Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t until they had already reached high school that Jun realized the feelings he was developing for Jihoon were different from those he harbored toward his other friends. Truthfully, he should have noticed what was happening earlier, but he didn’t until it was far too late. Not that he could have stopped it. Not that he would have wanted to stop it. He just should’ve known what was coming.

To him, it seemed like one day he went to sleep a carefree soul, and the next he woke up unable to think about Jihoon without feeling like his guts weren’t guts at all, just weird blobs of gelatin shaped like organs and crammed in his body. At first he thought maybe it wasn’t anything, but that was quickly proven to be false when every time he was around Jihoon, which was often, he would be overcome with the desire to reach out and touch him: ruffle his hair, grab his wrist, put a hand on his shoulder. He tried experimentally being near to his other friends to see if the same thing happened, but no dice. In addition to having no desire to lay a finger on any of them, they all thought he was “weird as hell for standing so close for no damn reason” and wanted him to “back up before I jam my elbow somewhere you don’t want it.”

Of course, it wasn’t really a sudden change like he deluded himself into thinking it was. In a way, it was like learning to read. You learn the letters, you piece together the words, start to make sense of them in your head; it happens so gradually, but one day you just have the abrupt realization you can do it. Maybe if Jun had realized he was learning to read, he wouldn’t have been so shocked when the squiggles on the page started meaning something.

It didn’t help that they were still in a sort of awkward transition from babyhood to less-babyhood, stretching out their limbs and carving out their faces and making their necks slick with sweat every time they had to talk out loud in class. Jun’s hands were still sticky from the melting Skittles in his pocket when his legs started getting too long for that same old pair of jeans, and he hadn’t failed to notice the way Jihoon’s once softly rounded cheeks withered back a little into something sharper of a jawline over the summer between their final year of middle school and the start of freshman year.

It was only about two awkward, muggy August weeks before anyone started to catch on to the hitches in his breath whenever Jihoon came within a three-foot radius, and obviously, it had to be Soonyoung, the one guy with his eyes always peeled and a nose for discerning information unlike any other. “You couldn’t be more obvious if you had a sign taped to your forehead,” he’d said once after witnessing Jun let his eyes follow Jihoon for just a moment too long when he split away from the group to walk home.

“Obvious about what?” Jun asked, failing to play dumb as he took one last glance at Jihoon’s departing back and only cementing Soonyoung’s words further.

“Dude.” He looked over his face for a good minute before responding, wheezed out a sympathetic sigh, dropped his voice. “I know you like Jihoon.”

“You what?” Jun sputtered, saliva catching in his throat behind that ever-sharpening Adam’s apple and making him choke. “I don’t, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said unconvincingly, not quite able to bring his eyes to Soonyoung’s for more than a millisecond at a time.

“Come on,” Soonyoung had said, reaching up to give him an uncomfortably warm pat on the back in the already too-hot afternoon. “I see the way you look at him. It’s like you’re a little kid seeing the moon for the first time.” There wasn’t much else Jun could do but sigh and admit defeat, look down to watch his feet scrape along the concrete in a pair of shoes that were starting to get too small.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said quietly, nearly a whisper above the dull screaming of the cicadas around them. This was long before Soonyoung had the idea to place bets on anything and everything he thought he knew before everyone else did, so he agreed without much thought, finally removing his hand from Jun’s overheating back.

“I won’t,” he promised, “but you’re lucky they’re all so dense. Especially Jihoon.”

Jun hadn’t thought Jihoon was dense, but then again, there were a lot of things he hadn’t thought. He hadn’t thought he spent that much time looking at Jihoon until the day after Soonyoung confronted him. Their conversation only made him far too aware of every single action he performed when Jihoon was around, and he caught himself absentmindedly staring Jihoon’s direction somewhere around twenty times in a single class period, like a compass magnetized to point toward him whenever it got turned around. Jihoon didn’t seem to notice even once, and that’s when Jun started to think that maybe he was a little dense.

He was a lot of things, Jun noticed. He was brief when he wanted to be, which he usually did, and he never minced words, not even with teachers or kids he’d never spoken to, and Jun thought there was something scarily brave about that. He wasn’t mean, but he wasn’t nice, either. He had a heart of gold only when he felt like showing it, but he would never own up to it later, unwilling to let anyone think he was a good person for more than a second before shooting them back down. He was beautiful in a kind of nebulous way, some subtle grace in his features that Jun could never quite pin down but also couldn’t stop trying to find, and he was smarter than he let most of them think he was. And he was just a teensy bit dense.

There was no chance with Jihoon. There was less than no chance, actually, not with a guy so adamant about maintaining the aloof sort of friendship he’d had with everyone for years. Given how long they’d all known each other, ever since they were little kids, it wasn’t a stretch to use the term “close friends” to describe the bunch, but Jihoon always made sure he was just one step farther away than anyone else, and nobody really knew why. They figured if that was the way Jihoon wanted to have things, that was the way he would have them. No questions, no arguments, no explanations.

Jun decided he would just let his feelings die down and fade away as all feelings eventually do, or should do, if you spend a long enough time acting like they aren’t there. He knew it was for the best, too, only it was hard when he saw Jihoon almost every day and it was hard when his heart sped up on its own and it was hard when he got string cheese stuck in his braces and Jihoon laughed out loud in that unbelievably captivating way that he always did, all wide smiles with his head thrown back. It was so, so hard, but he still convinced himself every day that he could do it even though he knew he couldn’t.

He was in the middle of doing a terrible job at acting like he didn’t have a steadily growing crush on Jihoon when Jihoon’s birthday rolled around and he actually decided to have a party for once. It was a small party—just the seven of them, because adding anyone else would be pushing it—and everything was going fine, just a bunch of dumb boys doing dumb boy things, until someone had the bright idea to play truth or dare, only the first of many times they would go on to play that stupid game. Soonyoung swore up and down that he wasn’t the one who came up with playing it, but when you knew Soonyoung like Jun did, you knew it couldn’t have been anyone’s idea but his.

They gathered into a little circle, and Jun really did try his best to sit anywhere but next to Jihoon, but he ended up beside him anyway, droplets of sweat beading on his forehead as he forced himself to look anywhere but to his left, knew if he took even a glance at the boy sitting there he wouldn’t be able to move his eyes again for far too long. As the game dragged on, he could see out of the corner of his eye that Jihoon really wasn’t interested, and part of him was a little hopeful that he would end the game himself before anything happened to justify the terrible knot of nerves in Jun’s stomach. Naturally, he could never be so lucky.

“Jihoon,” Soonyoung called from the opposite side of the circle, “truth or dare?”

“Dare," he declared boldly, and Jun knew that mischievous twinkle in Soonyoung’s eyes couldn’t mean anything good.

“I dare you to kiss one of the people sitting next to you,” he said, and Jun felt his heart sink all the way down to his stomach and then continue straight through the floor.

Please pick me was the first thing he thought, immediately alongside No matter what you do, don’t pick me. He didn’t know which one would be worse, and he didn’t want to know. On Jihoon’s other side sat Jeonghan, handsome as always despite the hairs that had started to spring out of his face without warning, and on one hand, Jun thought he might be able to deal with it if it was Jeonghan; he was kind of already seeing someone else, so Jun was sure nothing would happen between them if Jihoon kissed him once.

On the other hand, though, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of Jihoon kissing someone else in front of him just as much as he knew that if Jihoon kissed him, he would never be able to get over this stupid crush that he never even wanted. The only way it would work out in his favor was if Jihoon asked for a different dare, and it seemed for a few seconds like he might. This seemed like the kind of dare Jihoon would never want to do anyway, and for just a minute, Jun got his hopes up that he would ask for something different, something better, like holding a headstand for thirty seconds or chugging a two-liter of Mountain Dew. Aforementioned hopes were shattered completely when he saw movement just past his left arm, watched Jihoon turn to face him head-on.

No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t tear his eyes from Jihoon’s face when he started leaning closer. He didn’t really want to, either, not when their faces had never been so close before and the chance to take in all of his features from so near wasn’t likely to present itself again. A tiny freckle under his left eye that Jun had never noticed before was almost the only thing he could focus on. Too scared to make eye contact because what if Jihoon could see right into his brain and know how much he wanted to kiss him all the time? Too scared to look at his lips because he’d seen them before, knew how soft they would seem, and what if something showed on his face that made it obvious he was glad they would be pressed against his own in a matter of moments? He probably looked so nervous anyway, wiping the moisture from his palms on the carpet, but maybe there was a chance Jihoon wasn’t noticing it, too focused on getting the dare over with.

Time stopped when Jihoon reached up to rest his hands on Jun’s shoulders. Impossibly and unfathomably, there was nothing else in that moment, not a single other event in the entire universe. Not as far as Jun was concerned, at least. The only things he knew were pounding silence flooding his ears and the scorching heat rising under his skin, burning him where he felt Jihoon’s fingertips through his t-shirt. He’d have sworn he was blacking out if it weren’t for the clear image of Jihoon’s lips as they moved forward toward his, slower than slow can be, an unimaginable slowness, so slow he died and came back a million times before they had moved forward an inch.

Time stopped again when their lips finally made contact. It was only for a short moment, but at the same time, it was the longest period of Jun’s entire life, ten infinities strung together, dragging on in a bittersweet forever as Jihoon’s mouth lingered over his, lips just as soft as he always thought they might be but never expected to know for sure. When he pulled back, Jun was completely breathless, utterly winded despite what a chaste peck it was. He was afraid to breathe and ruin that solitary second of togetherness, to exhale and blow it off into oblivion.

He watched Jihoon blink a few times as he leaned back to his seat and pulled his hands from Jun’s seared shoulders, pretty eyelashes sweeping over his cheeks in subtle curves, and Jun knew immediately that he was totally and undeniably fucked. No amount of digging would get him out of the Jihoon-flavored pit he’d fallen into, and while he couldn’t do much but hate the hopelessness of it for himself, a large part of him didn’t mind. He thought it might not be all bad being so taken if it was Jihoon’s spell he was under.

“This game sucks,” Jihoon said bluntly, folding his legs back underneath him. “I don’t wanna play it anymore.”

Jun didn’t remember what they did after that. All he recalled was how unbearably hot his face was for the rest of the evening. Even during his walk home when the late November air drew goosebumps on the rest of his skin, even when he splashed cold water from the sink onto himself before going to bed, even when he flipped the pillow over to the cool side and tried to catch some sleep. His cheeks smoldered with a white heat straight through the night until they finally dampened in the morning, but they only warmed back up every time his thoughts drifted to the party.

“I saw you staring at Jihoon again in biology,” Soonyoung whispered when they paired up in geometry the following Monday, masking his words with the rustling of the textbook’s pages. “I thought you were trying to let it die out.”

“I was trying,” Jun confessed softly, “but it wasn’t even working. And now it’s just hopeless.” He stared at the mess of shapes inked on the paper, seeing everything but failing to understand what he was supposed to be looking at. “What the hell are we supposed to be doing right now, anyway?”

“Why is it hopeless now?” Soonyoung asked, scrawling illegibly and unhelpfully on a piece of paper.

“You know damn well why it’s hopeless now,” Jun hissed, snatching the pencil from Soonyoung’s unsteady hand. “Why the fuck would you give him that dare?” Their teacher’s ears perked up at his word choice, and she shot a stern warning glance to let him know that she was prepared to issue a detention at any moment. Soonyoung just chuckled.

“I knew he wasn’t gonna kiss Jeonghan, that’s why,” he boasted quietly, reclaiming his pencil. “I did you a favor.”

“Favor, my ass,” Jun sighed, glaring at the array of triangles in the book like this was somehow their fault. “I’m boned, dude.” He raked a hand through his hair and made a mental note to get it cut soon. “Why Jihoon, of all people?”

“Well, you know what they say,” Soonyoung said in a hushed voice, nodding sagely. “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends’ noses.”

“How is that relevant right now?”

“You can’t pick your crushes, either.” Jun opened his mouth to shoot something back, but the voice of their teacher cut across the classroom before he could.

“If you boys don’t stop talking, I will find you new partners myself.”

“We’re working, ma’am!” Soonyoung called cheerfully, a very bold lie in front of the entire class, and lowered his pencil back to the paper to continue writing in reformed Greek or Wingdings or whatever the hell unintelligible gibberish he was attempting to do the assignment in.

“Why do you have the world’s worst handwriting?” Jun asked quietly, and Soonyoung’s glare in return could have cut his hair for him.

“If you don’t help me figure out these damn triangles, I’m telling Jihoon everything,” was all he said, and that was enough to get Jun to focus on the assignment.

It might have been smooth sailing if Soonyoung had been the only one to catch on, but as winter break grew nearer, Jeonghan’s eyes began to open as well, the pink dusting Jun’s cheeks almost constantly no longer able to be disguised. Realistically, it probably still would have sucked if only Soonyoung knew, but it sucked twice as bad when the population of people who were clued in on his not-so-secret secret doubled.

They agreed to meet up at the mall on some Saturday in the first half of December to shop for Secret Santa gifts, though none of them were quite sure how well that was going to go if they were all in the same place. When Jun arrived to their designated meeting spot, the weird statue by the food court of a guy lifting twelve shopping bags and pushing a stroller with his foot, Jeonghan and Soonyoung were the only two who had arrived already, chatting quietly until Jun strolled up in all his gawky tallness.

“Hey, Jun,” Jeonghan greeted with the same soft half-grin he’d worn for as long as Jun could remember. “Jihoon isn’t coming today.”

“Okay,” Jun said, because Why are you telling me? seemed suspiciously defensive, only because it would have been suspiciously defensive, and he didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel more upset or relaxed, but Jeonghan didn’t give him much time to think about it.

“Jesus, you may as well be wearing a neon sign that says ‘I like Jihoon’ in big ass letters,” Jeonghan sighed, shaking his head. “It’s like you don’t know if you should be relieved or disappointed, and it’s all over your face.”

“Did you tell him, you jackass?” he spat at Soonyoung, but he just raised his hands defensively.

“He didn’t have to tell me,” Jeonghan explained tiredly, grabbing Jun by the shoulder and pulling him down onto the bench. “You’re so obvious. It’s like you want everyone to know. And they will, trust me.”

“Well, what do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know, dude.  Get better at acting?” Jun groaned. Get better at acting, indeed. Sure, it might help him keep his secrets a little bit longer, but pretending wasn’t going to make him feel any better. Just as he heard footsteps coming up beside him, Jeonghan spoke again. “I lied, by the way.” Before he had time to ask what Jeonghan was talking about, the sight of a too-familiar figure approaching dangerously close in his periphery gave his heart the idea to try and beat its own record for beats-per-minute.

“Lied about what?” Jihoon asked stiffly, shifting his gaze between the three of them in suspicion. “Oh, hey, Jun,” he said, and Jun thought he might just drown in those eyes.

“Hey,” he replied lamely, and while Jeonghan did not groan aloud, it was plain as day on his face that he wanted to.

Jihoon was wearing a sweater with sleeves that were just a little bit too long, graceful fingers poking out beautifully from beneath the cuffs. Jihoon had wonderful hands; Jun had always thought so. They could play piano and clarinet and guitar, they could tap out little beats on the classroom desks. They could do anything. They were wonderful, gorgeous hands that did wonderful, gorgeous things, and he wanted more than anything to hold them, even if for just a second, a fleeting breath of time, so that maybe he could feel wonderful and gorgeous, too.

“Have a fun trip to the bathroom, Jihoon?” Soonyoung jabbed, snickering, but Jihoon didn’t seem to give a shit.

“It was the most fun I’ll have all day,” he deadpanned. “Anyway, what did Jeonghan lie about? Aside from the stuff he always lies about, I mean.”

“I never lie.” Jihoon just raised his eyebrows. “Fine. I told him,” he said, and Jun felt his chest tighten because what if he tells the truth oh my god, “that Wonwoo broke his foot.” Jihoon scoffed at the same time that Jun exhaled the most relieved sigh he could muster without being expressly obvious.

“What a dumb thing to lie about,” Jihoon mused. “Wouldn’t Jun be the first one to know if that happened?” he asked, and Jun realized that he was probably right. He was the closest to Wonwoo out of all of them, so it would only make sense for Wonwoo to tell him first if he didn’t tell all of them at the same time. “You’re a dumbass, Jeonghan.”

“The dumbest,” he agreed playfully.

“When are Seungcheol and Wonwoo gonna get here?” Jisoo asked, and for a moment, none of them realized that he hadn’t even been there in the first place. With unbelievable delay, Soonyoung snapped his head around, wide-eyed.

“When the hell did you get here?” Jisoo quirked a brow and smiled his weird, knowing smile, eyes flicking to Jun for no more than a moment before meeting Soonoung’s gaze again.

“I got here right before Jun did,” he said, and that was when Jun realized that his secret was only becoming less of one the longer he tried to keep it.

Shopping in a big group turned out to be the worst idea ever, because everyone was just bent on trying to guess who was shopping for whom, so after causing uproars in three separate stores, they decided to split into smaller subgroups to make things easier. After fierce deliberation designed to protect everyone from knowing who their Secret Santa was, they formed two groups of two and one group of three. Jihoon and Seungcheol comprised pair number one, and pair number two was the hellish duo of Jeonghan and Soonyoung. Jun was roped into roaming around with Jisoo and Wonwoo, which was great because it meant he couldn’t slip up in front of Jihoon, but he would almost rather have died than been forced to put up with Jisoo’s abundant suggestive glances and eyebrow raises and sly smiles.

“Would you stop looking at me like that?” Jun asked when Wonwoo split off from their little trio in Radio Shack to go check out the headphones. He had to buy for Jihoon, so headphones were the gift that made the most sense; Jihoon went through pairs of them like it was his job.

“Like what?” Jisoo said, arching his eyebrows, same smug smirk still plastered on his face. “Like you have a big ol’ crush on little ol’ Jihoon?”

“Please,” he whispered, “do not say anything about it. I really mean it.”

“I think we both know that you can trust me much more than you can trust Jeonghan,” he said confidently. Somewhere on the other side of the mall, Jeonghan sneezed. “Or Soonyoung, actually. I’m the last person you need to worry about.” Jun sighed, clenching and unclenching his fists uncomfortably, sweat already dewing on his palms at the overwhelming prospects of Jeonghan letting something slip. “Listen,” Jisoo muttered, suddenly serious. “I already noticed weeks ago.”

“What?” Jun yelped, and Wonwoo glanced over in concern before turning his attention back to the two identical pairs of earphones in his hands.

“It was just a suspicion,” Jisoo continued, “but you confirmed it today.” He fixed his eyes on Jun, hard and unmoving, seeing right through him just like everyone seemed to be doing without much trouble. “It’s unbelievable that Jihoon hasn’t noticed anything yet,” he said as if Jun hadn’t already heard that a million times, hadn’t already told it to himself until he felt like throwing up. “You’re gonna have to do something.”

“But I can’t do anything,” Jun returned, something halfway between a whine and a sob, voice cracking in that embarrassing way that it wouldn’t stop doing. “It’s hopeless and you know it.”

“Well, you can’t just do nothing,” he said, and Wonwoo trudged back to them with a pair of newly-purchased headphones hanging in a plastic bag around his wrist before Jun could formulate an adequate response.

Do something, do something. It was always about doing something, but Jun didn’t want to do anything. He just wanted to be left alone. He wanted his heart to act like a heart instead of a hummingbird and his lungs to act like lungs instead of bubbles and his stomach to act like a stomach instead of a kaleidoscope of butterflies. He wanted his brain to understand that it was impossible and give up for good. He wanted to sleep until being around Jihoon didn’t make him feel like the world didn’t have quite enough air in it. He wanted a lot of things, but mainly, he wanted to get over these dumb feelings and leave them behind them so he could be around one of his own friends without feeling like his chest might cave in on itself.

The shopping trip ended uneventfully. Since Jun had to buy for Jeonghan, he considered getting him some tape to keep his lips sealed, but decided instead to get him a few pairs of weird socks since he seemed to really like those all of a sudden. Jisoo went way over the twenty dollar limit and bought Soonyoung the Naruto movie, rationalized it by saying they would probably watch it together anyway so it was partially a purchase for himself. The group reconvened for only a brief moment by the statue before separating to go back to their homes, Jihoon slipping away without more than a word of parting, leaving Jun’s ears wanting to hear more of his steadily deepening voice no matter how much he wished they wouldn’t.

The semester ended with the usual stress that always accompanies the ending of a semester, and the date for the Christmas party creeped up not too long after. It was at Seungcheol’s house like always, two days before Christmas this year instead of one because he apparently had all of his forty-fifth cousins sixteen times removed coming into town Christmas Eve and there just wouldn’t be space. They all crowded into his living room to do their usual Christmas business of inhaling every single cookie Seungcheol’s mom had made with their growing boy appetites and yelling at the video games they played on the TV.

Jun didn’t have it in him to join in like in years past. Of course, in years past he hadn’t been so preoccupied with trying to keep his eyes off Jihoon that he ended up ignoring everything his friends were saying, ignoring the game, and ignoring his own thoughts when they drifted back to Jihoon inevitably. He sat back on the couch and tried not to be too conspicuously detached from the festivities, tried to look like he was just waiting on his turn for the controller, but if his previous failures at subtlety were any indication, he probably wasn’t doing a very good job.

Eventually, they abandoned their game and crowded together into a small circle on the carpet to start the gift exchange. Seungcheol’s dad brought in the gifts from the closet where he’d stashed them on the arrival of each boy, generating a nice little pile in the middle of their loop. By the grace of either god or the devil, Jun somehow wound up next to Jihoon again, and he couldn’t stop himself from noticing how nice his fingers looked peeking out once again from under the cuffs of an oversized sweater. He fiddled with the poorly taped edges of the festive paper just barely covering his gift, which Wonwoo had done an extraordinarily shitty job of wrapping, and his hands looked so delicate yet strong at the same time, elegant but sturdy. His own hands paled in comparison, just bony collections of joints covered in skin. They were different machines altogether, like apples and skateboards, and his were nowhere near amazing enough to hold Jihoon’s.

They went around the circle opening gifts one by one, and it became apparent very quickly that Jun and Wonwoo were the only two who had obeyed the twenty dollar rule. Soonyoung got Seungcheol the whole DVD box set for some show the rest of them had never heard of, and Jeonghan got Wonwoo the first two books in a series he was interested in reading, hardback, which had to be at least thirty bucks. Next to everyone else’s gifts, Jeonghan’s three pairs of novelty socks looked like an insult.

“Who got me these?” he asked, holding one pair up to the light, decorated to look like hamburgers. It had become customary for each Secret Santa to reveal himself as the gift he bought was opened, so Jun raised his hand timidly, heating up when he felt Jihoon’s eyes on him. Jeonghan smiled brightly, folding the socks back together and setting them on his lap. “Thanks, Jun. I’m gonna wear these all the time.”

“That was a good gift,” Jihoon whispered, nudging Jun’s side with barely enough force to be felt as Soonyoung began tearing the paper off his Naruto DVD. Jun gulped hard, his ribs catching on fire where Jihoon’s elbow exerted its gentle pressure, unable to do anything but offer one silent nod.

Slowly but surely, the circled worked its way around until it was Jun’s turn to open his present. He carefully peeled back the heavily-taped wrapping paper, trying to discern what was inside without being too obvious about it. It wasn’t very small, and it was kind of heavy, but he had no clue what was going to be inside once he finally got all the paper off. When the wrapping was out of the way enough for him to see what he was unveiling, he was certainly surprised.

It was a shoebox, and while it seemed pretty clear that there would be shoes inside, he was still stunned to find them there. A crisp pair of low-top Converse, black and clean, lights from the tree reflecting weakly off the shiny white toes. He took one gingerly out of the box, sliding his fingers along the canvas. It was a little bit bigger than the size he actually wore, but his feet were probably going to grow some more anyway and his current shoes were too small for him to argue. He looked up dumbly from the shoe, still thumbing the laces, and surveyed all his friends’ faces.

“Who…?” he began, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish. He was too touched by the receipt of a gift he’d so desperately needed ever since everything he had to wear started shrinking while it was on his body, and he couldn’t choke another word out. Beside him, he watched Jihoon raise his hand with the smallest of grins. It wasn’t much—no teeth, no crinkles in his eyes—but it was enough. It was enough to bring Jun back to square one, to destroy the very last clinging shred of hope that he would get over Jihoon, though he’d already thought that was gone long ago. It was enough to remind him once more that he was totally and undeniably fucked.

The rest of winter break went by in a blur. Jun wore his new shoes all the time, just in case his feet got too big for them, so by the time classes resumed, they were already a little worn, scuffed lightly around the edges of the soles where he didn’t quite pick his feet up enough on the sidewalk, but still mostly new-looking, the polished white toes reflecting distorted filtrations of the light that hit them. His feet grew just a little bit in the time between Christmas and the first day back at school, and he desperately hoped they wouldn’t grow too much more, but his body hadn’t exactly been cooperating with him lately.

Bitter January air gave him a good excuse for the redness warming his face every time he saw Jihoon, but it only worked as long as they were outside; every other time, it was “oh, I was just running” or “isn’t the heat on a little too high in here?” or “I think I’m getting a little sick, that’s all.” But January couldn’t last forever, and neither could its air. It melted into a chilly February and then into a mild March, meanwhile Jun’s cheeks only got redder and his limbs longer.

Neither his body nor his mind was on his side as April oozed in with all its spring air, stretching his legs too much for all of his shorts and whisking his teen brain away to far-off daydreams in the middle of class behind moony gazes Jihoon was bound to notice at some point. Something about spring really got to him that year, made him feel like flowers were blooming on his ribs every time Jihoon glanced his way under the gently warm sunshine, made him see faces in the clouds that he knew wouldn’t be there because the clouds could never do enough justice. When the final bell rang on their last day in late May, he wasn’t sure whether he should sigh in relief or longing.

That summer between freshman and sophomore year brought big changes. His growth spurts stopped him at a cool six foot even, and his braces finally moved aside to make way for a bright, toothy grin he didn’t know he would ever have. Soonyoung blackmailed him into going to his dance classes with him, and his body morphed from an in-between adolescent frame into the broader, more certain build of a man. Lean muscles stretched along his arms and legs and back, pushed his spine further upright and pulled his shoulders into a flat line. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he couldn’t help but marvel at what he saw, no longer the same gawky kid whose palms got slick talking to cashiers.

He could see it in the way people looked at him. He could see that people were looking at him, saw girls’ eyes widen just a little bit when he passed by them, turn to whisper to their friends when they thought he couldn’t see them. “You’ve gotten so handsome,” his mother said to him once, ruffling his hair, and he thought she was right. Confidence was suddenly something he knew very well, overflowing from his every pore, radiating from his smile. As long as he was feeling good, nothing could bring him down.

Toward the end of the summer, Soonyoung convinced Jihoon to come to some of the dance classes without giving Jun a heads-up. When he walked into the studio and saw Jihoon present and stretching, his heart stuttered, suddenly inept at articulating the simple beats it took just to keep him alive, and he felt like he was back in biology, staring hopelessly and wistfully across the classroom at a dream he would never get to touch. Confidence, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the same anymore, no more timidity and hiding. He set his bag down and strode over assuredly, desperately trying to untangle the bundle of nerves coiling in his stomach. He could do this.

“Jun?” Jihoon said when he was close enough. “You look different,” he remarked, and Jun knew he couldn’t do this. Different how? he wanted to ask. Good different? Bad different? And where was all that damn confidence now? He didn’t need it when he went to the grocery store or the post office, but Jihoon shows up and it’s mysteriously disappeared, gone along with his cool and calm, like it was never there in the first place. He’d forgotten how much he liked the sound of Jihoon’s voice on his name, how much he liked those little dimples he got when he creased his mouth, how much he liked Jihoon in general. The summer hadn’t felt long enough, but at the same time, it felt like far too long since he’d seen Jihoon, and he was right back to feeling like his bones were all made of putty before he could count to one.

When class actually began, Jun’s eyes were glued immovably on Jihoon. It didn’t take a genius to see that he had a natural talent for dancing. His movements were a little clumsy, but he had this kind of rhythmic flow behind them that was impossible to look away from, a mesmerizing fluidity that pulled Jun in, and as he watched him dance, he thought for the first time, I might be in love. His pulse increased alongside the thought, hammering away at his ears until they couldn’t pick up the beat anymore.

In love.

Might be.

He didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t bear to let himself without feeling like he was drowning on dry land. In love was the worst thing that he could be, but the only thing he could think to say he was. Confidence, indeed! When had confidence ever mattered at all? He could be a god walking on earth and he would still trip over words and fumble phrases because Jihoon would still be Jihoon, and that was all he had ever needed to be to make Jun feel like his insides were pudding and his brain was molten.

When he got home from dance class that day, he decided he needed to talk to somebody, and who better than his best friend? He picked up his phone and tapped out a message frantically, praying to anyone listening that Wonwoo wasn’t busy.

To: wonwoo

hey dude are u busy i need to ask u something

It wasn’t long before his phone buzzed and the screen lit back up. He snatched it into his hands hurriedly, eyes intent on the screen, fingers already typing furiously.

From: wonwoo

no what’s up

To: wonwoo

this is kinda random but how do u kno if ur in love w someone

He waited with bated breath for a text back, every second an eternity, until his phone finally alerted him of a new message again after what felt like years.

From: wonwoo

is this about jihoon

If Jun had been drinking anything, he would have choked on it, done a very real spit take all over the screen of his cell, and probably died.

To: wonwoo

what are u talking abt

From: wonwoo

everybody knows dude

From: wonwoo

except for like jihoon

He already knew he wasn’t exactly doing the world’s best job at hiding anything, but it was a solid kick to the chest to hear that his one secret was already common knowledge. He thought he might be sick if it weren’t for the lump in his throat keeping everything down.

To: wonwoo

did someone tell u. was it soonyoung

From: wonwoo

i could tell on my own kinda but yes it was soonyoung

From: wonwoo

seungcheol looked surprised tho so he probably had no clue

To: wonwoo

shit

From: wonwoo

sorry dude

From: wonwoo

but 2 answer ur q. im no expert so don’t quote me but u probably are

To: wonwoo

i probably am what

From: wonwoo

u know. in love

Jun stared at the screen until the words stopped looking like words and started looking like nothing, letters reduced to arbitrary lines before his eyes. Probably might be. He probably might be in love. That didn’t confirm anything, didn’t deny anything, and didn’t help. What do you even do if you probably might be in love with someone? Jun didn’t have a clue. He hadn’t been expecting to find himself in this flavor of pickle, and he wasn’t too fond of the taste.

He never wanted an unrequited crush to begin with, and now that like was turning into love, he wanted it even less. The overwhelming despair inherent in his whole situation made him feel like he was dying from the inside out, but at the same time, thinking about Jihoon made him feel so alive, like every breath was a gift and he was so, so lucky to be this close even if there were impregnable glass walls on every side.

How many years would it take? Surely he couldn’t pine over Jihoon until he got lowered into his grave. There had to be some sort of time limit after which his feelings would realize they were idiots and hit the road. It happened with all his previous crushes, and while none of them had made Jun feel like his heart needed a raise for working so much overtime, they couldn’t possibly be that different. A crush was a crush was a crush, even though Jihoon wasn’t just anybody, and sooner or later, he would have to get over this. Even if it took ten years, even if it took twenty. Someday had to arrive at some point, and Jun was just going to have to wait around for it.

Jihoon only came to about a week of dance classes, deciding he’d rather spend his final week of freedom wrapping up the summer work he’d neglected for two months. Jun couldn’t help but feel like he hadn’t gotten to see nearly enough of Jihoon dancing, but it wasn’t like he could just ask him to keep coming, especially when he had a good reason for not showing up. Jun himself had failed to keep up with summer work over the break, so for the last week before school started, dance was the only place he went, the majority of the time spent holed up in his room half-assing the ridiculous piles of assigned work to get it all done in time.

In his crunch to get everything done, he neglected to compare his class schedule with those of his friends, so on the first day of sophomore year, he walked in without a clue whether he even had classes with any of them. He lucked out having Jisoo in his first period Algebra 2 class, but after that, he didn’t see any of them for a while. Fourth period he had some one-semester gym credit he needed to graduate, and shortly after he walked in and sat down, he saw someone slide into the seat right next to his out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey,” Jihoon said as he slumped into the chair, and though it couldn’t have been more than two weeks, Jun felt like the last time he laid eyes on his face was eons ago, brain already foggy and covered in dust. His eyes seemed even more labyrinthine than usual, and Jun was having much too easy of a time getting lost in them. “I’m glad you’re in here. I haven’t seen anyone else all day.”

“Me too,” Jun bumbled, intensely aware of where Jihoon’s elbow was bumping his exactly. “Well, I had Jisoo in my first period, but that was it.” He tore his eyes from Jihoon’s reluctantly, glancing over the board at the front of the classroom. It outlined the course for the duration of the semester, but Jun’s brain was doing a less than stellar job of linking words to meanings with Jihoon so there and so wildly captivating.

“I know I already said this,” he began again quietly, commanding all of Jun’s attention, “but you really look different.” Jun took a look at him. It was only meant to last a second, but the sight of the small smile curling Jihoon’s lips held him against his will, robbed him of all his thoughts and left him alone and bewildered on the side of the road. “I didn’t think you would be the one to turn into a hot piece of ass,” he snorted, and the million butterflies in Jun’s stomach ripped themselves free one by one. Words died in his throat when he opened his mouth to say them, so he forced a dry chuckle and turned back to the chalkboard, only the words scrawled on it meant even less this time. The only phrases that registered in his brain were probably might be and in love, alternating in that order until he felt so woozy he almost couldn’t sit up straight. He didn’t know how long he waited for the bell to ring, but it seemed like hours went by before he heard its cacophonous chime.

“I hope you like the seats you picked,” grumbled the teacher as he rose from his chair, “because you’ll be sitting in them every day that we’re in this classroom.” Jun gulped, and he hoped it wasn’t loud enough for Jihoon to hear. Every day? So close? He didn’t know if he would be able to make it the whole semester. He didn’t know if he would be able to make it the first week. It was one thing when Jihoon was on the other side of the classroom, where his eyes might drift anyway if he was spacing out, but it was another beast altogether when Jihoon was right beside him, elbows dangling off the sides of the desk and fingers laced together beautifully atop it and leg bouncing lightly beneath it to an imagined beat Jun would love to hear. He could only pray that they would spend more class days out of the classroom than in it.

Fortunately for Jun, his prayers were answered. The first several weeks saw only a handful of days in the classroom, though he’d be lying if he said he listened to a word their teacher said on any of those days. He always found himself focusing too much on not gazing at Jihoon and missing everything, then ending up having to ask Jihoon what the hell they talked about and getting mesmerized by the way his lips moved around the words as he explained. He gathered tragically little information about whatever it was he was supposed to be taking away from the class, but he learned a great deal about Jihoon. How he always leaned to the right when he dozed off and how his eyes flitted around the gym ceiling when they were forced into exercising and how his heels always met the gym floor in even tempo when they walked laps around it. He also learned that there were a lot of things he didn’t know about Jihoon, and he wanted to unearth every last one of them.

Somewhere just after halfway through the semester, the whole class was corralled into some strange, carpeted room Jun had never been before and told to “partner up because we’re starting the ballroom dancing unit today.” Jun’s brain whirled around rapidly in his head. Ballroom dancing? They had a unit like that? Why? He didn’t have any answers, though, because he’d spent too much time not paying attention in class, and before he had time to register what was coming, a fierce mob of nearly all the girls in class was stampeding toward him. If it were a year earlier, he would have assumed they were going after someone behind him, but he knew this time that he was their only target and none of them were about to let him escape.

The second the girl at the front of the pack latched onto him, digging her nails into the flesh of his arm possessively, the rest of the crowd dispersed with obvious disappointment on their faces, turning reluctantly to partner with the rest of the boys, who now felt like secondhand knock-offs and wanted to push their fists into Jun’s nose at full force. Once all the girls had selected their partners, though, it became staggeringly obvious that the class contained way more boys, several of them still unpaired and looking around aimlessly. Jun noticed with a stutter in his heartbeat that Jihoon was one of them.

“Alright,” their teacher grumbled, crossing his arms, “some of you boys are gonna have to pair up together. No whining.” He eyed them coldly, then suddenly reached out to grab Jihoon’s wrist and raise it in the air. “Any volunteers for Mr. Lee?” he said, and Jun thought nothing but This is my chance.

“I’ll be his partner,” he said quickly, almost too quickly, suspiciously quickly, but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. The teacher nodded gruffly, and Jun thought he saw relief in Jihoon’s eyes, but before he could move to join him, he was stopped by the sensation of nails driving just a little deeper into his arm.

“But you already have me,” the girl hissed. Her name was Yeri or Yura or Yoonji—Jun couldn’t remember which—and she had pretty brown hair that curled just a little bit at the ends and big doe eyes that reflected the gymnasium lights in a weirdly entrancing way and skin that glowed like spring no matter where she was. She also had nothing on Jihoon, not even close.

“I’m not the only guy in class,” he said, offering her a grin that he hoped was convincing without revealing his true motive and prying her fingers from his arm. “You’ll still have a partner.” She looked like she wanted to say something but also like she didn’t really want to argue with him, so Jun took that as his cue to detach himself and coast over to Jihoon, whom he wanted to convince himself looked just a little happy. With a substantial amount of grumbling, the rest of the class got paired off, and they began the instruction with little gusto.

“Typically, guys will lead and girls will follow,” the teacher began, tired eyes roaming the faces of the students without much enthusiasm, “but for you couples where neither of you is a girl, you’re just gonna have to pick one of you.” He drawled on, explaining something about the difference between the two, but Jun stopped paying attention when he heard Jihoon’s hushed voice.

“Do you want to lead?” he asked, and Jun’s brain was so full of other muck that he had trouble sifting the words out.

“I don’t care,” he mumbled back eventually. “You can lead.”

He inhaled sharply against his will when he felt Jihoon’s fingertips brushing his back, then exhaled as slowly as he could manage when he felt the whole of Jihoon’s palm press down flat. His back was burning, blistering under the touch, and he could feel the heat spreading to his face. He hoped against hope that Jihoon didn’t notice. Slowly but surely, Jihoon took his other hand and joined it with Jun’s, lacing their fingers together. Even though he could already feel sweat sticking to his palm, he couldn’t stop himself from having the thought that this was right.

Their bodies so loosely linked together. Only two points of contact, but two was enough. One was enough. It wasn’t like he’d felt empty before, but with Jihoon’s fingers between his, he felt so whole, like this was how things should’ve been in the first place, how they always should be. It seemed like this was some universal rule, and he was only discovering it now. The earth revolved around the sun and the moon revolved around the earth and earth’s gravity pulled things down with an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second and Jihoon held Jun’s hand and everything was as it was meant to be.

He lifted his free hand to let it rest lightly on Jihoon’s shoulder, a smooth slope extending from the base of his neck. His hand felt like it might catch something on fire, but he left it anyway, burning a hole through Jihoon’s loose t-shirt. They stood this way only for a second before Jihoon withdrew his hands, shattering the moment and breaking Jun out of his tiny reverie only to suck him back into those mystifying eyes.

“You should probably lead.”

Jun decided that he liked having his hand on Jihoon’s back, liked the feeling of the lean muscles moving beneath his palm. He decided the ballroom dancing unit could never be long enough because he wanted to do this forever, even if he did keep getting so overwhelmed that he lost the beat and had to shuffle to avoid stepping on Jihoon’s toes. “You’re a really shitty lead,” Jihoon told him once with a snort, and Jun thought he was mostly right, but he didn’t care. He would be happy being the worst lead in the world as long as Jihoon was following.

The ballroom dancing unit was only one week long. For the rest of the class, it seemed to drag on for a hellish lifetime, but for Jun, it was devastatingly short. His fingers felt lonely when they weren’t intertwined with Jihoon’s, and his hand felt cold and empty when it wasn’t resting on that smooth and surprisingly strong back. He would have given anything for just one more second, but nobody was offering to make a trade, so he was forced back into the classroom and the gym for the rest of the semester to mourn over the feeling he couldn’t shake of only being half full.

Quietly and gradually came the end of the semester, and if his physical education course had been anything else, he would not have made it out with an A. Exams came and went, and so did the Christmas party. That year for Secret Santa, he got Jisoo a set of bowties with hotdog designs and received from Seungcheol a CD he’d been wanting. It wasn’t disappointing by any means, but it certainly couldn’t hold a candle to the last year.

Jisoo decided that year that he wanted to have a New Year’s Eve party to celebrate his birthday since they were only a day apart. Everyone thought it was a grand idea until Seungcheol showed up with a few bottles of champagne he smuggled from somewhere—only the first of several times he would go on to do so—and then Wonwoo started to think that maybe it wasn’t such a grand idea. Nobody knew where he got them, but they weren’t quite in the mood for asking questions.

None of them had very much to drink, but it was enough. Enough to make their heads a little light and their eyes a little dreamy, enough to make time seem like it was passing inconsistently, enough to make their lungs feel like they were full of bubbles and their brains full of fireworks. It was enough, just barely enough, to make Jun think he had the guts to tell Jihoon how he felt, and as the passing minutes pulled them slowly but surely toward midnight, he did it.

There wasn’t quite a minute left before the year turned over when he found himself standing so near Jihoon that it made his chest ache, and he figured that might be as good a time as any. Jihoon was just standing there and half smiling with slightly drooping eyelids, clutching a nearly-empty glass that had once been full of champagne with a hand mostly hidden by the sleeve of one of the too-big sweaters he seemed to own so many of. He looked just as effortlessly and unbelievably breathtaking as he somehow always managed to, and Jun’s hand rose on its own to brush over his fingers with only the most ghosting of touches.

“Hey, Jihoon,” he said, leaning in so close he could smell the subtle hints of citrus from his shampoo. Jihoon’s eyes opened up a little more, and he turned to look at Jun head-on, dimmed lights twinkling faintly in his irises. Jun cleared his throat a little and brought his head forward again just slightly nearer, until his lips were immediately beside Jihoon’s ear. He let his eyelids flutter shut as he spoke in a voice so low, so hushed Jihoon might not have even been able to hear it. “I really like you.” It only took a few seconds for regret to sink its ugly, gnarled teeth in, and he leaned back quickly to gauge Jihoon’s reaction, but he couldn’t tell what was going on in the head behind that blank face. He never could.

A large part of him expected Jihoon to ask him to repeat himself, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He also knew his inebriated brain wouldn’t be able to make up a lie on the spot about what he said. He turned to leave before Jihoon could say anything, but Jihoon’s hand darted out and beat him to the punch, wrapping around his wrist tightly in an instant. Jun dragged his gaze back to Jihoon’s face, still unfathomably beautiful despite how lost it looked, and the distant sound of people shouting numbers floated vaguely into his ears through a sea of muddled thoughts and alcohol. All at once, the volume shot up drastically. Ah, it must be the new year, Jun thought, and that was when Jihoon’s hand slid from his wrist to his neck and pulled their faces together.

Time ground to a halt again, but aside from that, this was nothing like the innocent kiss they’d shared a year before at Jihoon’s birthday party. That time had been no more than two sets of lips brushing together, bumping into each other almost on accident, but what was happening now was a completely different beast. It was decidedly deliberate, mouths half open and eyes half closed as they really got a taste of each other for the first time, much more than just pairs of lips colliding in space. Jihoon’s fingertips melted into the skin on the back of Jun’s neck as he tugged down, gentle but surprisingly insistent, pulling their mouths together with unexpected intensity.

Jun hadn’t realized just how much he would have to bend down to kiss Jihoon, and it was kind of hurting his back, but he didn’t mind it. Not at all. He felt like the sun was being reborn smack in the middle of his chest, and he would rather break his back every single day for the rest of his life than grow old and die without ever knowing this feeling. Jihoon tasted like champagne and caramel and the word perfect, and his lips were like dreams shrouded in cotton candy. There wasn’t one thing Jun wouldn’t give to experience nothing but this sensation for the rest of his life.

Eventually, though, it had to end. When Jihoon finally drew back, the breaths of clean air burned going into Jun’s lungs, and Jihoon’s hand left a smoldering scar where it dropped from Jun’s neck. He pulled his back straight again and lowered his gaze to Jihoon’s eyes, trying to act like there wasn’t a star imploding behind his ribs, but looking into those dark pools made him feel too much like he was drowning, so he turned and walked off without giving Jihoon the chance to say anything. At least, that’s what he would have done if Jihoon hadn’t done it first.

There wasn’t much left of winter break after that, and he didn’t see Jihoon again. They were still friends, or he assumed they were, so it wasn’t like he could avoid him forever, but he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to see him in class on the first day back. He wasn’t sure what to say. Why did you kiss me? was a question to which he desperately wanted to know the answer, but Why did you walk away like nothing happened? was weighing much more heavily on his mind. Neither were things he wanted to discuss in a classroom, especially since he wasn’t sure how much he would like the answers.

The first day back was as relaxing as it could be, bustling into the same old classrooms with the same old crowd, all of whom had forgotten everything they ever learned in the weeks spent not in school. Naturally, it couldn’t stay relaxing for long. With the turn of the semester came his exit from a physical education course and entrance into a personal finance class, in the same period but a different room. A vague sense of déjà vu washed over him just before the seat next to his in the new classroom was filled, and he turned to see with a rapidly increasing heartrate that the face beside him was none other than the one that filled his every thought.

“Hey,” Jihoon said, voice like honey and silk and nothing at all like being kissed and immediately abandoned. “Funny how we’re in the same class again,” he said, and Jun didn’t think it was funny at all how his ribs felt too tight around his lungs, but he laughed anyway.

Chapter Text

Jun wanted Jihoon to say something about it, but he also wanted him not to, so he wasn’t quite sure how to feel when he didn’t. He didn’t bring it up the next day, either, or the day after that, and once a week had gone by, Jun just assumed they were acting like it never happened. He tried to tell himself he was fine with that even though it made him feel like he was breathing underwater.

Their teacher moved them around into assigned seats, but it ended up being just Jun’s luck that his seat was next to Jihoon’s anyway. Every day when he got to class, Jihoon would greet him and make small talk in the terse way that he always did, and Jun would pretend that he could think about anything but the feeling of Jihoon’s mouth on his and how much he wanted to feel it again.

Around a month into the semester, Wonwoo decided to have a movie night at his house. They marathoned all of the Ice Age movies even though they agreed collectively that the first one was the only one worth watching, but Jun paid more attention to the dry chuckles that came from between Jihoon’s lips at every stupid gag than to what was actually happening onscreen. Halfway through the second movie, he got up and went to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, and as he turned around to leave, he found Jihoon behind him.

“Oh, hey,” he mumbled, just barely able to make eye contact. His gut was telling him he needed to be quiet, but he didn’t know why; it wasn’t like they were about to plot a murder with a gang of cops in the next room over. Even so, he hardly allowed his voice to rise above a whisper.

“Hey,” Jihoon said, and suddenly his hand was searing Jun’s neck again as he pulled him down and down and down, bringing their lips together for a burning moment without warning. He tasted like popcorn instead of champagne this time, and it was all over too quickly, a single fleeting second that slipped through Jun’s fingers like a lone grain of sand.

Jun straightened his back quickly, leaning back to look Jihoon in the eyes. He didn’t turn and walk away this time, only quirked an eyebrow as Jun stared back in utter confusion. He’s sober right now, isn’t he? His eyes roamed Jihoon’s face, but they couldn’t find any indication that he was under the influence of anything but his own will. Jihoon stared back at him, seeming to see straight through his body and right into his core, still glowing with a puzzled warmth.

“Sorry,” Jihoon said, but Jun didn’t think he sounded very sorry. “Was that not okay?” There was a subtle hint of doubt at the edge of his tone, a quiet touch of worry that Jun could only hear because he always paid too much attention when Jihoon was speaking, and it put a tad too much wind in the sails of his heart.

“No,” Jun said softly. “It was okay.” Jihoon nodded his head forward, the subtlest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth, and Jun was just as fucked as ever.

There was no explanation for it, but sometimes, when they found themselves alone or secluded, Jihoon would kiss him. Jun wanted to know why, but he was too scared to ask, wasn’t strong enough to handle any answer but I like you, too. He let Jihoon do it, though, because he liked kissing him and being kissed back, even if every single time it dragged him a little bit deeper into a dark trench of uncertainty.

Maybe Jihoon just liked kissing. Maybe Jun wasn’t the only one he did this with. Reserved and standoffish as he always had been, he didn’t exactly seem the type, but who died and made Jun the expert on that? Maybe Jihoon was different from what he’d thought all along. That didn’t mean he wasn’t just as probably maybe in love with him anyway.

Jun wasn’t sure if this was the kind of thing he could tell anyone about, but given the secrecy of their encounters and Jihoon’s failure to mention it ever, he guessed he probably ought to keep his lips sealed. He wouldn’t know what to say in the first place. Jihoon and I kiss sometimes didn’t really have a ring to it that made it feel worth sharing, and I like Jihoon so he lets me kiss him was embarrassingly pathetic even though it was probably the most accurate way to describe things. He was desperate for a way to label whatever it was just as much as he was desperate for Jihoon to return his feelings, but no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t possibly ask Jihoon for either.

In class, it was the same as ever. Jihoon acted like it wasn’t happening and left Jun to wonder if maybe he just kept having the same dream in different settings, but eventually, they would end up alone together again, and Jun would realize he was awake, so awake, and no recurring dream could conjure the same starbursts inside his chest.

Some time at the beginning of March, though, Jihoon started to act different. He had always been blunt and concise, but he started being brief in a wearier manner, less like he just didn’t want to say much and more like he didn’t have the energy to. This was another one of those things that Jun only noticed because it was Jihoon and because every single small detail stood out like a billboard; nobody else seemed to give any indication that they detected a change, not even when he asked them about it. All they said was, “You’re probably just imagining it,” but Jun knew he wasn’t, knew he couldn’t be. There were still a lot of Jihoon-related things he wasn’t quite sure about, but this in particular did not fall on that list.

“Are you okay?” he asked one day in class after yet another lethargic response from Jihoon; that was the only kind of response he’d been getting for a while, and it was suffocating.

“Am I okay?” Jihoon asked in the same dull tone of voice, unfeeling and cold, glassy eyes fixed on the board without reading anything. “Of course,” he said in a way that was not at all convincing, and Jun wasn’t even certain he was supposed to be convinced. “Why?”

“You just seem,” Jun began, swirling the words around in his head, “a little weird.” Jihoon’s eyes turned toward him, and there was a one-way mirror up in them; Jun couldn’t figure out which side of it he was on. He felt both like he was being looked straight into and not seen at all, like Jihoon was seeing everything that was there but not comprehending what any of it was. It was terrifying.

“What?” he said at last, a tiny light flickering into his eyes for just a fraction of a fraction of a second. “Weird?”

“Like something’s wrong.” He stared back at Jihoon and waited for him to say something, to confirm or deny, but the words didn’t come, only radio silence and a cold, questioning gaze. “I’m your friend,” he managed to choke out after a while. “You can tell me.” Jihoon’s lips stretched into a thin line that Jun thought was trying very hard to be a smile, but they couldn’t quite make it there.

“Okay.”

He didn’t say anything else, didn’t state whether anything was wrong, didn’t say “thanks” or “fuck off.” He just looked back to the board tiredly, so Jun dropped the subject. If Jihoon wanted to say something, he would, and if he didn’t want to say anything, he wouldn’t. That was how it always had been. Jun tried convincing himself that maybe nothing was wrong after all, but his own argument fell flat against his ears. He could only hope that Jihoon would want to say something.

“Jun,” he called suddenly as the whole group of them exited the school to head home at the end of that day. Jun had never run a marathon, but in that moment, he was sure his heart knew what it felt like. He never liked the sound of his name as much as he did when it came on Jihoon’s voice. “Will you come over and help me with the finance homework?”

The finance homework was balancing a checkbook. It was too easy already, and there was no way Jihoon needed help with it. Jun knew it and Jihoon knew it and Jun knew Jihoon knew it. But he wasn’t about to say that to Jihoon right there in front of everybody, so he just said, “Sure,” despite the excessive undulation of Soonyoung’s eyebrows, and when Jihoon split off to go home, Jun went with him, for once not having to let his eyes linger on Jihoon’s departing back until it was out of sight.

“I don’t actually need help with the homework,” Jihoon said, flinging his backpack to the ground as they walked through the front door. His house always smelled a little bit like fire and laundry detergent and a lot like apple scented candles, and Jun never understood why he liked it so much.

“I figured,” he said simply, resting his backpack on the floor next to Jihoon’s and following him into the kitchen to have a seat at the table. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, it became apparent that Jihoon would not be the one to break it. “What do you need, then?”

“It’s my mom,” he said, and Jun knew better than to think he was dodging the question. “She’s sick.” He dragged his eyes up to look into Jun’s, heavy and drained, full and hollow at the same time. “Really sick.”

“Oh,” was all Jun could make himself say. Jihoon dropped his gaze back to the tabletop and dug his nail into a little groove that got slightly deeper every time Jun saw it.

“Yeah.” Scrape, scrape, scrape, and little flecks of the wood would fly up each time. It felt wrong to see such beautiful hands doing something so quietly destructive. “So that’s what’s wrong.” He stilled his hand at long last, but the movement only moved to his knee, bouncing it up and down violently until it knocked into the bottom of the table. “The doctors aren’t hopeful, and they told us that,” he breathed out.

“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough. It didn’t help, and Jun knew that, but there was nothing else he could say, nothing he could do. He wasn’t a doctor. He couldn’t promise that she would get better, and he couldn’t do anything to help her. All he could do was be there.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he said. Jun had never heard him be so serious. “I don’t want them to feel sorry for me.”

“Sure,” Jun agreed, and he wanted more than anything to wrap Jihoon in his arms and just hold onto him, but the ambiguity of what their relationship really was made it impossible. He felt like it was what he needed to do, but there was no way he could without a clear sign telling him to go ahead, so he just set his hand on the table halfway between them, right at the edge of Jihoon’s vision, fingertips pressed to the grain of the wood. Jihoon slid his hand until it was beside Jun’s on the table, close enough but not quite touching, and nodded his head forward wordlessly.

“You can go home if you want,” he said after a while, and Jun didn’t know what he would do if he stayed, so he went.

Jihoon didn’t bring it up again. March marched on and April paraded in and he didn’t say anything about it, neither to the group nor Jun.

The flowers in every garden bloomed, and they were almost as beautiful as Jihoon, but they didn’t make Jun’s chest ache half as much. The spring air filled his head again, and everything was glossed over with a fresh coat of Jihoon, but it wasn’t quite the same as last year. Last year, he spent the spring daydreaming about what it would be like to kiss him, but this year, he spent it knowing, having his brain turn to jelly every time and his heart pound like a jackhammer to free itself. The only issue was that he still didn’t know what exactly he was to Jihoon, but he could make himself forget about that if he tried hard enough.

School ended without bringing any peace of mind. Jihoon still didn’t say anything else about his mom, which he probably never would, and he still didn’t explain anything to Jun, just kept kissing him in secret. Toward the end of the school year, though, that fizzled out as well, and Jun wondered if maybe Jihoon had decided he’d had enough and now they were just going to pretend it never happened in the first place. He couldn’t exactly say no, so he was just thankful he had the whole summer to deal with how empty it made him feel.

His birthday came just a few weeks after the end of classes, and he went and got his driver’s license that day. Only a few months of practice left him still a bit shaky behind the wheel, but he was confident enough to pass, and that was fine by him. He didn’t usually celebrate his birthday, but this one was kind of big, so he wanted to do something for once. There was a drive-in theater at the edge of town, and since he could drive now, he thought that maybe it would be fun if they all squeezed into his mom’s SUV and went down to see whatever was playing.

Initially, everyone had said they would come, but as time wore on, text messages came to Jun’s phone saying they couldn’t make it for all kinds of reasons. A relative suddenly coming into town, a bad stomachache, a little sister’s ballet recital that was almost forgotten about. One by one, they all cancelled on him. All but Jihoon. Even though it seemed like a waste for only two of them to go, Jun’s mom had only agreed to let him take her car this once, so they went anyway. When Jun pulled up in front of Jihoon’s house to pick him up, he couldn’t get the word date to stop repeating over and over in his head, and he couldn’t get his stomach to stop doing backflips, either.

The sun was just dipping below the horizon when they pulled in. Jun settled for a spot that wasn’t exactly close to the front because he still wasn’t too sure of his skills when it came to parking and backing out, and when the movie started, it was much easier to hear than it was to see. He was having a tough enough time paying attention to it in the first place, but it only got more difficult when Jihoon’s arm snaked over to pull him in.

It was strange and awkward with the console between them, but Jihoon wasn’t letting that hold him back. He was doing most of the leaning anyway, all but completely out of his seat as he edged ever closer. He had one hand gripping Jun’s shoulder and the other trailing lightly along his side, the tips of his fingers just dusting against Jun’s skin through his thin t-shirt and catching his whole body on fire. Jihoon’s lips were insistent on his, hungry almost, and Jun had never known them to be like this before. Something about this is weird, he thought, but he couldn’t make himself push Jihoon off. His heart was racing, and he didn’t know if he was scared or ecstatic.

Eventually, they had to draw breath again, and he took the opportunity to nudge Jihoon away gently but distinctly, eyeing him curiously as he did so. Jihoon did nothing but look back at him silently, face full of as much confusion as Jun felt. Jun thought for a moment that maybe he’d just been imagining it, but the stinging in his lips and the hot hand that slipped from his shoulder to his thigh told him otherwise.

“What?” Jihoon said at last. This wasn’t the best time for Jun to notice that he could see the movie reflecting in Jihoon’s eyes or to think that he might pay more attention to it if he watched it in them, but he did both of those things anyway.

“Are you okay?” he asked, jumping off that train of thought and into a grassy field where everything was still just as much about Jihoon.

“Why?”

“You seem,” he started, tongue going dry as Jihoon stared him down intently, “different.” Jihoon wheezed out an arid chuckle, hand pressing into Jun’s thigh as he put his weight back on it to lean forward. Jun had never been so thrilled to have thighs.

“Sorry,” Jihoon said, and it was just as unapologetic as ever. “But it’s been a while.” What’s been a while? Jun wanted to ask, but Jihoon didn’t give him the chance.

If someone had asked him what the movie was about, he wouldn’t have been able to say. Even if it was one he’d already seen, he might not have known anymore. All he knew was that his lips were still a little puffy when he dropped Jihoon back off at his house and his chest was still engulfed in flames when he got home.

Summer crawled by with all its lazy heat, made his hands sticky with popsicles that melted before he even had a chance to taste them. Soonyoung wasn’t blackmailing him anymore, but he kept going to dance classes, clinging to a vague hope that Jihoon would show up. A month dragged on, and he didn’t come. Jun hadn’t seen or heard from him at all since the drive-in, and every day, he felt a little more anxious. His heart and his brain were doing their best to reach a cohesive conclusion on how he felt, but neither of them was doing its job right. The only thing he was certain about was that he missed Jihoon: his voice, his eyes, hands, lips, everything. He wanted him around in a lot of ways, but he mostly wanted Jihoon to want him around, too.

A few days shy of Wonwoo’s birthday, Jun got a call out of the blue. It had been so long since he received a phone call that he almost didn’t recognize the sound of his own ringtone, but eventually, realization sunk in, and he picked up the call right before it ran out of time.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Even over the phone, he would know that voice anywhere. Blood rushed to his ears immediately, but it didn’t keep him from noticing how fragile Jihoon sounded, like his roof was a thin sheet of glass and the forecast was calling for hail.

“Is something wrong?”

“Can you come over?”

Jun didn’t need to hear anything else.

When he got to Jihoon’s house, it was eerily different from usual, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on how. Maybe the lights weren’t quite as bright, or maybe the typical scent of the candles was more subdued. Whatever it was, it gave Jun a sinking feeling in his gut as soon as he walked in the door. He followed Jihoon to his bedroom, down at the end of a hall that seemed abnormally vacuous. Jihoon sat down on the edge of his cluttered bed, and Jun sat down on the floor in front of his feet, the only spot left.

“My mom died,” he said in a low voice, and Jun’s stomach twisted. Jihoon looked very pointedly at the floor while he spoke, fingernails digging into his own knees, and Jun wished so badly that he could hold them, stop them from carving little red crescents into that innocent skin, but he didn’t know if he would be able to. His hands shook as he pulled them up to grip Jihoon’s anyway.

Jihoon tensed up immediately, maintaining his gaze on the ground, and Jun almost withdrew his hands, but a strong pull in the center of his chest told him to leave them there. Eventually, Jihoon relaxed, but only minutely. He picked his hands up, slid his fingers between Jun’s, and squeezed like his life was on the line, fingertips digging fiercely into the crooks between Jun’s knuckles. Even when it started to hurt, he let Jihoon keep doing it, because he needed to do something for him right now, and this was the only thing he could think of.

Tears started forcing themselves out of Jihoon’s eyes one by one, hitting the fabric of his shorts with gentle patters. Jun just rubbed his thumbs on the backs of Jihoon’s hands as best he could and counted all the knuckles on their joined hands to make sure they were still there. Four behind the fingers on his right hand, one behind the thumb, and the same for Jihoon. Four behind the fingers on his left hand, one behind the thumb, and the same for Jihoon. Ten knuckles on each side and twenty total. No matter how many times he counted, the number came out the same, but he counted and recounted until Jihoon had cried everything out, because at least one of them needed not to be crying and Jihoon had already shirked that responsibility.

“Hey,” Jihoon whispered once the tears stopped flowing, though his face was still wet from them and his eyes still shining. Jun snapped out of his knuckle-counting reverie and brought his gaze up to meet Jihoon’s. It still wasn’t what it usually was, but it was less vacant than it had been a few minutes ago. It was closer to fine. “Will you kiss me?”

Jun eyed him blankly. He was almost totally convinced he was just hearing things, and Jihoon’s face wasn’t giving him any hints. The only thing that made him think he might not have imagined it was that word, kiss. He’d never heard Jihoon say it before, maybe because they were still pretending they weren’t doing whatever this was and it could stay make-believe as long as they never said it out loud. But he heard it just then, and it was still ringing in his ears, the sound of a foreign word on Jihoon’s voice. He couldn’t have imagined the way it tangled up all his organs if he wanted to.

“You don’t want to?” Jihoon followed after a while, grip on Jun’s hands relaxing.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Jun said swiftly. He was having a lot of trouble measuring what exactly was filling Jihoon’s eyes. “But do you want me to?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Jihoon said, shrugging. Jun gnawed at his lip anxiously. He felt like this might be wrong, like he would be taking advantage of Jihoon’s emotions if he did kiss him, but Jihoon was also asking, and it might not be the most comforting move to tell him no.

“Will it help?” Jun asked hesitantly. Helping was all he could really do right now, and he was upset with himself for not knowing how to do it better.

“I don’t know,” Jihoon sighed. “Maybe.” Jun figured maybe was probably a better risk than no.

He pulled himself up onto his knees, detaching one hand from Jihoon’s to slide around his neck and pull him in. It was different, being the one who had to do things. Every other time, Jihoon had been the one doing the tugging, the holding, the kissing, and it was a whole new ball game when he was in the lead, or doing whatever it was that Jihoon usually did. But he liked the way Jihoon’s neck felt warm under his hand, and he liked knowing the exact moment their lips would press together, so he thought maybe it wasn’t so bad to see things from the other side of the fence.

Gentle felt right, so gentle was the way he played it. He planted the sweetest kisses he could muster to balance out the salt on Jihoon’s lips, chaste and pure, eyelids fluttering shut as he leaned closer and closer and closer until the only thing he could hear was the muted sound of the two of them breathing. He felt Jihoon’s hand wander to his chest, digits pressing softly but firmly into the muscle there, thumb running in circles over the fabric of his shirt. Jun hoped that meant he was helping.

Jun didn’t know how long they spent; it was too easy to lose track of time whenever Jihoon was so close. When they finally separated, Jihoon was still clutching Jun’s hand tightly, ten knuckles knotted up and laced together with fingers. Jun continued to be amazed by how right it felt to have Jihoon’s hand in his, how much it made him feel like he was in the exact place he needed to be and doing exactly what should be done. In a way, it was something more than a kiss. Maybe it was because handholding didn’t seem to be part of whatever deal they never really discussed or agreed on but found themselves in anyway, but they never did it. It was always just lips on lips, mouths crashing into each other, so when there was another point of contact, softer and more innocent, it felt like maybe their relationship was closer to what Jun wished it was than reality would permit.

“Thanks,” Jihoon breathed, giving Jun’s hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. His palm felt bitterly cold in an instant, so he tried to shield it by grabbing Jihoon’s knee. It wasn’t quite the same.

“Do you feel better?” Jun asked, nerves bunched up in his stomach, desperate for confirmation that he was really doing the right thing.

“A little.”

A little wasn’t nearly enough. A lot wouldn’t even have been enough. Jun wanted Jihoon to feel like nothing was wrong. He wanted him to feel as perfect as Jun thought he was, as wonderful as Jun felt every time he thought about him. He wanted his worries to disappear and his problems to go away and everything to be fine. He wanted to make Jihoon happy, truly and genuinely. But he knew that he couldn’t, so he would just have to settle for a little.

The rest of July slunk by quietly. Jihoon had to break the news eventually, and he did one day when they were all together, but only in the most minimal way. He didn’t say anything about how or when, and he neglected to mention that Jun already knew. Nobody asked questions, either, because Jihoon always said just what he intended to say and nothing more, and questions seemed a little too insensitive even if they did come from close friends. Jun didn’t fail to notice how Jihoon’s fingers quivered when he was talking, and he wished he were just a little bit closer so he might still them.

August found its way in warily, ringing in the start of the second half of their high school careers without much enthusiasm. Most of them landed in the same home economics class, with the exception of Wonwoo, who apparently hadn’t even signed up for it. He was in their lunch, though, so everyone had the relief of some time together in the middle of the day. Group togetherness provided Jun with a welcome break from staring at Jihoon’s back in a daze.

Before too long, it was September. Jun and Jihoon were still locking lips when nobody was looking, only now it made Jun anxious every time because he didn’t know how long this could possibly be drawn out for and he didn’t want to think about how he wouldn’t be able to deal with it ending. But he was too afraid to ask, so he just did his best to push those feelings down even though he knew it wasn’t working.

The annual Halloween party was there before they even saw it coming. Despite her misgivings about having a house full of teen boys, Jisoo’s mom agreed to host, a decision she would come to regret very swiftly. When Seungcheol proposed the idea of a candy corn eating contest, everybody thought it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard, but they agreed anyway because they were still young enough to be stupid on purpose. Jihoon claimed that he needed ten more bucks for new headphones, but only Jun knew that he’d just bought some. Only Jun knew that he wanted to take some flowers to his mom’s grave for the first time since she passed.

Jun wasn’t sure why watching Jihoon practically inhale candy corn made him feel the way it did. Even though he knew it was ridiculous of him, he couldn’t help but think that Jihoon was the most amazing person alive in those moments. He was suffering alone because his father was taciturn like he was and he didn’t want to bother anybody else and Jun never knew how to help, but he was dealing with it and he was still being Jihoon even though Jun could tell he wasn’t quite up to par inside. He was so strong in such a quiet way that Jun couldn’t stop himself from being awed by something as foolish as a candy corn eating contest. He was hopelessly enamored, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Jihoon took flowers to the grave on his birthday. He asked Jun to give him a ride to the cemetery because he didn’t want anyone else to know about it, not even his dad; it seemed to Jun like he never wanted anyone to know about anything, and as much as he wondered why, Jihoon probably wouldn’t have told him if he asked. He watched wordlessly from a few feet back as Jihoon laid down the bouquet in front of the headstone and choked down sobs, held back the urge to lunge forward and wrap him in his arms, and drove him back home after with a heart weighed down by everything it could get its hands on.

“Thanks,” Jihoon said softly when Jun dropped him off, kissing him quickly before opening the door and trudging back into his house. Jun couldn’t shake the feeling that that was the wrong time to kiss someone, but he also couldn’t shake the feeling that kissing Jihoon could never be wrong.

On Christmas, Jihoon didn’t want to be in his house—it was too empty, he said, too lifeless—so Jun took him to see a movie. It was some feel-good animated movie meant for kids, but Jun didn’t pay much attention to it. Jihoon kissed him one or two times in the desolate theater, but Jun’s focus was more on the white-knuckle grip he had on the armrest between their seats. “I miss her,” he breathed shakily as the credits rolled on. Jun wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear it, so he acted like he didn’t.

New Year’s was almost a repeat of the previous year, only this time Jun saw it coming. As time wore on after, he only grew increasingly uneasy, to the point where being alone with Jihoon tied his stomach into too many knots for him to function at all. It had been an entire year of whatever it was, and it had only made Jun’s heart yearn for more, more of Jihoon in every aspect of the word. More of his time, more of his touch, more of his thoughts and glances and anything and everything. If Jihoon had been after the same thing, Jun was only too ready to give, but he made no indication that he was. This would have to stop eventually even if Jun didn’t want it to, because when all is said and done, forever is no more than a beautiful myth.

It was one day at the beginning of March, the third or the fourth or maybe the ninth. Jun had come over to Jihoon’s house for a reason he couldn’t remember because Jihoon started kissing him almost as soon as they walked through the door. Here we go again, he thought, and even the lightness in his chest he always got when he felt Jihoon’s lips on his wasn’t enough to untangle his nerves, but he let it happen regardless, because in some bizarre way, it still felt right.

They found their way to Jihoon’s bedroom somehow, and before Jun realized what was happening, they were half-reclined on the floor. Jihoon was a little strange that day, vaguely reminiscent of that time at the drive-in, and Jun couldn’t even hazard a guess at why. Jihoon pulled back from one particularly sloppy smooch and pivoted his head to note that Jun hadn’t even gotten a chance to take off his shoes.

“Those still fit?” he asked, bemused. Jun was lost in a whirlwind of thought, so all he could manage to do was blink.

“What?”

“Your shoes,” Jihoon clarified, tilting his chin. “They’re the ones I got you, right?”

They were. Far more battered and worn than before, far more dirtied and dulled, but they were the same pair. And truthfully, they didn’t fit anymore. They were a little too tight in a way that made it hard for Jun to get them tied, but he kept wearing them anyway. He couldn’t stop, not when he was so deeply attached. Not when they still meant so much after two whole years. Not when Jihoon still remembered that he gave them in the first place.

“Yeah,” Jun said. There was an extra strong needle pressing into his heart, sinking deeper and deeper until it resurfaced on the other side. It stung and burned and ached in every way imaginable, and when Jihoon shrugged and bent to kiss him again, Jun knew he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He reached a hand up to place it firmly on Jihoon’s chest and stop him right there, palm hot and fingers shaking. “Jihoon,” he said quietly.

“What?” Lost was how he looked, just as lost as Jun had felt for the past twelve months. Jun inhaled a breath so thick and heavy he thought he might choke on it.

“We need to stop,” he said as quickly as he could so nothing could stop him, air leaving his lungs in a rush. His chest tightened painfully when the look on Jihoon’s face said he didn’t comprehend the statement.

“Stop what?”

Jun drew back his hand, gesturing wildly between their faces with jittery flicks of his wrist. “This.” He searched Jihoon’s eyes for understanding that wasn’t there and would have gotten lost if it weren’t for the sound of his own heartbeat as loud as a jackhammer filling up his ears.

“Why?” Jihoon asked, confused as ever, and he was not making this easy. Every time he spoke, it sent a chill down Jun’s spine that made him want to say Never mind, forget it, but he couldn’t stop himself right now, not if he wanted any peace of mind.

“Because we just need to,” he almost whined, pushing himself fully upright. “It’s not going to keep working.”

“But why not?” Jihoon pressed, and Jun swore he sounded irritated. “Explain, because I don’t get what you’re trying to say.” Jun moved his hands in circles, the thoughts in his brain swirling around in an unhelpful mess and making it entirely too hard for him to figure out what he needed to say.

“I want to do more than just kiss you,” he said finally, and the words weren’t quite perfect, but they didn’t feel too bad on his ears. Jihoon blinked slowly a few times, clouds clearing out of his eyes.

“You wanna have sex?” he asked, gaze roaming Jun’s face observantly. “We can do that.” Jun was too shocked to move or respond as he watched Jihoon dig under his bed and pull out a box of condoms, and his jaw smacked into the floor so hard it cracked the concrete when Jihoon ripped the box open without hesitation.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” he said as quickly as the physical laws of the universe would allow, getting the words out so fast Jihoon might not have even understood them. He reached out to grab his wrist urgently and stop him from making another move. Jihoon quirked an eyebrow. “I mean, not that I don’t,” Jun started to say, but his face was a tad too warm for his own liking, so he abandoned that thought in favor of silence.

“What do you want, then?” Jihoon’s expression reached its peak of puzzlement very quickly, like Jun was speaking technical jargon in Arabic in pig Latin and he was having to leap hurdles just to decipher one word.

“I don’t know,” Jun groaned, raking a hand through his hair. He looked Jihoon over in search of some hint that would tell him what he ought to say, eyes finally settling on the graceful arch of his wrist and the pretty bend of his knuckles and the elegant curve of his fingers. “I wanna hold your hand, I guess.”

“You want to hold my hand?” Jihoon asked skeptically, brows raised.

“Yeah,” Jun confirmed with a strong nod. “And, like… Go on dates with you. And talk to you. And hold you?” He wrinkled his forehead in frustration, heaving a sigh, and Jihoon just watched him without saying anything. “I really like you, Jihoon,” he added, unable to maintain eye contact as his cheeks tinted a deep crimson. “I want to date you and be together with you and that’s not going to happen, so we need to stop.” Jihoon was silent for a long time, far too long, and Jun couldn’t bring himself to look at his face.

“Aren’t we already dating?” he asked at last, tone quizzical. If Jun had been in a chair, he probably would have fallen out of it.

“What?”

“Haven’t we been dating?” Jihoon reiterated, just as questioning. Jun stared hard back at him.

“Why would I say that if we were dating?”

“I don’t know,” Jihoon admitted with a shrug. “What have we been doing for the past year, then, if we weren’t dating?”

“Kissing each other?” Jun mused unsurely. Jihoon threw his hands up in the air.

“Why would we do that if we weren’t dating?!” Jun threw his hands up in kind.

“People do that all the time!”

“For a whole year?” Jihoon bellowed incredulously.

“I guess!” Jun cried. “I don’t know!”

“How could we not be dating?” Jihoon grumbled. “Why else would I just kiss you whenever?”

“It’s not like we ever went on any dates,” Jun argued. “And maybe you just like kissing people. I wouldn’t know. Like, maybe there were other people you were kissing?” He had to admit it sounded dumb when he said it out loud, but he wasn’t going to do that in the middle of trying to justify himself.

“We did so go on dates,” Jihoon countered fiercely. “And who else would even kiss me, anyway?” he followed in a rage, keeping up their two-pronged argument stupendously.

“Who wouldn’t?” Jihoon’s eyes went a little wide at the question, momentarily stalling their debate, and Jun swallowed a lump in his throat to keep talking. “Anyway, we never went on any dates.”

“We went to the drive-in, remember?” Jihoon asked, miffed. “Did you forget about that?”

“That wasn’t a date,” Jun informed him bitterly. “That was a birthday party that nobody else showed up to.”

“What about my birthday, then?” Jihoon wailed. “What about Christmas?” Jun pondered for a moment before answering.

“I thought I was just doing you favors,” he said finally. “I mean, we went to the cemetery on your birthday.” Jihoon nodded tiredly.

“Jesus, this is ridiculous,” he sighed, shoving the box of condoms back under his bed and reminding Jun of another concern.

“Why the fuck did you just have a box of condoms ready to whip out?” he asked, and Jihoon’s cheeks dusted the faintest pink. It was lovely on him, and Jun would have done damn near anything to see it again.

“Well, you will recall that I was under the impression we were dating this whole time, so…” He trailed off, leaving Jun to connect all the dots and fill in all the blanks and draw all the conclusions himself. His heart shuddered under his ribcage.

“Since when?”

“New Year’s last year.”

“New Year’s?” Jun couldn’t believe his ears. “But you kissed me and walked away without saying anything.”

“I had to go to the bathroom. Did I not say that?” The cogs in Jihoon’s brain were turning as well as they could, but they were clogged by time and rusted together by champagne. “Anyway, you were gone when I got back.”

“How was I supposed to know you were coming back?” Jun flopped back onto the floor a little too forcefully, letting his eyes fall shut. “God,” he groaned. “We’re dumbasses.”

“Speak for yourself.” He heard a thud as Jihoon fell back beside him, then nothing but the sound of both of them breathing for a while. In the silence, understanding finally caught up to him, set his heart pushing against its own limits as an organ. Jihoon thought we were dating. The thought raced around in his head again, but it took him a while to pin down why.

“If you thought we were dating, why didn’t you ever say anything about it?” he asked, and he heard Jihoon stir beside him at the question. He opened his eyes and let his head drop to the side to see Jihoon was staring right back at him intently.

“What?”

“You know, why didn’t you ever mention it?”

“It’s nobody’s business, that’s why,” he stated matter-of-factly, huffing out a breath. “And I stupidly assumed I wouldn’t have to tell you.” He sounded annoyed, but there was a tiny smile playing at his lips that made Jun’s heart flutter.

The dark glimmer tracing Jihoon’s irises was starting to make his head swim, but he couldn’t look away. Everything about him was mesmerizing, from his hair falling softly to the ground to his hand thrumming a curious beat on his chest to his ankles crossing over each other carelessly. Jun’s whole body felt hot and his lips were dry. Somewhere along the line, he’d accidentally started holding his breath, and he wasn’t eager to let it go, but there was a question crackling between his ears that he needed to get out no matter what.

“Are we dating now?” he said after an eternity, and his voice sounded way too small to his own ears. It was fascinating and unnerving how the only time he lacked confidence was one-on-one with Jihoon, how even his miraculous emergence from the cocoon of puberty didn’t make him feel like he would ever earn the right to say he might be his. Despite how aggravating it was, though, there was something oddly comfortable about the feeling of butterflies dancing in his stomach that he was relieved he didn’t have to say goodbye to.

“You tell me,” Jihoon sighed airily. “I thought you were breaking up with me a minute ago, so I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Can we be dating, then?”

“Are you still breaking up with me?”

“I wouldn’t,” Jun choked out, swinging an arm forward to tangle his fingers with Jihoon’s. “I wouldn’t do that.” Jihoon wheezed out a quiet chuckle.

“Then I guess we’re dating,” he said, and his eyes were sparkling with a million stars, thousands of constellations holding Jun’s attention firmly and forever. He felt warm, more than warm, like his veins flowed with magma instead of blood and his heart was the sun. His pulse was beating through his palm onto Jihoon’s hand, rapid and wild, and he was sure Jihoon could feel it. He hoped Jihoon’s heartbeat was the same.

“What’s today?” he asked suddenly, and Jihoon just blinked at him.

“I don’t know.” He paused. “Why?”

“You know,” Jun mumbled sheepishly. “Like, for our anniversary.” Jihoon scoffed, rolling his head back to stare at the ceiling.

“Who gives a shit?” he snorted. “You’re just gonna forget it anyway.” Jun wanted to argue, but he knew Jihoon was right, so he held his tongue and admired the gentle grace of Jihoon’s profile for the trillionth time.

“Can I kiss you again?” Jun asked at length, and Jihoon was happy to oblige.

Even though it was now officially official, Jihoon gave off a very strong vibe that he didn’t want anyone to know, so despite how zealously every fiber of Jun’s being desired to tell anyone and everyone, he kept his lips sealed. There were countless occasions on which he typed out a text confessing the news to Wonwoo and let his thumb hover over the send button for a solid minute before deleting the whole thing with a sigh. He felt so light inside, but he would’ve felt so much lighter if he could just let everyone in on the information.

Of course, the unspoken ban on talking about it couldn’t stop Jun from acting differently. He honestly hadn’t meant to let his behavior change so abruptly, but two years of suppressing the urge to reach out and touch someone can have a way of affecting you, and Jun was certainly affected. He had a hand somewhere on Jihoon every chance he got, sometimes without even knowing himself that he was doing it. Whenever they were within two feet of one another, his arm would move on its own to ruffle his hair or drape over his shoulders or grip his forearm. Jihoon always swatted him away, but it was never enough to deter Jun from doing it again.

His gazes changed, too, though he didn’t notice that himself. They dissolved from quiet longing into warm affection, pouring forth unbridled each time he laid eyes on Jihoon. His insides felt gooey whenever he remembered that Jihoon was more than just a pipe dream, but he didn’t mind it. It went well with the rising heat in the spring air, pushing his head higher and higher into the clouds with each passing day.

“Alright, enough is enough,” Wonwoo said at lunch one day halfway through April. He aimed a hard stare at Jun, who sat with his hand on Jihoon’s knee under the table. The actual point of contact was hidden from the others at the table, but the whispered argument about how long exactly Jun was planning on leaving his hand there did not go unnoticed. “Jun, be honest with me. Are you two dating?”

Jun’s breath froze in his lungs. Yes was what he wanted to say, to shout, sing from the rooftops, but Jihoon still hadn’t clarified whether he wanted him to; at the same time, he couldn’t really lie straight to Wonwoo’s face, either, especially not in front of everyone. He felt sweat start to bead on his forehead as he tried to think of a way to avoid the question, but Jihoon beat him to the punch.

“Yeah, we are,” he said flatly, and Jun choked on his own breath. Not one part of him was prepared for Jihoon to admit it so willingly, and it made him wonder why they were bothering to hide it in the first place. Wonwoo raised his eyebrows.

“That’s interesting,” Wonwoo mused. “I was so sure that I asked Jun.” Jihoon shrugged nonchalantly.

“We answer each other’s questions now.”

“Do you?” Jeonghan asked, voice full of amusement. “I have a question for you then, Jihoon. On a scale of only kinda sucking to super sucking, how bad at kissing are you?”

“Can’t use that scale,” Jihoon sighed before Jun could even think to open his mouth, “because I’m awesome.”

“I thought you answered each other’s questions now,” Seungcheol bellowed in outrage, but Jihoon just shrugged again.

“We only do that sometimes.”

“More importantly,” Soonyoung began, and the entirety of the table save Jun and Jihoon groaned in unison, “you all owe me ten bucks.” And that was not the last time Soonyoung earned money this way.

When they were at Jihoon’s house later, something felt off, a slight unease tainting the air as they sat on the couch. Is he mad? Jun thought, but it didn’t make sense for him to be mad considering he was the one who told everybody. But he certainly wasn’t happy, and he didn’t look sad. And maybe there was an entire spectrum of other emotions he could’ve been, but Jun wasn’t really feeling up to running down the whole list and checking them off one by one.

“Are you mad?” he asked after a brief internal debate, mostly concerning whether Jihoon would even give him a straight answer if he asked. Eventually, he figured he might as well try.

“Why?” Jihoon asked in response, eyebrows raising just barely. “Did you do something I need to be mad about?”

“Uh, not technically,” Jun allowed unsurely, and the eyebrows went a tad bit higher. “I just mean, like, because everyone knows now.” Jihoon let out a heavy breath, then sank back into the cushions.

“Yeah, I’m a little pissed,” he admitted. There was a brief delay before he followed up with, “Not at you.” His head lolled, falling onto the back of the couch, and there probably could’ve been a better time for Jun to notice how interestingly pretty his neck looked like that, but there also could’ve been a worse one. His heart skipped rope regardless. “They’re just gonna look at me differently now, and I don’t want them to.”

“Why would they?”

“Because I’m dating you, dumbass, and I wasn’t before.” Jun guessed he wasn’t wrong.

Even with the news now broken, Jihoon still shrugged off any and all affection whenever they were around other people, be it all five of the others or just one of them. That wasn’t enough to stop Jun from trying, even if he got the slightest twinge of heartache every time. When they were alone, everything was fine. When they were alone, they couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. They just weren’t alone often enough.

Right after the school year ended, the whole group planned to meet up at the park to meander around town until they found something fun to do. It was typical for Jihoon to arrive early, but it wasn’t typical for Jun, so when they found themselves to be the first ones there, Jun was equal parts surprised and relieved. They laced their hands together without hesitation as they sat waiting on the bench and muttering to each other in quiet conversation, ready to abandon ship at any moment once they saw a hint of someone approaching. They hadn’t counted on someone sneaking up behind the bench.

“Damn,” Seungcheol said with a whistle, and the sound of the D was hardly off his tongue before Jihoon was snatching his hand away and shoving it into the pocket of his shorts. “It really is weird seeing it right in front of my eyes.” Jihoon huffed out a single mirthless laugh and fixed his eyes on his knees, digging his hands in deeper. If Jun had been willing to get grounded and possibly sued, he would’ve punched Seungcheol in the nose with everything he had right then. He wasn’t willing, though, so he just tucked his balled fist where it couldn’t do any damage.

Jihoon was even worse after that, wouldn’t even look at Jun for too long if they weren’t completely guaranteed to be the only people in the room, certainly wouldn’t ever come near enough for him even to make an attempt at contact. It brewed an uncomfortable, swirling storm in the pit of Jun’s stomach that was quelled only briefly when it was just the two of them, and it took him right back to the helpless bundle of nerves that he had been when his feelings were just one-sided. It also occurred to him that Jihoon had never explicitly said the words I like you, and that thought started haunting him worse than any specter ever could.

On his birthday, it was just the two of them at his house. Somewhere along the line, Jun’s mom picked up the drift of the situation without being told, so she brought up the idea of having Jihoon over for his birthday dinner a few days prior, then mysteriously had errands to run after the meal was over. Jun’s little brother was staying at a friend’s house because little brothers are too cool to be around for their big brothers’ birthdays, and his dad got called away on a sudden business trip at the last minute despite how upset he was that he had to go.

They were lying together on Jun’s bed with their fingers tangled in an unusual way, just staring at the ceiling fan as it spun in lazy circles. Jun felt content and antsy at the same time, like he had no desire to move but would also rather die than stay in this same spot, like he didn’t have any words to say but a voice that was itching to say some anyway. Maybe it was just that weird birthday feeling of being older but no different, but he couldn’t get his mind to calm down.

“Hey, Jihoon,” he said suddenly, words slipping off his tongue without warning. He heard rustling as Jihoon turned his head and knew he had to continue, but couldn’t bring himself to look away from the hypnotizing spin of the fan. “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends on what it is,” Jihoon snorted.

“Do you like me?” It was such a fragile sentence, and he felt so wrong saying it. Usually, he knew. He could see it in the way other people looked at him, the way their jaws dropped when they saw his face, the way their cheeks colored when he spoke to them. He could never tell with Jihoon, though, and it made him someone totally different when they were together, just a new shell holding the same insecure freshman still trying to get used to his fuzzy upper lip and sticky feelings. He didn’t even understand it himself, but he always chalked it up to how Jihoon still made him feel like a little kid seeing the moon for the first time, bright and beautiful and impossibly far away.

“What?” Jihoon asked, but Jun felt too drained from asking it once to repeat himself. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah,” Jun replied lamely, keeping his gaze trained on the blades as they cut through the air in their lethargic rotation.

“What kind of bullshit…” He huffed out an irritated puff of air. “We’re dating, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Jun agreed tiredly. Jihoon’s dodging of the question wasn’t doing anything to ease his nerves. “But you’ve never told me.” Jihoon’s every exhale reeked of impatience, and it only made it more impossible for Jun to hazard a glance his way. “I’ve told you.” This was a bad idea, he thought, but it was too late to unsay any of it.

“Look at me,” Jihoon said after a pause that was too drawn out for Jun’s liking. He obliged hesitantly, tilting the weight of his head onto his ear as carefully as he could manage, as if being careful would somehow make it easier. When he finally set his sights on Jihoon, he was very pink, eyes much more intent than usual. “I like you,” he said at last.

Jun loved Jihoon’s voice. He loved the way it sounded when he sang along to the radio and when he had to read aloud in class. He loved the way it seemed to fit around words and make them sound ten times more gorgeous than they were ever meant to, and he loved the unique timbre of it, the way it just glided right through his ears and got stuck in his head for days. It was a lovely voice, the loveliest, and he loved it always, whether it was singing or whispering or laughing or yelling; but he had never loved it half as much as he did in that moment.

His arm moved on its own to pull Jihoon to him, but he wouldn’t have stopped it even if he could have. The back of Jihoon’s neck was hot when he pressed his fingertips to the skin, and it made Jun heat up, too, made him even warmer than he was already. He couldn’t get their mouths together fast enough, and once he did, it still wasn’t sufficient, still felt like they were barely touching. He let a hand slip under Jihoon’s shirt to roam, grazing eagerly over the stretches of lean muscle, and Jihoon returned the gesture in kind, pushing Jun’s shirt up until his abdomen was bared. The air stirred by the fan was cool against his stomach, but he still felt hot. They’d already eaten dinner, but he still felt hungry.

They had sex for the first time that night, bodies mingling in the absence of others. Jihoon had come prepared, and Jun wasn’t sure if that made him more nervous or less nervous; all he knew was he was so nervous when they actually started taking their clothes off that he couldn’t tell if Jihoon was nervous with him or if he was exploding alone.

In a lot of ways, it was exactly like he expected it would be, and in a lot of other ways, it was wholly different. Every move was careful yet deliberate, every touch burning, but Jihoon was flawless, immaculate. He looked like the only thing Jun ever wanted to see again in his life, and he felt like the only thing Jun ever wanted to lay his hands on. He ended up staying the night, and they both wound up wearing baggy sweaters the next day despite the time of year and the sweltering heat that accompanied it.

He hadn’t meant to leave any marks of his presence on Jihoon’s smooth skin, but he distinctly remembered doing it. He hadn’t expected Jihoon to return the favor, either, but when he took a look at his unclad frame before getting in the shower the following evening, the proof before his eyes was undeniable. He ran his fingers over the small blemishes hesitantly. He didn’t like them—they were ugly and bizarre-looking—and he wasn’t keen on accruing any more, but he also loved them, loved knowing Jihoon had a matching set.

This was another piece of information he knew he ought not disclose, but that didn’t stop him from typing and deleting and retyping and redeleting a text to Wonwoo about a hundred times, didn’t stop him from wishing he could tell everyone. His hands were still hovering over the keys when his phone buzzed in them, a little envelope popping up energetically onto the screen.

From: wonwoo

DUDE 

To: wonwoo

DUDE WHAT

From: wonwoo

YOU BANGED JIHOON???? WHAT THE HELL

He stared blankly at the text, brain trying desperately to make sense of what it was reading through a heavy fog of disbelief. How does Wonwoo know that? He looked back at the message log frantically, afraid that maybe he had accidentally sent the text instead of deleting it, and god, was Jihoon going to kill him, but there was no indication that he’d made the slip-up. Another message rolled in before he could go into full panic.

From: wonwoo

don’t even bother denying it. spoonyoung told me jihoon just told him

From: wonwoo

soonyoung** told me i mean lmao

To: wonwoo

yeah

From: wonwoo

IS THAT REALLY ALL UR GOING TO SAY

Jun didn’t have the energy to say anything else. He was too confused. Wonwoo told him outright that Jihoon clued Soonyoung in, but he was still trying to figure out who spilled the beans. Jihoon was the only one who could have told anyone, but it didn’t make any sense for him to, wasn’t at all consistent with the none-of-your-beeswax attitude he’d always had. Jun was too flummoxed to ask why he would decide to share this of all things, so he just contented himself with knowing that he didn’t have to keep it a secret—not from his friends, at least.

Jihoon was different after that. Not in a loud way that anyone else would notice, but in a subtle fashion that stood out very clearly to Jun. He still batted off his affections in public, but with less sincerity and gusto, sometimes even let the arm slung around his shoulders or the hand on his back remain. He felt overwhelmingly closer, like he’d been drifting miles away for the past few months and was now finally in Jun’s grasp. Jun wasn’t going to argue with it. Who was he to tell the sunshine in his chest that it had to go away?

The remainder of summer vacation dripped away alongside the melting ice cream in their sweaty hands, and before they knew it, they were seniors in high school, back in class on the final stretch and wishing every day that they would already be done. Wonwoo met some pretty boy in class on the first day, and they absorbed him into the group fairly quickly despite how rigidly they’d kept it as just the seven of them for so many years. Mingyu turned out to be a very welcome addition to the gang, albeit far too obviously attracted to Wonwoo.

Jun couldn’t tell if he was more amazed by how plainly Mingyu displayed everything going on in his mind on his face or by how unbelievably obtuse Wonwoo was for failing to see any of it. Was that what he’d looked like to the rest of them freshman year? He shuddered to think so. And was that how dense Jihoon had seemed to be the whole time? There was no way.

Months passed by almost too quickly, easing them toward the end of their high school careers with little grace. Mingyu’s friends were the exact type of people they were, and they melded beautifully into a cohesive bunch, but it wasn’t without its minor annoyances. For example, when Soonyoung and Seokmin became attached at the hip and head and heart almost immediately, Jun had a hard time choking down his bitterness. Why was it so easy for them when he had to struggle for two entire years before Jihoon even looked his way? How was that fair? Are you listening, God? It’s not fair!

Jeonghan’s party was a good breather for him. Even if he had to deal with Soonyoung and Seokmin being themselves, Mingyu being very obviously smitten, and Jeonghan subtly but certainly making moves on Minghao all at once, he was fine. He was fine because there was a little alcohol in his system and there was a little in Jihoon’s, and whenever Jihoon had something to drink, his no PDA rule flew out the window until he was sober again.

He loved to kiss Jihoon: loved the feeling of their bodies pressed together and their lips connected; loved the look of his eyes, half-lidded but alert; loved the taste of his lips, like caramel and heaven. He loved everything about it. He didn’t want to say that he loved it more when they were around other people, but he loved when others could see with their own eyes that they were together, when the proof was right in front of them and couldn’t be misunderstood. He loved to show off what they had because Jihoon would never let him.

They wound up in bed together again that night, bodies just as hot as June despite the oncoming briskness in the October air. They were sober enough to know good and well what they were doing but drunk enough not to be shy about it, much less cautious than they had been the first time. Jun was insatiable and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself from needing more, needing to be closer if only by a hair’s breadth, needing to have his hands and his mouth wherever he could get them. Jihoon was somehow worse.

Jun knew this time that he was leaving traces behind on Jihoon’s pretty skin, and he knew to expect the same to be done to him in return, but he wasn’t prepared for the zeal with which Jihoon was determined to outdo him, and he certainly wasn’t expecting to receive double what he dealt. He was beside himself with relief that it was starting to get cool enough to wear turtlenecks without seeming unduly suspicious, and he was additionally relieved that his grandmother had decided to give him a whole truckload of them for Christmas the previous year.

When the days were flowing by with blinding speed like they had a way of doing, Jun found it too easy to get lost in little moments and lose sight of the vast expanse of future ahead of him. Fortunately, a wake-up call in the form of a very callous senior counselor came to remind him while it was still early enough for him to get everything together. He had the grades and the high opinions of his teachers, so the only thing he really needed was a target, a set place to go. There was only one stipulation: it had to be the same place Jihoon went.

No matter how much time they spent together, Jun was always haunted by the unshakable feeling that Jihoon would get tired of him if he wasn’t right there in front of his eyes, that he’d be cast aside all too quickly the second he wasn’t around. Jihoon never said it explicitly, but Jun couldn’t stop feeling it, and when Jihoon wouldn’t tell him outright where he planned on going, he thought, This is it. He’s through with me. It felt like his body was an hourglass and his lungs were filling up with sand grain by grain, slowly but surely making it harder to breathe.

He tried not to let it come through on the outside—the acting class he took junior year made it worlds easier to hide what he didn’t want others to see—but that didn’t mean he was sinking any less quickly into that pit of dread beneath him. He laughed it off at lunch and he pretended that it wasn’t a big deal and he acted unaffected every time even though there was a sharp sting right in the middle of his chest that no amount of practice could train him to ignore.

The impending Halloween party would a welcome distraction, a little bit of fun to take his mind off things if only for a second, but when Soonyoung promised to tell him where Jihoon intended on heading the next year for school, it became a beacon of hope. Jun didn’t even care how or why he knew, only that he did and he was going to help. He couldn’t have been more eager to come over early and help set up if someone was paying him to do it, stringing fake cobwebs in the corners of the rooms with vigor and hanging up little paper ghosts like his life depended on it because he felt like it did.

There were a few guesses he’d come up with through heavy thinking, and he was pleasantly surprised when he heard them come out of Soonyoung’s mouth, felt a miniscule accomplishment in knowing Jihoon well enough to achieve some level of accuracy. It settled the unease in his gut effectively and immediately, soothing him well beyond what he’d anticipated and what he knew was reasonable. Even when Jihoon burst through Soonyoung’s door in a frenzy, it wasn’t enough to crack his calm.

In bold contrast with his apparent displeasure, Jihoon was strangely touchy-feely that day. When they were forced off the couch and onto the floor, he tucked himself into Jun’s side without hesitation, tilted his head back to rest on Jun’s shoulder, the Peter Pan cap on his head slipping off just slightly.

Jun had been more than just a little surprised when Jihoon agreed to wear couple costumes, even if he had distinctly mandated they couldn’t be expressly couple costumes. He’d only ever shunned all activities that labeled them as an item, so Jun was expecting nothing more than an immediate rejection when he hazarded to ask. He was nearly blown out of his seat when he instead heard Jihoon sigh softly and say, “Sure, okay.”

Movie after movie dragged on, and Jihoon sank further into Jun’s side with every scene until his head rested in the crook of his neck. Initially, he’d been rubbing Jihoon’s shoulder, but he abandoned that when he started to get the vibe that Jihoon was trying to take a nap—Jun thought it a little unreasonable that he was going to sleep again despite having already taken a nap, but who was he to say no?—but within a few seconds of his hand stilling, Jihoon’s darted up to clasp it, thumb sliding under to stroke his palm gently. There was certainly something weird about him today.

“Is something up?” Jun whispered cautiously into his ear, a small cluster of nerves prickling weakly behind his heart, and his unbreakable ease was becoming less so by the second.

Jihoon just shook his head almost imperceptibly, tightened his grip on Jun’s hand, turned his head until his lips brushed against the lobe of Jun’s ear. “I was gonna tell you,” he murmured, voice low enough to send a spark of electricity down Jun’s spine. “You know, where I applied.” Jun didn’t know what to say in return, so he didn’t say anything. He didn’t fail to notice the butterflies swarming his stomach immediately. “I’m serious,” Jihoon continued, swinging their joined hands up and down. Jun always thought it was cute the way he needed to be moving his hands when he was trying to get a point across, and he also theorized that was probably the very reason he was always slow in realizing when Jihoon was trying to get a point across.

“I believe you,” Jun said, accompanied by a pang of guilt because he knew it wasn’t totally true, knew he’d been too nervous to eat over his conviction that Jihoon wouldn’t tell him. Jihoon didn’t have to know he was fibbing, though, and it didn’t matter now anyway. It especially didn’t matter when Jihoon craned his neck to bring their mouths together. This was definitely unusual, to kiss so blatantly when everyone was there to see it. Jun couldn’t recall a single other time it had happened; then again, he could never recall anything when Jihoon kissed him.

He lost it all each and every time: his name, his birthday, his last meal. It was all drowned so easily and so wholly in the sea of Jihoon that everything was soaked through by the time he fished it back out, and no amount of wringing could ever squeeze all of the Jihoon from it. Jun didn’t particularly mind.

After a few moments, it became very apparent that Wonwoo had noticed what they were up to and was trying and failing to pretend like he hadn’t, and after a few more moments, it became even more apparent that Wonwoo was not the only one. Jihoon had to have detected the mood shift in the room, the unshining spotlight aimed directly at them, but he didn’t pull away, and Jun was too grateful to make him.

Chapter Text

When they left Soonyoung’s house later, they did it hand-in-hand, and despite the inky blackness of the night sky, Jun had never felt more like sunlight. Jihoon’s eyes extended an unstated invitation, and they traced a route leading back to his house wordlessly, stars winking at them from far overhead. The house was empty when they reached it, dark and cavernous and lonely. It hadn’t smelled like laundry detergent or apple candles for a long time, and Jun hated it because he knew Jihoon hated it, knew that groove in the kitchen table was still getting more pronounced day by day, knew that he couldn’t do anything about it.

It was hard for Jun to focus whenever they were at Jihoon’s because there were too many things to remember. He always remembered too much of Jihoon in the past to focus on the Jihoon right there in front of him, got so lost in a whirlwind of recollection that the gentle pressure on his lips didn’t even register until minutes later. Today wasn’t like that, though, because this Jihoon was not the same as the Jihoon he usually met. This Jihoon was tender and enigmatic and uncommon, and he commanded Jun’s attention so entirely that he completely forgot what he usually spent all his time remembering.

An arc of sweet kisses eased them back onto Jihoon’s bed slowly. Each one floated straight to Jun’s head, made him dizzy and delighted, caused flowers to bloom around his bones and fireflies to stir in his lungs. He felt weird and good and wasn’t quite sure which was more overpowering. Electricity pulsed through his nerves as Jihoon’s fingertips slid over his shoulders, and while he loved every second of it, he was starting to get too distracted by the questions swirling in his head.

“Hey,” he said softly, pushing a hand into Jihoon’s chest with just enough force to get the message across. Jihoon’s eyes twinkled curiously back at him. “You’re really different today,” Jun said without thinking enough about it. Jihoon scoffed.

“Am I?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” Jun mumbled earnestly, resting a hand on Jihoon’s shoulder. He still liked the feeling of that smooth slope under his palm just as much as he had during the six seconds of the ballroom dancing unit when Jihoon had been the lead. “Nothing’s wrong, right?” A tired breath rattled out of Jihoon’s throat.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he assured, and Jun didn’t understand why he sounded so exhausted.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m really trying, you know.” He sounded a little winded, the tips of his ears dyeing a faint crimson. Jun’s face must have betrayed his confusion, because Jihoon plowed on after a short pause. “I know you want to be more,” his hand moved in rapid circles to find the word, “together when it’s not just us.” He wet his lips distractingly before continuing. “And I know I’m not that great about it. So I’m trying.” Jun’s heart did a bit of a somersault at the gravity in Jihoon’s voice, the sincerity softening his features.

“You don’t have to,” Jun began, but Jihoon only shook his head, a glimmer of a smirk playing at his lips.

“You’re a jackass,” he declared certainly. “I knew you would say that.” He rolled his eyes and flopped down onto the mattress beside Jun, fixing his gaze on the ceiling. “But I know you want me to be more okay with it and you just won’t say anything.” Jun couldn’t say he was wrong. “So let me at least try.”

I am in love with you, Jun wanted to say at that moment. I am so unbelievably in love with you. Every word was desperate to tear through his chest and hit the air, to roll off his tongue and into reality, to greet Jihoon’s ears and wreathe them in its sound. His heart ached with the need to say it, head with the need to have Jihoon hear it, but he didn’t make a peep, just lay silently surveying the popcorn on the ceiling and listening to the consistent breaths of the boy beside him. He needed to say it, yet he couldn’t say it now. Now wasn’t the right now. This now would have felt too artificial, too much like a thank you card, and he didn’t want to give Jihoon a thank you card because he didn’t want to thank him. All he wanted to give him was the feeling, the genuine sentiment of each word, but he would have to wait for a different now even though the urgent burning in his chest was trying to tell him any now would do.

That sentence coiled around his esophagus and constricted on every breath, urging Jun to set it free, but he couldn’t do it just yet. On Jihoon’s birthday, they went to his mom’s grave again, and this time, Jihoon made Jun come with him so he could tell her what they’d been up to for the past year. His fingers shook despite being laced between Jun’s when they walked into the cemetery, and his voice wobbled in a way that Jun had never heard before when he told her headstone that they’d been dating for some time. Jun wanted to say it then, too, but that wasn’t the right time, not when Jihoon was a stone’s throw from tears and they were standing in front of a grave, so he held it back again against its will.

Time flew by faster than it should have been allowed to. Months felt like weeks and days felt like minutes and hours felt like seconds and Jun still couldn’t say it because there still wasn’t a good time. He couldn’t say it on Christmas when Jihoon looked soft and perfect and beautiful as always because it would seem too much like gratitude for his gift. He couldn’t say it on New Year’s when Jihoon looked radiant and golden and alive because it was technically their anniversary and it would seem too much like it was prompted by the occasion. He couldn’t say it on prom night when Jihoon looked stunning and sharp and unfairly handsome because his tongue was too tied up in other things—namely Jihoon’s—to work its way through the message. There was no shortage of wrong times, and before Jun even thought to rip the January page off his calendar, they had already graduated.

The summer between the end of high school and the beginning of college was a bizarre limbo not unlike the one between the end of middle school and the beginning of high school, but this one was gentler because it came without the awkward stretches of puberty and unneeded spikes of nervousness; it did, however, bring with it countless existential crises, spine-cracking anxiousness about the future, and a lot of sweat. It also brought an abundance of wrong moments for Jun to tell Jihoon what he needed to say.

They had exercised judgement in deciding they probably ought not to room together in their first year of college, but they still managed to see more of each other than their actual roommates. Jun’s roommate in particular often felt like an intruder in his own room whenever he got back from his evening classes to find Jihoon there once again.

“Why didn’t you just room together?” he asked one night after Jihoon had left for his own dorm, voice betraying more than just a hint of irritation. Jun shrugged as he lay back on his bed to continue putting off writing an essay.

“People who live together start hating each other,” Jun said. His roommate just scoffed.

“That’s some kinda bullshit excuse,” he hissed, whipping his laptop open to start on an assignment that he was already doomed to submit late. “If you don’t plan on breaking up, you’re gonna have to live together sometime.” He was right, but Jun didn’t feel like admitting it. The prospect of either growing to hate Jihoon or having Jihoon grow to hate him was not something he wanted to have on his mind. He shoved himself up from the mattress and shuffled to his desk, deciding that essay could use some of his attention after all.

To the great relief of his freshman year roomie, they wound up moving into an apartment just off campus the next year with a mutual friend. It was strange to be right across the hall, but it wasn’t bad, not at all. Jihoon had a lot of interesting habits Jun never knew about, like how he always tugged the carpet back to be even with the edge of the couch when he walked through the living room and how he always made sure all the mugs in the cupboard had their handles facing the same way and how he always hummed the Mario theme song when he was washing the dishes. They wouldn’t have been half as endearing on anyone else, but when Jihoon did them, they were just captivating and beautiful as he was.

Each time Jun heard the first few notes of that cheesy theme tune, he wanted to say it. I am so in love with you. Seven syllables burning in the back of his throat, dying to get out. Each time he watched him straighten the carpet, too, and each time he heard the sound of ceramic mugs being swiveled in the wooden cabinet. He wanted to say it every day, but it was a moment he didn’t want to share with anyone aside from Jihoon, and it was never just the two of them. As much as he liked the other guy, there were times he would kill to have him living somewhere else.

He was never around when they had sex, of course, but that could never be the right time, not when it was so close to an expression of gratitude that it might be taken for one. He was starting to get tired of the stale taste of the words when he had to keep swallowing them over and over and over, but there wasn’t much else he could do when the right time to say them never came.

The next year, their third roommate transferred universities, and nobody else they knew was willing to put up with Jun and Jihoon at the same time for any longer than they absolutely needed to, so they moved into another apartment, just the two of them. It was strange without a neutral number three to balance out the energy, but Jun was fine with it. Of course, he still couldn’t make himself say to Jihoon the one thing he really wanted to say, but somewhere all along, he’d known that he wouldn’t be able to, known he was just using the presence of someone else as an excuse to pretend he wasn’t scared to death. He didn’t know why he was scared to death, either, and he didn’t know why he should be, only knew that he was and that the phrase stuck to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter whenever he tried to force it out anyway.

Just like he could never figure out what it was about Jihoon that captured his attention so totally, Jun could never quite put his finger on why it was more tense when it was only the pair of them in their living space, but it was undeniably so. Whenever Jihoon was stressed, he could just feel it in the air, and junior year brought a lot more important classes, which brought a lot more important assignments, which brought a lot more stress. Maybe that was another reason he held his tongue.

When fall semester finals rolled around, Jun knew he was absolutely fucked for one of his classes if he didn’t buckle down and study until his eyes hurt, and he would be damned if he had to retake that credit just because the professor was an asshole. On the last Tuesday before the advent of exams, he marched himself over to the university library the second he got out of his final afternoon class, fingers shivering to numbness in the chilly air and breath materializing in front of his eyes, determined to figure out what the hell had been going on all semester before taking one step back out of that building. He stopped at the Starbucks inside and ordered a large macchiato keep his fatigue at bay and cracked open a textbook at the first open table he found. I can do this, he told himself firmly, and his eyes pored over the pages like it was going out of style.

As it turned out, he couldn’t do it. Even all that espresso wasn’t enough to assuage his exhaustion, and after just a few hours of making decent progress in understanding the material, he knocked out without warning, head falling less than gently onto the open book before him and staying there for several hours longer than it should have. He woke up very groggy and very confused about the page stuck to the side of his face, made uncomfortable eye contact with a girl staring worriedly at him from a few yards away, then immediately gathered his things and sprinted out the door without checking the time. If the pitch darkness of the sky was any indication, he’d spent far too much time at the library.

Jihoon was still awake when he cracked open the door, light from the kitchen flooding dimly into the entryway, so he figured it wasn’t as late as he’d thought initially. He walked toward the light and found Jihoon seated at the table with his computer open in front of him and hands clasped atop the wood, eyes fixed on the screen intently. “Hey,” Jun said softly, snatching Jihoon’s attention immediately. Jihoon whipped his vision over and eyed Jun up and down, pressing his mouth into a hard line. Jun always thought his dimples looked cute when he did that, but he only ever did it at times when pointing that out would be wildly inappropriate.

“Where have you been?” he asked, and his voice contained a lot of traces of things Jun couldn’t quite pin down. He sounded mad and scared and relieved and nervous all at the same time, but mad was all his face was showing, and Jun didn’t understand why.

“The library,” he said cautiously. Jihoon raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Really? You’ve been at the library until this late?” Jun nodded dumbly, pulling his phone out of his pocket to find it silenced and almost dead. His jaw nearly hit the floor when he saw the time displayed on the screen as an impossible 1:14 a.m., but Jihoon shoved it back into place with his words. “Where have you really been?” he asked sternly, and there was a dangerously sharp edge in his voice cutting right into the softest part of Jun’s chest with no regard for how much pain it caused.

“I just told you I was at the library,” Jun shot back defensively, heat rising to his tone as well. He didn’t want to get mad, but it was hard not to when Jihoon was shouting at him without the volume.

“You expect me to believe that?” he snapped.

“Yes!” Jun insisted, flinging his hands into the air. “Because it’s true!” A few seconds of wired silence passed before realization dawned on Jun. “Wait, don’t you have to be up at 6? Why are you still awake?”

“Because I was waiting for you, dumbass,” he cried, voice edging dangerously close to a yell, and there were subtle hints of exasperation and tears wavering at the back of it. “You didn’t tell me where you were going and you never came back.”

“But I did tell you,” Jun countered hesitantly, unlocking his phone and opening his conversations to find a message that was all typed out and ready but never sent. A pang of guilt seared the inside of his chest. “Or I didn’t, I guess. But I meant to.” Jihoon’s eyes were shining in a peculiar way Jun didn’t see them do often, and it only made it chest ache more. “Are you mad at me?”

“Of course I’m fucking mad,” Jihoon hissed through his teeth, knuckles going white as he clutched his own hands. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought something happened to you.” Jun pretended he couldn’t hear the lump in Jihoon’s throat that he was forcing himself to talk around. “And then I thought, you know, I should have heard something, so I thought maybe… maybe you were with someone else and you didn’t want me to know. And I just…” He lowered his gaze back to his laptop, burning twin holes through the monitor, clasped hands shaking with words held back.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Jun mumbled almost too softly, the buzz of the building’s heat system overshadowing the words. “Hey, Jihoon. Look at me.” He saw his ear twitch, but there was no move made to avert his eyes from the computer screen. Jun came a little closer and crouched down until his chin rested on the tabletop, right next to the shallow indentation etched into the wood that hadn’t been there when they’d moved in. Jihoon’s leg jumped when he placed a hand on his knee. “Please look at me.” Jihoon dragged his stare down reluctantly until their eyes met, shining and uncertain. “I wouldn’t do that,” he repeated, thumb ghosting in circles over the hole worn into the knee of Jihoon’s jeans. “I would never.”

“I know,” Jihoon said, expelling a shaky breath. “I know that, but sometimes… I just…” He separated his hands to ball them up into fists in front of the keyboard, tightening and relaxing while he fished the rest of the sentence out of his brain. “I get scared,” he whispered, and suddenly the chambers of Jun’s heart didn’t know how to work together anymore because it was too genuine and too raw and too vulnerable. Those words weren’t Jihoon at all, yet they were undeniably in his voice, undeniably came from his lips. Jun’s ears hardly knew how to process the sound of them like that, brain hardly knew how to connect them to their meanings because there was no way Jihoon would ever say something like that and yet he had.

“You don’t need to,” he said quietly, pulling Jihoon into his arms. “Trust me,” he said. I’m in love with you, he wanted to say, but he didn’t want it to be a band-aid, so he bit his tongue for the millionth time and thanked whoever was listening that it hadn’t fallen off yet.

If that counted as a fight, it was their first, which Jun thought was pretty good considering how long they’d been together. It wasn’t their last, though, and it certainly wasn’t their worst. Jun chalked it up to the rising stress that came with almost being college seniors, which meant almost being college graduates if they did everything right. Jihoon was always far less relaxed than Jun, and it could only be blamed on how much more nebulous his major was; the school of music held a world widely different from the one in which Jun’s marketing degree lived, much less concrete and objective, and Jihoon was neck deep in the effects of it. He was at a nearly-constant boiling point, and the rut in the table was only getting deeper.

Jun tried his best, but he knew he wasn’t doing the best. He rented movies only to have Jihoon tell him that he didn’t have time to watch them and bought flowers only for Jihoon to remind him that they still had no vase to put them in. When he finally bought a vase, Jihoon snapped and told him to stop spending money on useless shit, told him he swore to god he would walk out the door and never turn around if he saw one more fucking flower, and for a solid minute, Jun’s lungs didn’t remember how to do their only job. He’s finally done with me, he thought. It took him back to senior year of high school when he was anxious over Jihoon’s choice of college, back to freshman year when he was anxious over Jihoon’s existence, and he couldn’t recall a time when breathing had ever been this difficult.

Maybe it was the radio silence he was greeted with, or maybe it was a delayed realization of his own words, but after a few long moments of nothing but the hum of the air conditioner, Jihoon turned wide-eyed to Jun, standing absolutely motionless in the doorway with the vase still in his hand. “I didn’t mean that,” Jihoon sputtered quickly, rising from where he sat at the table and crossing to Jun with as much speed as he could manage, socks sliding over the tile. “I swear I didn’t,” he said, grabbing the vase over Jun’s hand, fingers wriggling into the spaces between his. “I swear,” he repeated insistently, hands tightening around the vase. “I swear. I’m so sorry.” His eyes searched Jun’s face desperately, but Jun was too numb to respond or take his eyes off the little off-color splotch on the far wall that they’d just discovered. “Let’s go get some flowers right now,” Jihoon proposed, waiting with bated breath for an answer that wasn’t coming. “Jun, I’m so sorry,” he breathed at last. “Please say something.”

Finally gathering the energy, he tipped his head down to look into Jihoon’s panicked eyes, lifting his shoulders in a lethargic shrug. “We don’t need any flowers, I guess,” he said. He was amazed by how empty his voice sounded to his own ears, amazed by how empty he felt even with his hand clasped in Jihoon’s. “You’re right. I’ll take the vase back.” He tried to pull back his hand, but Jihoon strengthened his grip.

“You’re not taking the vase back.”

“But we don’t need it.”

“We don’t need a fake pot of roses that sings oldies, either, but we still have one,” Jihoon argued, pushing Jun back toward the doorway with gusto. “Now we need to get some pretty flowers to go in the nice vase that you went to the trouble of buying, so put your shoes back on.” Jun opened his mouth to protest, but Jihoon didn’t leave any room for argument, just kept shoving until Jun’s feet were back in his shoes and they were out the door.

Jihoon’s hold on Jun’s hand was unrelenting as they walked to the closest flower shop, fingers threaded stubbornly through the gaps between his. Jun didn’t like how clammy his palm was becoming after just a few minutes, but he was glad Jihoon wasn’t letting him go. Bit by bit and step by step and inch by inch, it was helping his heart beat back up to speed again, helping his lungs catch up on breath. By the time they actually reached the shop, he felt a great deal closer to good, and as Jihoon looked studiously over the blooms, Jun couldn’t stop himself from thinking that he was far more beautiful than any of them.

“Hey,” Jihoon called out to the store attendant in a voice much sterner than he’d meant it to be. The employee jumped in alarm, nearly knocking over the display of daisies he’d been sprucing up. “What are some good flowers?” he asked bluntly, and Jun had to suppress a giggle. What kind of question was that? If there was anybody that was going to ask it, though, it would be Jihoon.

“Uh,” the clerk began uncertainly, eyeing their conspicuously joined hands before continuing. “Camellias are nice?” Jihoon crinkled his chin and narrowed his eyes, nodding like he approved of the nomination even though Jun knew he didn’t know which ones were camellias.

“Do you have any of those?” he asked, just as terse as Jun had always known him to be. The attendant scrambled over to the display clumsily to frame the blossoms with his hands, pink and white and red, and Jihoon nodded again. “We’ll take some of those, then.”

“How many would you like?” the young man asked warily. “And what color?” Jihoon scrutinized the flowers carefully, pressing his lips into a focused line.

“All three of the colors are fine,” he said after a pause. “Just a mix of them.” He pondered a moment longer, thumb rolling over the back of Jun’s hand absentmindedly. “And give us however many go in a normal bouquet. They’re going in a vase,” he clarified, as if most flowers do not end up in vases. The clerk nodded nervously and shuffled around to gather up a pretty little bouquet and have them on their way. Even on the walk back, Jihoon still wouldn’t release Jun’s hand, and Jun didn’t want him to.

Jihoon let go only when they got back to the apartment so he could fill the vase with water and stick the flowers unceremoniously into it, setting it dead in the center of the kitchen table. Jun watched him intently, in awe of how gorgeous he looked doing something so mundane, heartache almost but not quite completely forgotten, a vague remnant of bitter numbness still sticking around under his ribs. He wiped the sweat off his palm and onto the hem of his shirt as Jihoon ushered him into a chair where he could admire the flowers better.

“Okay,” Jihoon exhaled, planting his hands firmly on his hips. “What do you want for dinner?”

“What do we have?” Jun asked, but Jihoon just shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Irrelevant,” he dismissed. “Just answer the question.”

“What do you want for dinner?” he asked, and Jihoon’s mouth curved into an unbearably pretty frown.

“You’ve got a nice nose, Jun,” he mused thoughtfully, “and it would just really be a shame if you kept not answering my questions and forced something to happen to it.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Are you going to tell me what you want?” Jun didn’t think it was fair that Jihoon was allowed to answer questions with questions when he wasn’t, but he didn’t call him out on it because he wasn’t ready to give up yet.

“Why do I have to pick something?” he asked, and Jihoon groaned, eyes flicking impatiently to the ceiling.

“Because it’s for you, you shit,” he explained tiredly. “Those flowers are for you, and dinner is for you, and later, we’re going to watch a movie together and you’re going to pick it because that’s for you, too. So just pick something you want to eat so I can order it or make it or whatever. Unless you want, like, your mom’s homemade stew or something, because there’s no way we can have that.” Jun could hardly do anything in return but gawk in silence, and when he finally parted his lips to ask why, Jihoon was already prepared with an answer. “Because you do so much for me and I never do anything for you,” he fired back, the slightest touch of a wobble entering his tone. “You try so hard to make me happy and I never thank you for it or even acknowledge it, and I just…” He breathed out to calm himself down, shaky and shallow. “I want to make you happy for once. And I’m sorry. Please tell me what you want for dinner.”

“Don’t you have assignments to finish?” Jihoon sighed again impatiently.

“I always have assignments to finish,” he admitted, “but I’m tired of treating them like they matter more than you do.”

Jun wanted to say how much in love with him he was, but his tongue was too caught on the words to shape them properly, so all he did was spit out the first thing he thought of that he wanted for dinner and watch Jihoon order it right away. He didn’t remember what movie they watched later because he was too focused on Jihoon curled up in his arms, one hand rubbing Jun’s chest tenderly in broad strokes and the other pressing fingertips into his back. Jun couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so content, so close, and he wished the moment wouldn’t pass like the laws of the universe and the progression of time demanded it had to. They shared Jihoon’s bed that night for the first time in a long while, and Jun had forgotten how small it was with two people. He decided he didn’t mind it.

The year-round nature of their lease forced them into staying in the apartment over the summer instead of going home, and the camellias were long wilted by the time classes had ended for the year. They settled into a routine of work very quickly, and Jun was amazed by how right it felt, amazed by how it could be once they were finally out of school. He liked seeing Jihoon in the mornings when he left and he liked watching him come through the door in the evenings, liked the domesticity underlying every day. He liked it more than he was willing to say out loud, and he hoped Jihoon liked it just as much.

When his birthday started getting closer, Jihoon told Jun to ask for a few days off but wouldn’t say why, kept his reason closely guarded until the night before Jun’s birthday, when he revealed they were taking a short trip to the beach to celebrate his hitting the big 2-1. Jun was excited; he hadn’t been to the beach in a long time, and he’d never gone on a trip with just the two of them before, aside from commuting to and from the university when there were breaks, which didn’t exactly count. He packed his bag with excessive zeal and even more excessive speed, and he barely got a wink of sleep the entire night, which didn’t quite work in his favor when it came to driving, but when they pulled into the lot at the hotel, he thought it was worth it.

“Hotel” might have been too generous. The sign in the parking lot proclaiming “Seaside Paradise” was definitely too generous. It was kind of a shabby little motel with a cheesy seashell decal painted next to the office door and an underdone oceanic motif in the room, but it was only a minute’s walk from where the concrete faded into sand and it smelled like sunscreen and freshly-washed linen, so it was plenty good enough.

The first day, all Jun wanted to do was nap; he was tired from lack of sleep and hours of driving, and the bed in the hotel room was unexpectedly comfortable, but Jihoon refused to let him waste his own birthday in the comfort of the too-starched sheets on a hotel bed, so he dragged him to the beach by the hand. Jun’s face burned as they walked, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the sun beating down on him from its post way up in the center of the sky or because of Jihoon’s hand interlocked with his where everyone could see it, tips of his fingers melting holes between his knuckles. They applied sunscreen very liberally, Jihoon in particular not wanting any damage to come to his fair skin, but Jun’s cheeks upheld a vibrant shade of crimson until they were walking back, sun gradually lowering itself below the line of the water.

After a day out under the glowing heat, Jun was really beat, sandals scraping over the sidewalk languidly as they trudged back toward the hotel, but even then, Jihoon wouldn’t let him sleep. He dragged him straight past the hotel and over a little bridge into the other side of town, where all the stores and restaurants were, then commanded him to pick a restaurant for his birthday dinner. Jun grumbled as he flicked his tired eyes between all the signs without reading them.

“We’re all gross from being at the beach all day,” he muttered, furrowing his brow. “We can’t go into a restaurant.”

“Maybe not a fancy one,” Jihoon conceded, “but everyone is gross from being at the beach all day. Just pick somewhere.”

“Can’t I go take a shower first?” It seemed like a reasonable demand, but Jihoon just shook his head.

“You and I both know damn well you’ll fall asleep in the shower,” he said with a sigh, grabbing Jun’s wrist and pulling him along. “Since you refuse to pick, we’re going to this seafood shack right here. You have until we reach the door to make your own decision.” Instead of weighing his options, Jun angled his wrist to slide his fingers between Jihoon’s and let himself be hauled along.

Jun didn’t remember what he ordered because he was too tired to register reading the menu, but after he ate, he felt a lot more awake, enough to notice how stunning Jihoon still managed to look under the dingy lighting with just the slightest hint of a tan peeking at his shoulders. Jun wanted to ask him to take his tank top off, but it went without saying that that was a no-go in a public restaurant, so he just settled for watching the flame from the candle on the complimentary cupcake the staff brought him flicker in swirls around Jihoon’s irises.

Before they could finally retire to the hotel room, there was one more stop they had to make: the liquor store. Jun was actually on board with this one—he wasn’t about to turn 21 without doing what the law finally permitted him to do—so he strode into the store and bought two bottles of the cheapest wine they had with far too much pride for someone buying the cheapest wine.

It tasted like shit, but once they’d had enough, they deluded themselves into thinking it was kind of good. Glasses were overrated, so they used the styrofoam coffee cups provided by the motel to drain the first bottle slowly. When its contents were mostly depleted, Jun decided he really did need to take a shower, and Jihoon decided he needed to take one at the exact same time, and they were tipsy enough to think that it was a good idea to try squeezing into the tiny stall together. They were sober enough to realize it was a bad idea almost immediately, and they were stupid enough to follow through with it anyway.

There was too much damn sand between the two of them to say that they’d showered successfully, but they smelled like soap and felt kind of refreshed when they got out, so it was good enough to pass. They reclined on the bed in their boxers and undershirts, hair still dripping, one of Jun’s arms circling Jihoon’s shoulders, and emptied the rest of the first bottle and the entire second bottle quietly, barely noticing when all the wine was gone. Their eyes drooped, but they were wide awake now, bodies warm and close together, hearts accelerating in time with each other. Jihoon dragged a finger in lazy stripes up and down Jun’s chest, and it sent a pleasant pulse of electricity down his spine.

“Happy birthday,” Jihoon mumbled, breath ghosting hotly over Jun’s ear. Jun turned his head to check the clock and see if it even still was his birthday, but he couldn’t get himself to focus on paying attention to the numbers, so he resigned to trusting Jihoon.

“Thanks,” Jun sighed contentedly. He clutched Jihoon’s shoulder a little more tightly, tugging him just a hair closer. “Can I have a present?” he muttered softly, and Jihoon chuckled against his neck.

“I already bought you dinner,” he reminded him, and Jun laughed, too, because he thought it was funny how there was no way he could forget that. He let his hand glide slowly down Jihoon’s back until his fingers were fiddling with the hem of his shirt, tangling in the obscenely thin fabric.

“I know,” Jun drawled. He pulled back just enough to drop his head onto its side and bring himself nose-to-nose with Jihoon. His eyes twinkled with endless galaxies, and Jun wished he could explore every one of them. “But I want something else,” he continued. He kind of felt like a little kid despite how he was only getting older, but Jihoon’s eyes crinkled beautifully with a widening smile, so he didn’t have to think about it. “It won’t cost you anything,” Jun started to say, but Jihoon cut him off one word in when he ducked forward to press a kiss to his mouth.

He hummed against Jihoon’s lips, let his hands wander and wander and wander, over Jihoon’s body and under his shirt, touches light and fleeting. Jihoon did the same in return, and it felt good; he felt good. His body was so warm and his heart was beating so fast, but they were moving so slow and it felt so right for some reason he couldn’t trace. It had to be the wine that was slowing them down so much, but Jun didn’t care if it wasn’t. All he cared about was the aching gentleness of Jihoon’s skin against his and how deliberate every movement was, how long and deep and intent every kiss.

Jun thought it was a strange thing to have sex with your hands so sluggish and your head so cloudy, but he didn’t dislike it. He was enamored with the way Jihoon laughed breathlessly into his mouth and said his name, and he loved Jihoon’s name, loved how pretty it was and the way it rolled off his tongue naturally and thoughtlessly. He loved Jihoon, was in love with everything about him, and every second was filled with an urgent need to shout it out, but his mouth was too busy, and when he had the chance again, he didn’t feel like doing much aside from going to sleep.

His eyelids drooped closed as Jihoon tucked himself in closer, residuals of his heartbeat shuddering into Jun’s ribs with a steadily decreasing pace until it evened out. Deep and measured breaths were all Jun heard, and the sound of them was comforting, made him feel like he was home even though his brain should have known better. He liked being home.

“I love you,” he whispered without meaning to, hushed words traveling only a few inches from his lips before being lost in the darkness. It was short an “am in” and a “with”, but it was still true, and he could hardly believe he’d never said it out loud before when he’d thought it until it almost didn’t mean anything, until he’d been fit to combust if he didn’t get it off his chest. He was glad he said it, thrilled beyond belief to have finally set that thought free, but Jihoon was too asleep to hear it, so Jun just let his words dissolve into the air and resigned to chasing after dreams himself.

Mornings are usually pleasant, and they are even more pleasant when Jun wakes up with Jihoon in his arms, but the following morning was indescribably far from the typical quiet bliss that came with rays of sunlight through the window. His head was pounding even before he cracked an eye open, and he was sure he shouldn’t have a hangover from such cheap wine, but sureness didn’t make the pain any less jarring when he managed to pull his eyelids apart. The curtains on the window were too opened for his liking, and his face needed a cold splash of water just as much as his throat needed a cold glass of it, but he couldn’t move.

Jihoon was still asleep, head resting on Jun’s chest, and as much as Jun’s eyes ached to be closed, he couldn’t tear them away. How did he do that? Jun wanted to know. How could he do absolutely nothing and be so damn breathtaking like that? It was ridiculously unfair to the rest of the world who tried so hard and could never measure up, and Jun suddenly felt it was ridiculously unfair of him to keep Jihoon all to himself like he did, though he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to do it anyway. There was a measurable delay between when Jihoon opened his eyes and when Jun noticed he was staring back, but he was too engrossed in his thoughts and his headache to discern how long it was.

“Good morning,” he croaked, and Jihoon snorted in response.

“‘Good’, my ass,” he said, blinking hard a few times and worming himself onto his back. “Does your head hurt?”

“Like shit.” Jihoon wheezed out a lifeless chuckle.

“Mine, too.” He sighed, draping an arm across the unused portion of the bed and letting his fingers dangle off its edge. “We shouldn’t be hungover right now.” Jun nodded in passive agreement, but he couldn’t offer a solution and his head was still undeniably throbbing, so he just threw it back onto the pillows.

“I don’t want to go to the beach today,” he confessed weakly. “There’s going to be a lot of sun and it’s going to be too loud. You can try and drag me there, but I’m not leaving this room.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to go either,” Jihoon groaned. He paused for a moment before following up with, “Will you go close the curtains?”

“You’re gonna make me do it?” Jun gasped. “But it was my birthday yesterday. You should do it.”

“I bought you dinner,” Jihoon hissed, accentuating the last word with a light jab into Jun’s side. “And it’s not your birthday anymore, so you should do it.”

“This is bullshit,” Jun grumbled, making no move to stand. “I’m not doing it.”

“We can play rock-paper-scissors,” Jihoon suggested, but Jun just rolled off the bed with a grunt.

“Fine. I’ll just do it,” he said grumpily, crossing to the window. “You always fucking win rock-paper-scissors.” Jihoon held up a victorious fist when the curtains were drawn together, and Jun flopped back on the bed to fall asleep again.

It was evening when they woke up next, and they felt a lot less like dying, but their empty stomachs forced them to leave the hotel in search of something to fill them. The sky was tinted red with the retreat of the sun as they followed the sidewalk toward the ice cream shop that sat right at the border between sand and street, got two large cones and walked out onto the strip of beach with them. The sun had long set by the time they started eating, but the moon left pretty slivers of silver light on the crests of the waves that were equally pleasing to the eye, so they sat in the soft ripples of sand until they’d licked the last drops off their fingers, then marched back in the stillness of the night to flop back on the hotel bed even though they knew they wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.

They slept in late the next day, and when they woke up, they went and got matching airbrushed t-shirts and slightly less matching sunburns. They retired early, exhausted by the heat of the beach and the screaming youths that accompanied it, and when they awoke the following morning, it was already time to leave.

It was the first time Jun felt like he understood Jihoon’s desire to keep things to himself, the first time Jun didn’t want to tell anyone and everyone he could about something. They hadn’t told anyone they were going on a vacation, mainly because Jun hadn’t even known until the night before they left, but Jun was fine keeping it that way. He liked having it something for just the two of them, a memory that nobody else could touch because they wouldn’t know to reach for it, a secret they kept just because they could.

The rest of the break was monotonous and routine, and as the first day of classes of their final year as students neared, their stress levels rose steadily. It started to sink in how close they were to the end, how failing anything meant not graduating and not graduating meant not being part of the real adult world and not being part of the real adult world meant not succeeding. Everything was tense from the very day classes started, felt like they were already swamped with things to get done and loose ends to tie up last minute. Jun had mostly coasted through the past three years, but even he was feeling it now, nerves constantly prickled.

They started getting into fights about stupid things almost every day, and they both knew they weren’t mad at each other, but they couldn’t stop. Jihoon yelled at Jun for leaving the refrigerator open while he went to the bathroom because it was just driving the electricity bill higher than it needed to go, and the very next day, Jun nagged Jihoon for twenty minutes about not using coasters when they had them for a reason and those rings on the coffee table were nothing but an ugly pain in his ass. Jihoon had said Jun was an ugly pain in his ass; Jun argued he wasn’t ugly, and Jihoon agreed almost instantly, and that was how they resolved most of their upsets.

When they had more serious conflicts, though, Jun grounded himself by going back to the beach in his mind. It seemed to get a little bit more beautiful each time he recalled it—the bed softer, the sand whiter, the wine tastier. The memory felt older than time and truer than truth, and Jun clung to it with all his might, because even if Jihoon left, he could never take it with him. And sometimes it felt like he was going to leave, and Jun knew it wasn’t his fault alone, but he held onto the beach all the same.

Around October, Jihoon started getting extremely quick to snap whenever he didn’t hear anything from Jun for more than an hour, and Jun didn’t know why. What he did know was that he was hellishly forgetful and abominably bad at giving himself reminders to do things, so he found himself on the receiving end of Jihoon’s wrath more times than he could count. As much as he tried to prevent it from getting under his skin, to chalk it all up to school stress bleeding over, he couldn’t quite keep himself unbothered, found himself getting pissed off by how irritable Jihoon was constantly. There was only so much he could rationalize before it felt excessive, and there were only so many times he could go back to the beach.

“I’m sorry,” Jihoon sighed one night after tearing into him for five minutes straight. Jun had gotten sidetracked doing a group project in the library and wound up coming back to the apartment four hours later than he’d meant to, and Jihoon was livid. He’d yelled until there were tears squeezing out of his eyes and his throat was starting to go raw, and Jun was trying so hard to maintain the composure that was slipping through his fingers like the sand on the coastline.

“You’re sorry?” Jun clipped, and he hadn’t meant for it to sound so harsh, but harsh was overwhelmingly how he felt. Jihoon nodded as he slumped back into the chair he’d been sitting in, fixing his gaze blankly on the table and digging his nail into its favorite crescent depression.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, chased by a light cough. He chewed his lip before continuing, staining it red. “I’m sorry I yell at you so much. It’s not your fault, and you don’t deserve it.”  Eyes dragged over the woodgrain and up to meet Jun’s, hollow and watery. “You don’t deserve this,” he said, and he sounded more exhausted than Jun had ever heard him. He sounded like he was finally finishing up an eternity of work. He sounded like he was leaving.

He’s breaking up with me, Jun thought, couldn’t help but think. Why else would he sound so final, so tired? You don’t deserve this, Jun repeated in his head until he felt sick. Did “this” just mean the fighting? Did “this” mean everything? Was the fighting the only part of everything that was left? Jun hoped it wasn’t. As aggravated as he got sometimes, he wasn’t any less in love than he had been before; that same feeling still filled his chest when he caught Jihoon’s eyes by accident and saw his lips curl into a subtle grin, same bubbles still wrenched his gut when he heard him laugh. If Jihoon was asking him to let go of that, he wasn’t ready by a long shot.

Jun parted his lips to ask, but Jihoon quieted him with his continued speech, eyes now burning and intent, boring holes straight through the back of Jun’s skull. “It’s not your fault,” he reiterated, gouging the tabletop with his fingernail. Just like always, Jun wanted to stop him from doing it. “I just…” He struggled for the words, exhaling forcefully when they wouldn’t come to him. “My cousin’s girlfriend got mugged,” he said suddenly, and Jun didn’t know how to react. Of all the things he expected to come out of Jihoon’s mouth, that wasn’t one.

“What?”

“She was running really late one night after meeting her friends at the mall or something,” Jihoon explained. “She was kind of always late, so my cousin didn’t really pay it any mind, but then it got really late and she still wasn’t home. My cousin got a phone call from the police.” He gulped hard around a lump, and Jihoon just stared at him with unwavering eyes, completely transfixed. “They took her phone, her wallet, everything, and they were rough about it. She had to go to the hospital, and my cousin didn’t even know about it.”

Jun couldn’t do anything but listen. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he just sat there numb and horrified, jaw hanging open. Jihoon coughed a few times quietly to get himself back on track, blinking the shimmer out of his eyes.

“I worry, Jun,” he breathed at last. “What if that happens to you?” It won’t, Jun wanted to guarantee. He had faith in his physique, thought he would be able to either put up a fight or run away if he needed to, but he wasn’t confident enough to make a claim like that and have it be proven wrong when there were too many attackers or not enough time to get away. He didn’t want to make a promise that he would be fine and end up failing to keep it. “And then I’m so stressed out from all these god damn assignments, and I just… I’m sorry.” He let his eyes droop closed and leaned his head back to take a deep breath. “I know I’m not easy.” Jun exhaled a sigh of relief that was starting to go stale in his lungs.

“I thought you were breaking up with me,” he rushed out, and Jihoon’s eyes shot wide open.

“Why would I do that?” Jun shrugged.

“Well, you yell a lot,” he pointed out, “and you were just yelling a second ago, so I thought…” Jihoon dropped his face into his hands, wheezing out a single dry laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he said for what felt like the thousandth time. “I’m not going to break up with you.” Jun nodded as an awkward half-smile quirked up one side of Jihoon’s mouth. It was cute. “I know I yell too much. I’ll try to relax.”

“I’ll try to be better about telling you when I’m going to be late,” Jun said even though he knew he would still slip up. “Your voice can be kinda hot when you yell sometimes,” he tacked on with a shrug, and Jihoon laughed for real this time. It was music to his ears.

“That’s what you’re thinking about when I’m mad at you?” he asked, and Jun’s mouth split into a wide grin.

“Sometimes.” Jihoon smirked.

“The way your arms tense up when you get mad is hot,” he disclosed, and Jun couldn’t restrain the guffaw that poured forth from his lips.

“We’re dumbasses,” he said, neither for the first nor the last time.

“Speak for yourself.”

“Déjà vu.” Jihoon nodded in agreement, goofy smile stuck on his face. For a while, they did nothing but look into each other’s eyes wordlessly, and it finally sank into Jun’s brain just how long it had been. Over four years since the first time one of them had thought they were breaking up, and it almost felt like nothing. Jihoon was still just as mesmerizing as he had been then. “Can I kiss you right now?” Jun asked at length.

“I’d feel better if you did, actually,” Jihoon said, and that was all Jun needed.

For what it was worth, they both tried, but they still caught each other sometimes forgetting the stipulations they’d set up for themselves. They moved past it, though, and they tried harder, and by the time finals rolled around, the fights were almost completely stopped, barring the occasional rant about lack of coaster use. Their stress ebbed once exams had been safely passed, a comfortable month of rest standing before their final semester as students, and the twinkling lights Jun hung up around the apartment lit Jihoon’s eyes up just right.

It was a week before Christmas—Jun knows he could never forget that—and they’d been out buying wrapping paper. The mall was predictably packed with the rush of holiday slackers; thankfully, Jihoon had convinced Jun that they needed to get all their shopping done an extra long time in advance, so they didn’t have to do anything but coast through the crowds in search of paper to clothe their gifts. They located a little stall soon enough, adjacent to the overflowing food court, and managed to escape with two rolls and nary a scratch.

Jihoon dropped the rolls atop the table with a clatter when they arrived home, bumping haphazardly into the vase that sat empty at its center. “Alright,” Jihoon huffed, “which one do you want to use?” Jun glanced back and forth between the two designs, one a pale blue adorned with silver snowflakes and the other a vibrant red with Merry Christmas printed all over in gold. He didn’t particularly care, so he flipped a mental coin, but he ended up forgetting to call sides and forgetting to pick which side was heads, so he was led to using eenie meenie miney moe to make his decision.

“The red one,” he said at last, and Jihoon snatched the blue paper before he could utter a single syllable further, marching off to his bedroom immediately. Jun sat dumbfounded at the table, unsure whether he should begin wrapping his gifts as well, but he was saved from having to make a decision when Jihoon strode back into the kitchen within minutes. Jun quirked his eyebrows curiously as Jihoon sat down opposite him and placed a tiny package on the table, all wrapped up in the blue paper. He’d done an unbelievably nice job for how little time he spent on it; Jun could never get the corners to be any sort of crisp when he wrapped gifts, even with all the time in the world.

“For you,” Jihoon said flatly, nudging the little box forward with his index finger. Jun eyed it suspiciously as he stuck his hand out to pull it toward him. Once he grabbed it, he just held it in his hands, shifting his gaze between Jihoon and the parcel warily. “You can open it.”

“But it’s not Christmas.”

“Think of it as an early birthday present.”

“My birthday isn’t until June, though.”

“I said early, didn’t I?” Jun figured there was no point in arguing, so he just started to peel off the paper carefully. It seemed like a wasted effort for Jihoon to wrap it only to have it be unwrapped immediately, but he’d already gotten it halfway uncovered, so it was too late to bring that up.

The present turned out to be a little black velvet box with stiff silver hinges that Jun did not have an easy time with. Jihoon was already talking before he could get the lid open, voice flowing like honey into Jun’s inattentive ears as he toiled endlessly with the box.

“I get worried a lot,” he began bluntly, lacing his fingers together in front of him. His hands looked exceptionally lovely like that, and even when Jun finally snapped the lid of the box open, he was too distracted by them to check what was inside of it. “And I get stressed and angry. I know I’m hard on you. But I would feel less worried, I think, if I knew I would be able to at least do something if anything happened to you.” He shrugged slightly, and Jun finally remembered to inspect the box’s contents. “Plus, this was probably bound to happen at some point, so we may as well get it out of the way now.”

Jun’s eyes came to rest on a slim gold band peeking out from within the box’s inbuilt cushion, bright and shiny and beautiful. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting to be inside this box—maybe a simple necklace or a keychain that Jihoon wanted to make look fancier—but it hadn’t been a ring. Words caught in his throat when he opened his mouth to say them, and suddenly he felt tears threatening to spill forth from his eyes. Confusion washed over him in waves, because Jihoon couldn’t possibly be asking what Jun thought he was asking, yet he couldn’t be asking anything else. He pulled his gaze from the ring back to Jihoon, searching his face for clarification, but all he managed to find was that the way the fairy lights bounced off his face and eyes made him look even more spectacular than he usually did. “Jihoon,” he finally croaked out, and that was the only word he could get himself to say.

“Will you marry me?” Jihoon said softly, pink dusting his cheeks, and Jun was certain his voice had never been anywhere near as nice as it was just then. He was too stunned to do anything but nod, but he nodded until his head was on the point of detaching, like his life depended on it. Somehow, he managed to get the ring out of its case and slid it onto his finger. It was a perfect fit, and he was amazed that it was. He was amazed by how right it felt there, too, even if it was a little cold against his skin.

“When?” Jun asked, voice slowly returning to him. Jihoon drummed his fingers on the wood, corners of his mouth tilting up just enough to give a faint suggestion of a smile.

“Today, ideally.”

“Today?” Jun cried, incredulous. “That’s a little short notice, Jihoonie.” Jihoon snorted, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Maybe,” he conceded, “but I took a look at the paperwork, and it’s not bad. We’re 21, so there’s no waiting period to get a license.” He twisted in his seat, moving his hands in circles with his words. “We could go apply for one, then go to the courtho—”

“Let’s go,” Jun interrupted, already rising to his feet, and Jihoon stood up to mirror him.

Jun kept the ring on when he climbed into bed, still unable to believe it. They’d been in something of a rush to get everything done and finalized that day, but they managed to do it, and Jun still had yet to wrap his brain around being married when Jihoon slid next to him under the covers.

“Hey there,” he mumbled as Jihoon scooted into his side. “Not that I’m complaining, but is there a reason you’re in my bed instead of yours?”

“I just feel like I should be.” Jun didn’t disagree. He snaked an arm around Jihoon’s waist and pulled him just a little bit closer. Jihoon’s hair smelled like the apple cinnamon candles they’d bought on sale to add holiday flavor to the apartment, and part of Jun felt like he was back in ninth grade.

“When did you even buy this ring?” he asked suddenly, giving in to the curiosity that had been gnawing at him since he first saw it. He couldn’t think of a time recently when they hadn’t been together, and it didn’t seem like the kind of gift you would just have already lying around for whenever it came in handy.

“July.”

“July?” Jun sputtered. “Are you serious?”

“Nobody buys them in July, so everything’s on sale,” he explained. “But then classes started and we were both stressed out, so there just wasn’t a good time for it.” He patted the hand resting on his stomach. “Thanks for not saying no.”

“I would bench a car before I said no.” Because I’m in love with you, he was close to adding, but Jihoon’s snickering cut him off. He was in love with that snicker, too.

“You never know,” Jihoon mused between breathy chuckles, grip tightening around Jun’s wrist. “You’re pretty strong.” Jun knew damn well he would never be strong enough to turn Jihoon down.

Unlike their sudden trip to the beach, this was something Jun wanted desperately to tell everyone; however, Jihoon had expressly asked him not to on the grounds of not wanting any of them to make snide remarks about them getting married while they were still in school. Jun wanted to uphold the promise, but he felt like he would explode if he had to keep it a secret. He needed to at least tell Wonwoo, but he didn’t get the chance until the middle of January. He’d been over the moon when he was finally able to make the call, but he hadn’t counted on Mingyu being there. He hadn’t counted on Jeonghan’s influence on Mingyu, either. Frankly, there were a lot of things he hadn’t counted on—after all, he was no math major.

He had to admit he was thrilled when Jihoon angrily shoved his ring on at their reunion dinner even if he knew he’d be angry later. The way it sat above his knuckle was bizarrely entrancing, and Jun was tired of not getting to see it, even if it was just for a little while. Maybe it was also because he had a thing for matching sets. Maybe it was also because he wanted to show off. Maybe he had a lot of reasons.

The drive back to their apartment was uncommonly quiet, only the droning of the radio keeping them company, and Jun realized Jihoon might have been just a tad angrier than he initially thought. The way he hummed along to the tunes drifting out of the speakers had a different feel to it than usual, a little less tenuto and a little more staccato, less melody and more accent. Every time Jun glanced over, he was pointedly staring out the window, taking in a full view of all the scenery that wasn’t there.

“Are you mad?” Jun asked at last, guiding his eyes back to the road in front of them. He heard a rustle as Jihoon finally turned his head away from the window.

“I’m a little mad,” he sighed; he sounded more than just a little mad, but Jun was willing to take his word for it.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” That wasn’t very convincing, either. “They were bound to notice anyway. You didn’t take your ring off.” Jun’s eyes widened as he took a peek at his own hand, saw the gold band glittering cheerfully against the steering wheel, and sure enough, he could distinctly recall the weight of it around his finger for the duration of the evening.

“Oops,” he said, frowning, and Jihoon offered a chuckle that finally sounded genuine. “You should have told me.” Jihoon didn’t say anything else, but when Jun flicked his eyes over, he found a slim trace of a smile resting on his lips, and he felt like he was floating.

When they tied the knot, they decided that sleeping in the same bed would be a very married thing to do, so they alternated between beds each night in order to wear the mattresses evenly until their lease ran out and they could move somewhere with one nice, big bedroom and a single bed that fit both of them comfortably. That night, they squeezed under Jihoon’s covers, tired from a somewhat-lengthy drive and a long evening of rowdy conversation, and fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows. Jun was having an exceedingly pleasant dream about eating cake when suddenly he was falling and falling and falling back, the seat beneath him completely collapsing, and with a jolt, he was awake again.

The complete lack of light in the room made it impossible for him to trace out the silhouette of Jihoon in front of him, but he could still do it even in pitch darkness, had done it enough to know every single dip and swell along his side. The soft flop of his hair, the graceful curve of his neck, the gentle slope as his legs dwindled down into ankles. He knew all of it. It was his favorite landscape, and if he were a painter, he’d have painted it in every shade he got his hands on, with every brush on every canvas until the whole world saw in it what he did. His throat started burning as he stared forward in the darkness, vision shooting right through that body he knew so well, and the words he’d been choking back for far too long were finally fed up with waiting.

“Jihoon,” he whispered. “Are you awake?” After a few seconds without a response, he dragged a hand to Jihoon’s shoulder with the firm resolution to shake him awake, but he was barred from doing so when an irritated hand clamped down over his own.

“I am now, you ass,” Jihoon grumbled quietly, sleep heavy in his tone. “What do you want?”

“I’m in love with you.” It rang in his own ears after he said it, and he regretted every chance he let slip by for fear of missing the right moment because there was no wrong moment to say it, no time when he didn’t want Jihoon to hear it. He wished he could go back in time to ninth grade and let him know every single day, because god damn did Jihoon deserve to hear him say it as many times as Jun’s lungs and lips could bear to make it happen.

Rustling of the sheets told Jun that Jihoon was turning over to face him, and he couldn’t see his face, but he knew exactly how it looked, every line and dimple and freckle standing in its perfect spot. “What?” Jun was confident Jihoon had heard him, but he didn’t mind repeating himself.

“I’m in love with you.”

“You—why—you,” he sputtered, and Jun didn’t need to see his face to know it was warming up to a gentle red. “Why are you telling me that now?”

“Because I needed to.” His heart was doing laps in his chest while he spoke, a brisk jog bag into the past to dust off the glass covering the awkwardly growing kid had been at the beginning. If only that kid had known where he would find himself someday. “Ever since ninth grade, I’ve needed to, so I’m doing it now.”

“Ninth grade?” Jihoon asked somewhat startled, sounding wide awake now. “You liked me in ninth grade?”

“Yeah,” Jun breathed out around a tired laugh. “Soonyoung said you were dense for not noticing.” A pause as nostalgia swept over him, taking him back to that burning August afternoon as they walked home from school. “He said I looked at you like you were the moon.”

“Shouldn’t it be the sun?” Jihoon asked.

“The moon’s prettier,” Jun countered. “And nobody looks at the sun. Not on purpose, at least.”

“Did you look at me on purpose?”

“Always.” Silence seemed to stretch for eons before Jihoon’s voice broke it again.

“Can I kiss you?” Jun thought it was nice to be asked that, though he also thought it was pointless to ask a question when you already knew the answer would be yes. A hand ghosted up over his arm and trailed along his neck and up to his chin with the confidence and accuracy of a sailor in his home waters, and Jun knew he wasn’t the only one who’d been admiring landscapes. A thumb stroked gently under his lips as they cracked into a smile.

“Think you got me?” he asked.

“I know I got you,” Jihoon said.

He did. He always had.