Chapter Text
I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
—R.S.
In summer Jinhyuk is warm and dreamlike, his smile a streak of sunlight, his fingers dripping gold. Wooseok remembers it best the time they took the bus out together to Incheon and Jinhyuk ran barefoot along the beach, his pant legs wet up to the knees, a collection of pebbles in either hand to take home to Seoul. Wooseok thinks he was twenty-three, or twenty-four—this is what it’s like to get old, he thinks, when you can count back your age by your memories—and maybe he was falling in love by then already. He doesn’t remember, really, because it’s felt like forever since.
I think I might be in love with you, he had thought offhandedly, would be an awfully romantic thing to say. Maybe Jinhyuk would have laughed if he’d heard it.
That day, he had watched Jinhyuk and felt like something in him was coming undone. It wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling. When Jinhyuk had asked him on the bus back if he had enjoyed the trip, Wooseok didn’t tell him yes, it was the best day of my summer, but instead that it was fine, but he had a lot of work to finish. And both were true—it was just that one was safer than the other. He regrets it, now, but he still remembers how suddenly upset he’d get when Jinhyuk would grin and his heart would speed up. It was irrational and wild and Wooseok was afraid of the way it made him feel, like something in his chest was clawing its way past all the careful self-restraint he had practiced for years. Think in numbers was his motto. Think in logic, think in what you can prove: think cold, concrete, scientific.
In Wooseok’s memory Jinhyuk is emotion like something wild. Always is, never was: it doesn’t matter the season now. That afire smile is imprinted in his mind, something he sees often when he closes his eyes at night.
You might not be here, Wooseok thinks fiercely, but I’ll drag my memories with me until my hands are bloody. I’ll cling on until the day I die.
I’m sorry for everything. I love you.
At the university, Wooseok is an assistant professor in Astronomy. He teaches an intro course on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and a seminar on Mondays and Wednesdays. He has two TAs, named Yohan and Hangyul. He has two co-workers near his age in his department, Seungyoun in Theoretical Physics and Seungwoo in Quantum Mechanics. He works in the observatory when he’s not teaching, although he can’t remember the last time he felt excited about his research. For someone in academia, that should be pretty alarming, but Wooseok honestly can’t remember the last time he felt excited in general, so he supposes it’s good enough.
Wooseok has a Ph.D in astrophysics, focus in relativity, and is assistant professor at a decent university in Seoul. Wooseok also literally has, like, three friends on good days, a grand total of seven contacts in his phone, and is turning thirty in a few months but still lives alone in the same tiny apartment he had as a student. In a career sense, he’s probably winning. In a life sense, well, sometimes he gets the feeling he’s been somewhat behind.
“Hey, hyung,” says someone from behind him. Wooseok starts, almost drops his chalk before he realizes it’s just Yohan, laughing softly at him.
“That’s Professor Kim to you,” he corrects, pushing up his glasses and glaring at Yohan. “I’ve told you not to call me that at work.”
Yohan grins. “Okay, Professor.” Wooseok kind of wants to strangle him right now, although it would be pretty hard to find a TA to replace Yohan. Before he can say anything, though, Yohan adds, “Seungyoun-hyung wants to see you in his office?” and wiggles his eyebrows like it’s funny, which Wooseok doesn’t really appreciate. Regardless, he thanks Yohan anyway, hands him the USB for the lecture, and asks him to keep on writing on the board before leaving.
Wooseok finds Seungyoun in his office, but he’s talking to Seungwoo. One of Seungyoun’s hands is pointing to his computer screen; the other is linked with Seungwoo’s. He knows they’re probably talking about physics or something to do with the physics department, but it makes him uncomfortable anyway, watching Seungyoun hook his index finger with Seungwoo’s and swing it absently while talking. Watching Seungwoo smile his closed-mouth smile, looking down at Seungyoun with wide, wide eyes.
That natural intimacy. That gentle air. What you could’ve had. Wooseok turns around without knocking and goes to find his coat. He sends a text to Yohan: lecture is cancelled for today, please send out an email.
“Why astrophysics?” was the question everyone asked him when he first picked his major in undergrad, “Why not engineering? Why not math or business? Wooseok, you’ve always been such a smart boy, why not pick something more useful?” And Wooseok never really had an answer to that, if he’s being honest, other than it felt right. Because it did. There was something mysterious about it, he would have said, or something incredible about unlocking the secrets of the universe, or something equally as cliche as that.
After the Produce mission was announced, though, nobody asked that anymore. “Why astrophysics and not something better?” turned into “You must be so lucky to have this be happening in your lifetime,” and then usually a chuckle. “Imagine! Korea’s first astronauts. Have you met them?”
Yes, he would usually say, I work with them, actually, and he would get claps on the back, sometimes a little applause. And then, “You’re so lucky,” again, “You must be so smart, so lucky.” And he gets it, sort of. It’s easier to appreciate something when it’s exciting, when it’s flashy, when it’s a promise, like KOREA SENDS FIRST ASTRONAUTS INTO SPACE, or MANNED MISSION OF FOUR SET FOR 2024. At the very least, nobody expects him to justify his reasons for studying astrophysics anymore, because they assume that’s it: the flashy promise, the exciting headline.
He was grateful for the eclipse of that mission. How do you explain that you’ve always felt lonely without sounding like a loser? How do you explain that knowing there’s four hundred billion stars in the galaxy and a hundred billion galaxies in the universe and among those, planets and planets and maybe another something that’s maybe equally as lonely makes you feel a little bit less bad at being lonely?
Of course, there are easier parts to it. The space mission, press conferences, TV specials. The wonder you get when you see a thousand stars in the night sky, a thousand little pinpricks of light, or watching the tail of a meteor as it burns away for a glorious half-second: those are the easy parts, the beautiful parts, the parts people get when you mention them. But that’s not all of it.
Sometimes it’s too hard to put your love into words. Sometimes saying I love it isn’t enough. Sometimes you’re not even brave enough to say it.
In dream Jinhyuk is cold like marble, his hands stiff and unwelcoming, his eyes fixed somewhere far away. When Wooseok presses longing fingers to his face he doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t notice. His face is still and cold, and every time Wooseok’s hands slide off him stinging.
Wooseok is braver in dreams, though. He tries and tries again. “Please,” he whispers when he presses his face in the crook of Jinhyuk’s neck, wraps his arms around his waist. Come on, come on, light me afire. He kisses Jinhyuk’s neck at the Adam’s apple, runs his hands through Jinhyuk’s hair. Touches him. Pleads with him. In the end Wooseok’s always just hugging him, pressing himself as close as possible to him, never letting go of him, a thrum of don’t go don’t go don’t go echoing in his head.
In this dream Jinhyuk never touches him back, and every time Wooseok wakes up like he’s drowning. Gasping for air and hot all over. Crying, sometimes.
Every time Wooseok wakes up alone.
It’s raining outside when Wooseok gets up, the soft sound of water against his window a steady thrum. He exhales, presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and rubs; he can already feel a headache building behind his eyes, the kind that leaves a bad feeling in your throat and makes it feel like it’s spinning when you move. He fumbles for his glasses on his nightstand, puts them on, checks the time. The display blinks back at him: 4:01 AM.
Inhale, exhale. Wooseok feels around for a pair of socks to put on—summer’s almost over now, and the floor is cold to walk on—and a sweater, before he staggers out of his bedroom. He forgot to draw the curtains on his kitchen window last night, and now the faint glow of LED signs from the street below flickers onto the grey walls of his kitchen. He doesn’t bother to turn on the light, instead crossing the room to stand at the window and stare down out of it.
The restaurant across the street still has its lights on, shadows over the red awning the color of blood. It’s different from the day, when it’s bright like fortune. Wooseok pulls out his phone to check his email and turns away to go find his notes for the seminar he’s teaching later.
“Hey, Seok,” says Seungyoun, first thing when he walks by his office in the morning. “I didn’t see you yesterday. Did your kid tell you to come by?”
Wooseok freezes, racking his still-scrambled brains for an answer before he remembers Yohan telling him. “Yeah, Yohan did. I had to go somewhere, though, so I couldn’t make it.” A white lie, an easy pause. “Are you free now?”
Seungyoun nods. “Yeah, it’s really quick. Big news, though, so you might wanna grab a chair.” It takes Wooseok a minute to register, so he just stays standing. Seungyoun goes on: “Remember the Produce mission? How it turned out?”
Wooseok’s mouth goes dry. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he says, almost instantly. Seungyoun’s expression falls.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice softer. “I get it. But listen—they think it’s not over. That we can still find them. They’re asking the university for our research team, and—“
And Wooseok doesn’t hear anything more from Seungyoun. The radio broadcast he still remembers: four astronauts selected from four hundred to become Korea’s first. The newspapers stacking up, each one reading A Safe Journey To The Nation’s Chosen. The banners outside the university, with their names: KIM NAYOUNG and KIM JONGHYUN and LEE GAEUN and
LEE JINHYUK
and he can vaguely feel Seungyoun’s hands on his shoulders, tapping him, asking him if he’s alright, but all he can think about is that banner, that stupid banner with Jinhyuk’s name on it and how widely Jinhyuk had smiled when Wooseok had presented it.
In his head he sees a supernova blow, a spill of light across a black sky.
In his head he sees a boy under the awning as it rains. His smile is like the sun.