungho’s skin well into dawn.
The sky was still a rich shade of indigo by the time Sungho stepped outside of the apartment building, streetlights flickering sleepily above him. The ground was blanketed in a thin layer of snow that made everything feel bright, fresh, new.
Sungho didn’t really know where to go, or what to do, really. He was at a loss, hands balled up into fists inside the pockets of his winter coat.
The color of the sky reminded him of the countless early mornings he’d spent walking through Seoul aimlessly, Jaehyun by his side and a cigarette dangling between them, the threads of smoke tethering the two of them together. These walks would last for hours: after club-hopping in Hongdae, after visiting that fancy vinyl bar in Apgujeong where Dongmin worked, after a midnight showing of a foreign movie that Sungho was extremely excited for (Jaehyun less so, but tagged along anyway to keep Sungho company).
The two of them slipped in between the crevices of the city, laughing and talking about everything and nothing, their conversations echoing down alleyways and disappearing over the roar of highway bridges so long it took them more than 20 minutes to cross.
It wasn’t always good. There were heavier nights, like the one time Jaehyun had called Sungho at 3 o’clock in the morning and pleaded with him to come find him, voice trembling over the line as Sungho rushed out the door of his tiny studio apartment, jacket thrown carelessly over his shoulder.
It was on one of these walks at dawn where Jaehyun told him, out loud for the first time, that he’d like to believe that the two of them have known each other their entire lives. He’d chuckled a little, perched on a swing in a quiet playground somewhere in Yeonnam-dong, drying tears streaking down his cheeks.
You’re like a childhood friend, Jaehyun had said, swaying back and forth on the worn leather seat of the swing.
I think being with you is the most comfortable thing in the world.
Sungho blinked and shook his head, forcing unwanted images out of his mind. He didn’t want to think about that night in the park, the way he held Jaehyun in the crook of his arms. It reminded him of how he once felt as though he might mean something more to Jaehyun than just a friend.
Useless thoughts, dangerous thoughts, all these were.
Sungho stood in the middle of the empty street and watched the sun rise.
October, 2023.
“Alright, let’s get this in your system first.”
Dongmin opened the first of a dozen Terra cans littered across the surface of the table and handed it to Sungho, who downed half of it in one go without a second thought.
“Woah, slow down, hyung,” Woonhak chided, shoving a bag of chips in Sungho’s direction. “You know you shouldn’t drink so fast on an empty stomach.”
Sungho ignored him. Today was just one of those days: his heart felt like it weighed a thousand tons in his chest, a pain so deep and condensed everything hurt. It came out of nowhere, a passing comment from a classmate after their morning lecture about how Jaehyun was settling in well, as popular as ever in the States, his charm never failing to attract people to him like moths to a burning flame. How he had a million suitors, each one prettier than the next, and no shortage of men preening for his attention either.
Sungho had more or less told Dongmin and Woonhak the gist of the situation, though not without some reluctance on his part. About how Jaehyun had announced, out of the blue, that he had received an offer from a label based in Chicago, someone who had found his work on Soundcloud and asked him to join them on a project they were working on; how Jaehyun had only told him the night before his departure, an unreadable expression clouding his face.
How they had gotten into a taxi at half past five the next morning, the journey silent as they sped through the city toward Incheon. Flying past silver skyscrapers and sleeping apartment buildings, Sungho felt everything and nothing all at once. He was too afraid to look Jaehyun in the eye, too afraid of what he might end up seeing. Stopping before the security checkpoint, he watched as Jaehyun’s silhouette disappeared in the crowd—one hand tugging his suitcase, the other holding Sungho’s heart.
Needless to say, Sungho had spent a good part of the past two months feeling like he was sinking, his body on autopilot as he dragged himself through the wreckage that was once his daily routine.
Dongmin must have picked up on the changes in his behavior despite his best attempt at hiding it, enlisting Woonhak to help salvage the mess. Sungho had no intention of dumping all his problems onto his younger friends to begin with, but the two of them had offered, enthusiastically so, making it all the more difficult for Sungho to say no; plus, at this point, he was starting to feel a little desperate, and maybe a tad bit insane. Woonhak was also a lot more mature than he let on, wiser well beyond his years, his advice always managing to bring some sharp clarity to Sungho that he didn’t even realize he needed.
“You know, based on everything you’ve told us, don’t you think you’re giving yourself too little credit?”
“…What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, anyone with a properly screwed-on brain could tell that Jaehyun hyung adored you,” Dongmin remarked, taking a sip of his beer. “I don’t think the concept of him also having feelings for you is that outlandish.”
He paused a little, expression thoughtful, before continuing. “Though it is true he acts like that around everyone.”
Woonhak let out a loud, exasperated groan. “Hyung, you are not helping.”
“I’m just saying that I understand Sungho hyung’s inhibitions,” Dongmin responded, lips curling into a pout.
They weren’t supposed to be talking this loudly, with the walls as thin as they were and the cloudy 2 A.M. night stretching outside the open window from beyond the dark balcony, but Sungho was already opening his second can of beer and he felt like he should just…let go for a while. Lay his heart out for the time being. Save the neighbors’ complaints for tomorrow morning.
Woonhak hummed, ripping open a new pack of dried squid and grabbing a handful. “You know, hyung, you’ve always placed this…this pressure on yourself to do better, and you end up thinking you don’t deserve any happiness before you reach that level of better—whatever that might be.”
Sungho stayed quiet. He reached over and grabbed his beer, pouring the foamy yellow liquid into a glass he’d already filled with two shots of soju.
“I know it’s difficult, voicing these things,” Woonhak went on, brow furrowing in concern. “If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve assumed that you wouldn’t have any qualms about communication—hell, you love a good debate, don’t you, hyung?”
Woonhak gestured vaguely in the air, in an effort to demonstrate his point.
“Good argumentation doesn’t always equal good communication,” Dongmin pointed out, chewing on a strip of dried squid. “Maybe Sungho hyung is just terrible at the latter. Or maybe both.”
“Very funny,” Sungho shot a glare in Dongmin’s direction, who only grinned wickedly in return. “I’m not terrible at either of those things. If I were, I wouldn't be here asking for advice from you two of all people. Sanghyuk’s out of town.”
“He told me not to call it a honeymoon, but that’s basically what it is,” Dongmin smiled and unlocked his phone, turning the screen around and revealing an Instagram story from earlier in the day of Sanghyuk and Donghyun lounging by a beach in Okinawa.
“They look happy,” Sungho murmured, tracing a finger around the condensated edges of his glass.
He wished he could be as happy as them.
“Hyung, can you please stop distracting Sungho hyung?” Woonhak sighed, taking a swig from his soda like it was the beer in the other two’s hands. That got a chuckle out of both.
“Sorry, sorry,” Dongmin tossed his phone aside and raised his hands in the air in defeat. “Carry on.”
“As I was saying,” Woonhak emphasized the words. “I don’t think anyone’s born a master of communication when it comes to relationships. Not that I have any experience in the matter, but I feel like this is something you’d have to learn hands-on.”
“He’s right, you know,” Dongmin said, leaning his head back against the couch. “I was only half joking earlier. It’s hard talking about these things. I probably would’ve handled it worse if I were in your shoes.”
Sungho snorted. “You think?”
“See? That’s what I mean. Don’t be so hard on yourself all the time,” Woonhak urged, bringing his soda to the center of the table with a light c’mon, hyung. Sungho obliged, albeit a little peeved, and raised his beer can. Dongmin joined. Their cans made a soft clink that seemed to echo across Sungho’s tiny living room.
The three sank into a comfortable silence. Outside the fogged up windows, the night darkened and the beer started to flow smoother down Sungho’s throat, the soju starting to taste sweeter—which was never a good sign. Woonhak reached for the remote and switched the television on to some premiere league game, turning the volume down until it became soft background noise.
“But then again…” Dongmin mused, breaking the silence. “Don’t you think Jaehyun hyung would’ve wanted to know the truth about how you felt? I think he would have.”
“And I think I need something way stronger than this,” Sungho responded flatly, peering into his near-empty glass. He sighed and shoved his face in his hands. “This is hopeless, guys. I’m hopeless.”
“Shut up, no you’re not,” Woonhak shot back hotly before pointing a finger in Sungho’s face. “You know what you are, hyung?”
“…What?”
“You’re the most strong-willed person I’ve ever met, and—no, stop, don’t give me that look! You know I’m not just saying this to make you feel good about yourself—you know me better than that.”
Woonhak let out an indignant huff and settled back against the couch, taking another bite of dried squid. Sungho stared at the can of beer in his hands, glimmering green under the weak ceiling lights. He wondered whether or not he should be drinking at all right now, lest he do something stupid, like allowing his body to take action before he could properly think things through—like jumping on the next flight to Chicago and finding his way to Jaehyun’s door.
“I don’t know about that. I guess back then, I thought things could stay that way forever,” Sungho mumbled, feeling the alcohol seep through every vein in his body. The malt began to taste sour inside his mouth. “If I could just be close with him, talk to him, be with him like that…maybe it’s not so bad? That’s what I thought. I guess that makes me more of a coward than anything.”
Maybe this is good enough. Maybe this will hurt less than if I told him I loved him, and it turns out he never felt the same way at all—or he decides to end things completely.
(Fate had a cruel way of making Sungho’s fears come true.)
Sungho knew what love looked like: love lied on top of him, under him, once every few weeks, in the form of sparkling brown eyes staring into some untouchable distance—far flung into a future so tightly vacuumed it wouldn’t have enough room to include him at all, Sungho was sure. Love looked like his own body splayed out across a bed—giving Jaehyun his heart, his everything, in exchange for just another moment of his full, undivided attention.
“Hyung.”
Something in Dongmin’s voice made Sungho look up. Their eyes met, and Sungho flinched at the sharp gleam in Dongmin’s gaze. He sighed loudly, flopping down on the floor and resting his head on Woonhak’s lap, decidedly ignoring the many protests from the younger. “You know I’m not going to talk you into doing anything, but my advice is to tell Jaehyun hyung before it eats you alive.”
“Tell him how? I don’t even know if he’s ever coming back to Korea. I’m feeling better now anyway, thanks to you guys. I’m fine! I mean, I will be eventually—”
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Dongmin responded, cutting him off with a wave of his hand. Sungho sighed at his brazenness. “But if you want my honest opinion, for all I know, your chances are definitely higher than you think.”
“…And you know this, because…?”
Dongmin grinned. “I know this because you’re too pessimistic for your own good sometimes. Have some faith in yourself, hyung. And in Jaehyun hyung, too. Whatever happens, I’m sure you guys will work it out eventually. I can’t imagine a universe where the two of you don’t.”
The room felt warmer than ever. The worn green blanket, draped across Sungho’s knees, sent his mind into a drowsy haze. From the dark margins of the window came first light.
Saturday night, Sungho was cooped up underneath a pile of blankets, a movie he’d pulled up on Netflix playing almost inaudibly from the television. Something silly and harmless, a movie that didn’t require him to think too much about…anything, really. He wasn’t in the mood for depth or tragedy. It felt as though he’d already experienced enough tragedy to last him a lifetime or two.
“Rewatching Ponyo?”
Jaehyun appeared in the space between Sungho and the television, his figure blocking almost the entire screen. Shadows flickered across his face, a small smile curling slowly around the corners of his mouth.
“You know I can tell you’re not even paying attention right now.”
Sungho glanced up warily, not really wanting to engage in any kind of conversation. He’d already had two beers in his system, skin flushed pink right down to his collarbones. Jaehyun’s gaze drifted downwards for a split second before he looked away. Sungho was too dazed to notice.
Wordlessly, Jaehyun settled down next to Sungho on the couch, less than an arm’s length separating the two of them. They watched in silence, the television screen glowing blue in the dark.
Maybe it was the alcohol’s fault. Sungho didn’t feel like leaving his little haven of blankets, didn’t feel the need to shift away despite the proximity; in fact, he reveled in this prolonged closeness, close enough to hear Jaehyun’s steady breathing, his endeared chuckle every time Ponyo did something cute on the screen. Sungho would be lying if he said he didn’t miss this: just being in Jaehyun’s presence, doing something trivial and insignificant like rewatching a movie they’d both seen a thousand times already, throwing in small comments here and there and making each other laugh. Easy as breathing.
It was only when Sungho’s stomach rumbled, embarrassingly loud, did Jaehyun turn to face him with an amused glint in his eyes. Sungho met his gaze, feeling something intense and uncontrollable rising to the surface, threatening to break through the water with enough force to completely shatter the life Sungho had built for himself in Jaehyun’s absence.
“...Are you hungry?”
And so they had a pizza party for two.
Music was playing from Jaehyun’s phone. It echoed, bounced off the plastered walls and resounded inside Sungho’s head. He shoved another slice in his mouth, chewing merrily as the two of them fell into small conversation: updates on friends, updates about work. How Donghyun and Sanghyuk are still going strong after all these years, their subtle displays of affection toward one another so sickeningly sweet it drove everyone nuts. How Woonhak was adapting well to university life, the mention of his overwhelming popularity and the endless stream of love confessions he’d been receiving making Jaehyun snort. In turn, Jaehyun told Sungho about the unhinged things he’d witnessed while living in Chicago, his flair for dramatics making Sungho double over in laughter.
Sungho didn’t think too much about how easy everything was. The liquid in the green cans swished and swayed.
Sungho swayed. Some part of his brain was scolding him relentlessly for something, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what exactly it was. Not that he cared, really. Jaehyun was sitting next to him, laughing. Effortlessly this time.
The song changed and Jaehyun’s eyes widened in excitement. He jumped up from the floor and extended a hand out to Sungho.
“C’mon! Let’s dance!”
And there it was, that all-encompassing warmth, emanating from Jaehyun’s entire being.
“Wait—”
Sungho didn’t have time to say no. Not that he was going to, anyway. He never could deny Jaehyun anything he wanted.
And so they danced.
In the midst of it all, Sungho grabbed Jaehyun by the arm and pulled him in. He didn’t exactly know what made him do it, not really wanting to delve into the specifics—all he knew was that it just felt like the right thing to do. Their lips met halfway, the air in between dissolving and disappearing. Jaehyun’s chest felt dense under Sungho’s palms and there were stars in his eyes. They pierced right through him, a piercing warmth.
The kiss made Sungho’s head spin. It wasn’t perfect; it had too much teeth, too little tongue. And yet it wasn’t unfamiliar in the way one might think it would be, after being years and oceans apart. Their noses bumped and a soft chuckle fanned across his face; Jaehyun tasted like soy, like lemon candy. Salty and sweet, like the night by the sea when Sungho told him he loved him.
Sungho felt arms around his waist, bodies pressed against each other. Jaehyun smiled into the kiss.
It was still cold in this room, in the space they shared—but less so now with Jaehyun’s mouth on his.
July, 2023.
“You remind me of the ocean sometimes.”
Jaehyun glanced over at the words, a curious look in his eyes. “Oh?”
Sungho leaned back on the worn blanket, warm sand under his feet. The only sounds he could register were the waves crashing against the shore, the sea in front of them pitch black save for the occasional glittering reflecting the low moon above.
They were sitting by Haeundae Beach, in a corner farthest from the main area teeming with tourists and blinking with frenzied lights from nearby skyscrapers and ongoing traffic. They were reaching the end of their summer trip in Busan, a trip Sungho had meticulously planned for everyone as one last getaway before the fall semester began. Their days were spent swimming and shopping, visiting museums where Donghyun had purchased little trinkets for everyone (but mainly for Sanghyuk) at gift shops.
Jaehyun had bought a keychain for Sungho as well, which now dangled on the side of Sungho’s bag he was currently using as a makeshift pillow.
Sungho stared out at the waves. The wind made him shiver.
“You contain so much, you feel so much, you love so much,” Sungho spoke after a prolonged silence, his words drifting in the salty air. “And sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough to help you ease your burdens, to ease those storms going on inside your head, as your…friend.”
A pause.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you saying?” Jaehyun inched closer, their shoulders brushing. Sungho could hear a smile in his voice. “Don’t apologize. You being here is enough for me. You’ve always been more than enough.”
Sungho sucked in a breath. And without thinking, he blurted out:
“I love you.”
The waves receded, ebbing tides; it felt as though Earth itself had stopped turning, in that split second when those words came tumbling out of Sungho’s mouth.
Jaehyun had told him once that he believed there was no limit in telling the people you loved that you loved them. “I love you” for Jaehyun was synonymous with hello, goodbye, have you eaten, take care of yourself. Those three words contained multitudes, reflecting the way Jaehyun treated the people he held closest to his heart. Sungho liked to think he was one of those people.
Jaehyun grinned, though there was something else in his eyes Sungho couldn’t really place. “I love you too. But you know that already.”
Friend. It was a word that suspended in the air between them, something that didn’t quite accurately define what they were. Yes, they were friends, but they were also more than that: they had always found comfort in each other, found pockets of quiet in the space they shared amidst the noise of their entangled lives.
And Sungho wanted nothing more than to be Jaehyun’s anchor, to be the closest thing he had to a lighthouse in the stormy ocean of his own feelings, his worries, his fears. Sungho wondered, briefly, if staying friends would be enough to soothe this near-intolerable ache in his heart.
In the distance, shadowed in darkness, ships sailed out into sea.
Sungho ushered Jaehyun into his bedroom, floors creaking underneath hurried, uneven steps.
“I feel like we should talk about this—”
“Save it,” Sungho breathed out, heart pounding against his ribcage. “Save it for tomorrow morning.”
And there it was, that startled look on his face. It was as ridiculous and endearing as Sungho remembered.
The precarity of it all. Dancing on the edge of a jagged cliff, balancing on a tight rope hovering over a black abyss. A part of him urged him to pull away before it was too late, to turn on his heels and hurl himself out the room, out the apartment, as far away as his feet could take him. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Jaehyun’s body was rigid for exactly five seconds before he grabbed Sungho and pushed him down on the bed. Breath caught in his throat, air flung out of his lungs. Jaehyun’s weight settled on top of him and he couldn’t breathe. But he kind of liked it. He kind of missed it.
In the shadowed darkness, Sungho marveled at the expression on Jaehyun’s face: so beautiful, and so, so desperate. He could see that hunger that he missed, the way Jaehyun looked at him as though the entire universe had been condensed into this one singular moment. Nothing else mattered.
Jaehyun smoothed a hand down his body, exploring, re-exploring. Recollecting. Remembering.
Sungho let him. Fingers interlocked, bodies anchored to one another—and he felt something disintegrate, shatter inside him. With Jaehyun pressing featherlight kisses down his throat, Sungho decided to ignore that gnawing, growing pain, echoing from somewhere deep within. For now.
Sungho awoke the next day with bruises on his thighs and a patch of sun on his face.
He groaned, throat parched, a delicious ache coursing through him that he hadn’t felt in so incredibly long.
In the years left empty by Jaehyun’s absence, Sungho had tried to love others: an exchange student from Spain who bought flowers for him every Friday, a bartender who’d seen enough of Sungho to know his favorite cocktail and would secretly give him a few on the house. They would come home with him, mouth in the juncture of Sungho’s neck, hands roaming his body with a roughness that felt good, yet inexplicably alien to him.
The events of last night came rushing back without warning. He remembered Jaehyun’s hands, warm and calloused, dragging down the plain of his chest, his stomach, down to his thighs where he’d opened his mouth and taken him whole. Sungho had writhed in pleasure, throwing a hand over his face to hide himself from Jaehyun’s gaze drinking in the smallest details on his body, as though searing everything into memory. When Jaehyun eased into him, everything fell into place—everything felt…right.
Sungho pushed himself off the bed and walked into the kitchen, dazed and mind foggy, only to be greeted with a view so picturesque it sent him reeling. For some reason, he wanted to cry.
Jaehyun had his back turned, humming along to a song Sungho didn’t recognize, as he prepped plates on the kitchen counter and Sungho wondered, almost out loud, how anyone could look this damn good in a plain white tee. His hair was curly, freshly showered, water droplets trickling down the line of his neck. Sungho swallowed.
The sun was shining through the blinds and it made everything glow in a way Sungho hadn’t seen or felt in years. That feeling from last night came back: that deep, uncontainable feeling that could very well rip him right open if it remained hidden for too long.
Sungho cleared his throat and Jaehyun turned around, the look of surprise on his face soon replaced with a tiny grin.
“Morning, sleepy head.”
Jaehyun’s smile was unbearably pretty at one in the afternoon, but it still wasn’t enough for Sungho to bring himself to smile back.
Even so, he felt it again. That piercing warmth. It made him want to smile back, genuinely, or maybe throw himself off the edge of a looming precipice.
“You made breakfast?” Sungho kept his voice even.
“Yup,” Jaehyun answered lightly, pouring steaming hot coffee into two mugs. “Well, more like lunch. And technically, I bought the sandwiches from the convenience store downstairs, but I fried the eggs!”
Sungho couldn’t help the dry laugh that escaped him, eyeing the perfect triangular shapes of the massed-produced layers of bread and cheese and ham, plated surprisingly nicely next to two sunny-side-ups. He took the plates and made his way to the low coffee table, the wooden floors warm underneath him.
The initial silence was reasonably comfortable. Jaehyun focused on eating, his cheeks filling up in that adorable way that had always made Sungho laugh. Sungho ate cautiously, but he couldn’t really bring himself to swallow anything down. Not when that feeling inside him kept on nagging him relentlessly, urging him to say—something, anything.
Sungho sighed. “Well? Aren’t we going to address it?”
“Hm?” Jaehyun looked up from his sandwich. The clarity in his eyes was rather disarming.
Sungho poked the warm mug in front of him. “Aren’t we going to talk about it at all? This elephant in the room?”
Jaehyun was quiet. His silence perturbed Sungho, made him twitch in his seat as his fingertips turned white the harder he held his mug in a near-death grip.
Jaehyun’s voice was even when it cut through the anxiety thrumming in Sungho’s head. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
Sungho blinked a few times. “I basically started it.”
“Yeah, well. I should’ve stopped it. It never should’ve happened.”
Sungho stilled. For some reason, Jaehyun's response made him angry, terribly so. He felt it bubbling violently in the pit of his stomach, threatening to spill over.
A sort of unspoken understanding passed between them, an undercurrent of such gravity that it had Jaehyun sitting upright, gently placing his half-eaten sandwich back on the plate. The question that hung in the air seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room and Sungho took a long, deep breath.
Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?
The silence stretched.
Jaehyun spoke then, carefully, seemingly taking great pains to select each word. “You know why I had to leave. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had to take it.”
“Oh, I was perfectly aware. My question is this: why on earth didn’t you tell me? You said you received the offer in July, right after we got back from Busan. Why didn’t you tell me then?”
Why didn’t you warn me? Why did you leave me?
Sungho’s voice came out higher than he expected. High-strung, dangerously uneven, on the verge of breaking apart. Jaehyun’s eyes widened slightly at that. At the implications coloring the lines of every question Sungho just tossed out.
“Okay, you know what? Let’s run it back a little,” Sungho exhaled, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you back? Why did you leave Chicago? I heard you were happy there.”
That was true; at least, that was what Sungho was led to believe. He would be lying if he said he heard whispers through the grapevine about Jaehyun and his new life across the world and didn’t care enough to listen properly. He listened to everything: rumors about Jaehyun producing for some big-shot American pop artist, rumors about his projects receiving such glowing praise they—some famous record label—were considering bringing him on permanently as an in-house producer.
“I want to know; I feel like I deserve to know. Don’t you think so?”
Jaehyun skillfully evaded his question with one of his own. “What about you?”
“…What about me?”
“That night, when I told you I was leaving,” Jaehyun said, voice calm. “What was on your mind?”
Sungho blinked and faltered, words dying in his throat. He didn’t know how to answer that; or, more accurately, he didn’t want to answer at all. It required him to dig through memories he had locked away in a box, filled with bits and pieces of affection and lust and grief, all pertaining to the man sitting in front of him.
“What was on my mind? You really want to know?”
The answer came swiftly. “Yeah.”
“Honestly? I was fucking devastated,” Sungho could feel the corners of his eyes growing warm and he cursed inwardly. He couldn’t have Jaehyun see him cry. Not right now, not like this.
Jaehyun said nothing, waiting for him to continue. The silence was excruciating.
“…I was devastated, because I didn’t think you’d leave. Just like that. You are—you were—such a big part of my life, I was hurt, as…as your friend—”
Jaehyun barked out a laugh, cutting Sungho short. The sound was bitter, tinged with unbridled frustration.
Sungho glared at him pointedly, raising an eyebrow and leaning back against the couch with his arms crossed. “…You’ve got something you want to say. Just say it. All cards on the table now, right?”
“You irk me, Park Sungho,” Jaehyun was agitated now, an edge in his voice as he looked directly into Sungho’s eyes. “I could never really tell what you think of me. All these years, I’ve tried to gauge what it is you want, but you treat me like any other…friend, and it pains me.”
“I could say the exact same about you,” Sungho shot back, hands balling into fists, nails digging red crescents into his palms. He had never felt this much anger in his life. Closing his eyes, he counted to ten. The room grew hot, oppressively so; but for some reason, a certain giddiness began to bloom across Sungho’s chest.
This is better, Sungho thought. This is better.
This. Confronting his pain, looking directly into Jaehyun’s eyes, the turbulence in them so uncannily identical to his own that Sungho wondered whose agony, whose desire, he was actually seeing.
“You know what’s funny? If you’d told me to stay, I would’ve stayed. In a heartbeat. I would have canceled my flight right then and there, emailed them to tell them I couldn’t do it—that I won’t do it.”
“Why would I have asked you to stay if I knew I would be getting in the way of you achieving everything you’ve ever wanted? You really think so little of me, it’s laughable. It’s sad.”
“I don’t think little of you!” Jaehyun groaned, burying his face in his hands. His voice rang throughout the sunlit room and rattled inside Sungho’s head. “I’m just saying that was how far I was willing to go, if it weren’t for this whole ‘friend’ thing you kept trying to maintain—”
“Because we were friends! That’s what we were!” Sungho tried, and failed to keep his voice leveled. He was reeling: from anger, from embarrassment, from hurt, everything.
“And who, or what, were you doing it for, exactly? Were you really trying to preserve the sanctity of our friendship, or were you just trying to protect yourself?”
Sungho stopped in his tracks. He didn’t know what to say to that. Inside his head, he tried to reason with himself: that logically, it was the former—realistically, it was the latter.
“…Both.”
Jaehyun took a deep breath.
When he spoke again, his voice sounded fragile. “I can tell you this much: I was scared. I was scared of what it meant, scared of uncovering whatever it is—this right here—” Jaehyun gestured to the space separating the two of them, eyes bright and unrelenting. “And what it might mean for us both.”
Jaehyun, unlike Sungho, didn’t try to hide the fact that he was crying. He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, chest trembling ever so slightly. Sungho stared, unsure of what to do with himself—what to do with his hands, folded together like a prayer.
“I left because I didn’t know what to do with all this…this want I have for you. We’ve spent years dancing around each other’s shadows, and I couldn’t bring myself to imagine what stepping out into the light might mean for us, how it might change us. Don’t lie and say you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about—what it would mean if I’d laid everything out, if I had told you that I loved you, Park Sungho. Still love you.”
The room was unbearably warm. Sungho felt as though he had been punched in the gut, wind knocked swiftly out of his lungs.
“I love you, and not just as a friend,” Jaehyun chuckled dryly, eyes shining. “I haven’t thought of you as just a friend in a long, long time.”
A pause.
“I honestly can’t pinpoint a specific moment. If anything, I think I might’ve been in love with you from the moment we met,” Jaehyun’s voice was small, but strong; it contained so much, quiet oceans cascading from every word. “The first time we slept together, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I thought I was dreaming, like everything in my life had led me to loving you, and maybe to you loving me.”
All of a sudden, without warning, Jaehyun shifted in Sungho’s direction, settling down right next to him and leaving no space in between—no space for Sungho to breathe.
“You wanted to know why I came back? I came back because I missed you. That’s literally the only reason. I had so many regrets, regrets I tried swallowing down, nights where I couldn’t sleep because all I could think about was that morning at the airport, the shape of your silhouette when I turned around to say goodbye but instead I stood there and watched you leave.”
“…You looked for me?” Sungho forced out, head spinning. He was already crying before he noticed it himself, his vision blurring, and he felt as though he might drown.
He looked for me.
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Sungho sobbed. He sobbed so hard he thought his heart might start ripping itself out of his chest, tearing its way through flesh and bone, yearning to close its proximity with Jaehyun, who now had his arms wrapped around him—enveloping him in his overwhelming, enduring warmth, a thumb caressing his tear-stained cheeks.
“Don’t cry, shh, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
Taking in the familiar scent of Jaehyun’s shirt, realization hit Sungho then, like planets colliding, a star collapsing in on itself. After all these years, these long, beautiful, terrible years, it finally became clear to him: that there was always love, love of all degrees, that he had shared with Jaehyun. Desire, intimacy, companionship. It existed in the fissures of their lives, strings of smoke and peals of laughter, bleeding through quiet alleyways and under harsh neon lights. It was always there, he’d just been too scared to acknowledge it, to acknowledge its immensity.
“I love you,” Sungho whispered against the soft of Jaehyun’s neck, voice hoarse, the skin salty on his tongue. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Jaehyun replied easily, a smile in his voice as he kissed the crown of Sungho’s head. “I love you.”
Twilight came without notice. The two of them had sat on the couch for what felt like an eternity, talking about everything.
“You know, Han Dongmin told me he was sure we’d come to this point, that we’d figure things out eventually,” Sungho smiled a little, tracing patterns on Jaehyun’s palm. “His exact words were this: I can’t imagine a universe where the two of you don’t.”
Jaehyun grinned, taking Sungho’s hand in his own and interlacing their fingers. “Dongminie’s all grown up, huh.”
Sungho scoffed. “He really is. Who would’ve thought.”
Their laughter settled and the room became silent. The steady sound of their breathing in tandem, the subdued whir of the air conditioning system like a lullaby to Sungho’s ears.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Jaehyun said, voice tender. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on Sungho’s mouth. “I’m starving, aren't you?”
Sungho only nodded. He felt sated, despite the puffiness around his eyes and the dull pain in his chest from all the crying. He felt good, genuinely, at peace, for the first time in a long time.
After a while, the intercom buzzed and the delivery driver’s crackly voice came through the speaker, announcing his presence at the front entrance. Jaehyun untangled himself from Sungho’s arms and stood up. He stretched and sighed, arms extending outwards as though reaching for the sun. He turned back and looked down at Sungho, that all-encompassing warmth as piercing as always, but softer now than ever. Jaehyun placed a hand on Sungho’s cheek, running a thumb across pinkish skin, and Sungho leaned into the touch with his eyes closed.
“I’ll be back soon,” Jaehyun murmured gently.
Jaehyun disappeared behind the door and Sungho was left with the glow of the disappearing sun in his wake.
At least this time, Sungho was sure he would feel it again. That wonderful, wonderful warmth.