Chapter Text
*
“Seonghwa, if I hear you sucking your teeth one more time because you’re scared I’ll forget to put on the brakes, I swear I’ll throw you out of the car,” Hongjoong said after he almost abruptly pulled up short in front of a crossroad.
He didn’t drive often, but he thought himself to be quite trustworthy, or at least way more than what his friend – too anxious for his own good – let it be understood despite himself.
“I think there’s enough space left in the cart, if you want,” Wooyoung cheerfully added from the backseat, leaning in between the two front seats of Hongjoong’s dented car.
Seonghwa cast a frightened glance at the window, from where he could see Mingi and Yunho push around two stolen shopping carts, racing each other on the sidewalk while howling with laughter. Yeosang was sitting with his legs crossed inside Yunho’s, the shadow of a smile relaxing his usually tensed features; San was standing, his arms up in the air as if he was on a ship’s prow, inside of Mingi’s cart, yelling his joy whenever there was a speed boost.
“Those terrible things are full of bacteria,” the young man muttered, sinking inside his washed-out seat.
“In my humble opinion, it’s probably cleaner than this dumpster.”
“Hey,” Hongjoong immediately intervened offended, suddenly speeding up, “my dumpster is what is the most helpful today, so show some respect to old ladies!”
Wooyoung was getting more and more used to spending time with them, unfortunately way more than Jongho, whom no one had seen ever since the competition’s end. Summer was already almost coming to an end, and only his best friend had dared to knock at his parents’ door to help him store some cardboard boxes at his place until his student room in their college dorms would be available. The young artist’s acid humor was also quickly becoming more usual, quick and sharp comebacks always ready to be thrown at them, and for once, Hongjoong had found for himself a real rhetoric rival. Their banters were sometimes even tinged with a shared hysteria, both of them conscious of how much they terribly missed Jongho. Hongjoong now worked full-time at the local movie theater and called his boyfriend every evening as if the latter was traveling in some faraway country.
“Turn left, it’s the first house.”
He initiated the turn slowly, following Wooyoung’s indications and trying his best not to crash into the four other guys. Their neighborhood was fortunately peaceful in this late afternoon that put an end to this hot season, the start of the school year for a lot of people made these suburbs’ white houses quite calm. Hongjoong was focused on driving, but he kept his eyes out, curious to discover and scrutinize the place that had seen Jongho grow up.
Eventually, Wooyoung tapped his shoulder while pointing at a small paved alleyway in front of an irreproachable house, the walls painted in white and the shutters in bright blue. Planters overflowed with deep pink and vermilion red blotches, and a dark green trellis for ivy accompanied the polished wooden entrance door. Hongjoong exhaled with his nose; if someone had asked him to imagine how Jongho’s parents’ house from what he knew of them, he probably would have described the exact truth. Everything smelled like pretense and pressure, not a bit of grass stuck out, not a bit of dirt had lost itself on the immaculate walls, nothing was left to nature’s will, free. So, he parked exactly on the paved alleyway, surprised by an adrenaline boost.
“I’m gonna ring the bell first,” Wooyoung mumbled.
Just like Hongjoong now, he looked like he lacked self-confidence. Seonghwa cast a glance through the window and opened it to catch Yeosang's hand through the shopping cart's fence.
“We’re all going together,” he said to the other two.
“You’re sure about this?”
The tall swimmer nodded.
“We ring the bell, we say hello, and we don’t ask for their opinions to go get Jongho’s stuff, and then we leave. It’s useless to beat around the bush.”
“Say, it’s not like you to rush in,” Hongjoong teased.
Seonghwa shrugged and answered with an even voice:
“I’m tired of this kind of situation. I don’t want to make it harder for Jongho, nor to show some respect for parents who don’t deserve to have a kid.”
A religious hush settled inside the car; from outside, Yeosang tightened his hold on his boyfriend's hand, ignoring San, Yunho, and Mingi's who were howling of laughter.
“It’s still better if Hongjoong stays in the car,” Wooyoung intervened, his eyes strained on his phone’s screen.
The person of interest's red hair was thrown back on his headrest from irritation, facing the street, an arm holding a cigarette outside of his car’s window, while everyone else walked to Jongho’s house. He didn’t want to be the cause of a scene, but his frustration reached its height.
*
Okay, but tell Hongjoong not to go anywhere near the house. He’s been breaking down to me all the possible ways to send him to the hospital for a week.
Jongho wiped his eyes with the back of his hand while sending a worried text to Wooyoung, and patiently waited for the bell to ring, his eyes lost in the vague. All his stuff had been entirely packed up, except for what he would definitively leave at his parents’ home, a few childhood toys, gifts that he didn’t care much about, old textbooks that weren’t useful anymore. The walls had been stripped bare of the pictures and posters that used to warm the heart of the adolescent he once had been. He still had a big bag in the middle of all these boxes filled with clothes, that contained the rare leftovers of his childhood. A bag of transparent marbles, a folder full of Wooyoung’s old drawings, a deck of cards that had turned yellow with time, an old game console – he wasn’t even sure it still worked – out of fashion since long, his favorite book, and five to six albums from the first singer he had fallen in love with. This sparse collection of more than a dozen of years was almost completely hidden by the bunch of plushies he had tried to stuff in the bag, though; it was out of the question to leave a single cute stuffed animal in his father’s vengeful hands.
He wasn’t sad to leave the house that had seen him grow up; even if he was moving out for good, he was sure it wouldn’t be definitive. His mother would probably end up calming his father, and he would sometimes be invited to awkward and risky family reunion dinners. The actual issue was the realization that Jongho had never really felt at home here, no matter how personal and welcoming he had tried to make his room to be. He had never felt at home at Wooyoung’s either; he wasn’t sure he would ever feel at home anywhere. He had yet to see his future student room at the campus dorms, since he was grounded, and had had to do with the pictures his best friend had sent him – pictures on which we could furtively make out San's honey-blond strands. If he missed Hongjoong, it was also the case for Wooyoung, who had taken the further step with San since then, and once again, Jongho couldn't be here for his friend. Talking to him, spending time laughing with the other guys, holding Hongjoong's hand; he already terribly missed everything he could have tasted the past few months. Victory had never had such a bitter taste to it, plunging his house into silence, except for dinners during which his father inevitably started to curse his boyfriend, if not threaten him. If at least, Jongho's mother was mostly passive and quiet, in reality, it didn't make anything better, her son then vaguely feeling guilty for making this many issues, when she tried her best not to cause any.
Wooyoung finally rang the bell and put a stop to his train of thought, and he rushed into the staircase, scared to crash into his father and risk to begin the afternoon with a shouting battle. He very well knew that he wouldn’t leave the house without yet another scene, but he did count on pushing it to the latest possible.
“Express move!” Mingi yelled when the door was barely opened.
“We couldn’t find trucks, you’ll excuse us…”
“Come on, shopping carts are perfect!”
“You’re kidding, it’s obvious you’re not the one pushing them!”
“Well, anyway, where do we go to get the boxes?”
Leaving the five others to cheerfully chatter on behind him, Wooyoung threw himself into Jongho’s arms, squeezing him so tightly against him they almost fell over to their asses like two idiots.
“But…” the swimmer stammered.
“What?” Seonghwa softly answered, a smile blooming on his fatherly face.
“Wooyoung… didn’t tell me… you would all be here…”
And he copiously sniffled into his best friend’s customized jean jacket.
“Did you really think that Wooyoung would be able to move everything all by himself?” Yeosang sarcastically said, his arms crossed.
“I mean, it won’t be you either,” San counterattacked, narrowing his eyes.
“It’s too heavy," his friend mumbled, scrunching his nose with a dignified air, while Yunho came further inside to curiously look at the house's interior.
“Jongho, what is it?”
His mother, a small woman with short and curly hair, got out of the kitchen to peer into the doorway, without taking her old-fashioned apron.
“They’re here to help me move. Stay here, I’ll go get them,” her son informed without looking at her.
“You don’t really have that many things to move, right? Come on… it’s not like you have to take everything with you, do you? You’ll come back soon!”
Jongho had a hard time to keep up a smile on his face with a look he hoped comforting. However, he couldn’t open his mouth that San’s voice retorted for him:
“As long as Hongjoong can’t go anywhere near your house without risking to be shot with a slingshot, and Wooyoung could get hit any moment, there’s no way, let’s be honest.”
“No, San, we’re not going to be honest at all!” Seonghwa panicked, immediately taking him upstairs while holding him under his arm.
Wooyoung stayed still there, gaping and his eyes wide, while Jongho’s lungs felt like they had been emptied of all their air. Going after Seonghwa and San, Yeosang calmly shrugged in the two other boys’ way:
“Ah, well, you sure aren’t ready for what you’re getting into.”
“The room… on the right, Mingi, not here, it’s the bathroom!”
“THE DOOR ON THE RIGHT, YUNHO,” Wooyoung yelled, rushing into the staircase as well when the young man tried to go inside the office of Jongho’s father.
Jongho, dumbstruck, stayed still for a moment, not knowing what to do with himself, in the doorway, without even noticing that his mother had gone back into the kitchen, her shoulders sagging. He could hear the boys somehow squeeze themselves into his room with catlike stealth and no discretion whatsoever. He felt his chest warming up, as the freezing silence was melting into a reassuring spring. Jongho closed his eyes a moment, finding peace in his friends' refreshing presence, before peeking his head out the door. A few meters away, two shopping carts, and a car with flaking paint. Inside the car, he could see a tuft of bright red hair and a string of white smoke dancing before blending with the blue sky. His heart hammering strongly, Jongho momentarily forgot about his surroundings to rush to the small ruby who turned his back to him. It didn't take him long before reaching the car, to walk around it, and crouch down to be at the open window's level; Hongjoong startled and bumped his head with a muffled noise.
“Jongho! You’re not-”
The end of his sentence was drowned in a thirsty kiss, its fervor casting a dizzy spell on both young men, like the first cigarette, or glass of alcohol.
“So, heard you’re grounded?” Hongjoong teased against his boyfriend’s lips.
Jongho’s face immediately turned dark.
“I hate him.”
Hongjoong’s small hand threw the butt of his cigarette in his car’s ashtray, before cupping the swimmer's face, soothing. Jongho closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling more alive than he had felt ever since the competition.
“It’s almost over. We’re all here for you,” Hongjoong murmured, with a serious tone, before kissing his nose, his lips, his forehead, until he got a small squeal of laughter when he tickled him.
Hongjoong laughed, and Jongho slightly moved his head back to fully take a look at this view. At the way his pupils disappeared in two small crescents, his huge smile that split his whole face and fully revealed his white teeth, his prominent cheekbones tinted with a peachy pink, his pointy chin that he threw in the air as his head tilted backward. Unable to find words that wouldn’t break that magical moment, Jongho settled with kissing him again, suggestively dragging his bottom lip between his own, before being startled by the noise of something crashing against one of the cart’s metal.
“Jongho, the bag full of plushies, do we take it too?” Yunho asked him with a kind smile, just like it was usual for him.
The young man flushed as Hongjoong cast him a halfway between teasing and fond glance.
“I’m coming.”
Walking back to the house, he met Yeosang, who was holding two books with a determined look, followed by Seonghwa struggling to carry without stopping a cardboard box containing all the other books. As Mingi was coming out with his arms full of clothes, he heard something that froze him on the spot:
"Okay, but you know, when you hate gays like that, it's often hiding repressed homosexuality. There are a lot of studies online, you should look them up! You know what the internet is, right?"
“SAN, DAMN IT, CAN YOU PLEASE GET OUT!” Wooyoung screeched, hurtling down the stairs almost on his butt, while Jongho's father was staring at the small student with a mix of disbelief and growing murderous intents.
“Excuse me?”
It looked like he was starting to process San’s words, and his shock fading, Jongho very clearly saw his father try to raise his hand to San; so he jumped between them, almost falling flat on his face. Wooyoung grabbed San’s arm, who was squeezing a bag full of Jongho’s plushies against himself.
“Can you tell me who the hell you allowed inside my house? It’s not a place for all the neighborhood’s punks!”
“Dad, shit, go back to reading your newspaper and leave us alone!” Jongho blew up without restraints.
The slap he received in the face was his first one ever. His cheek, violently hit, started stinging; but it didn’t make him surrender in the least.
“I didn’t raise my son like that!”
“Give me half an hour, and you won’t ever have to raise me at all,” Jongho spitted out, turning his back to him to go upstairs as well, not waiting for an answer.
The bedroom was already almost empty, and a second round trip would be enough to have all his belongings loaded. Jongho moved most of his boxes on the landing, checking one last time if everything he was willing to take with him was here; he wouldn’t get a second chance, or at least refused to give himself one. Yeosang quickly came back up to take only one swimming medal with him, followed by Seonghwa, who hurriedly jogged to get the whole box. Mingi had brought with him what was left of his clothes, and Wooyoung carried out a last big cardboard box containing disassembled furniture pieces, after having softly patted a hand on his friend's shoulder. Jongho was unable to bend down to pick his belongings up and make a trip himself, too stunned by the first time his father had ever hit him; and mostly, overtaken by a monstrous panic attack, as he realized he couldn't see anything when he looked towards the future. He had only known this house that he despised and had only one friend that he couldn't even hang out with because of his own father. His grades were terrible, and he couldn't even work outside of college, if he wanted to keep up the swimming training, and would be reduced to living only thanks to his scholarship; bearing in mind the fact that he wasn't as resourceful as Hongjoong, nor as independent as Wooyoung and didn't know at all how to look after himself. The end of the road was engulfed in a suddenly terrifying fog, now that the D-day was here, right in front of him.
“Jongho?” Yunho’s soft voice called.
He then realized that he had slid against the wall to find himself sitting on the floor, his breath erratic and broken.
“Jongho,” the tall man’s voice continued, crouching down before him.
He opened his eyes with difficulty to look at him, conscious that he looked smaller than ever at that moment, his knees brought against his chest and held by his shaky arms. His eyes damp and his throat dry, he made an effort to focus on what the other boy was saying.
“It's okay to be scared," Yunho breathed out while brushing his hair back, "it's okay not to be sure. A new start, it's always scary. Try to imagine that you're in the pool and that you're swimming up to the surface. You're swimming, swimming… can you see the sun rays graze over you? You can reach them if you focus really hard."
While talking, Yunho was drawing circles on his back with the palm of his hand. He was confident that the tall swimmer must have been used to this kind of situation, but it wasn't the right moment for Jongho to ask him about it. He settled with following his advice with obedience and then realized that his breath was calming down, slowly but surely.
“Here, just like that,” Yunho encouraged him, “don’t be scared. You’re not alone.”
Jongho turned eyes clouded with gratefulness to him, before struggling to straighten himself, helped by the tall boy who currently looked like a small sun, all smiley and shining with kindness. His sight readjusted to his surroundings to see Mingi and Wooyoung looking over them from the staircase.
“We’re done,” Wooyoung said, sheepish, conscious that this step was harder to take than what Jongho himself had expected.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mingi devour Yunho with his eyes, a dumbstruck look on his face’s large features.
“I’m ready,” the small swimmer eventually dared to answer, and his best friend replied with a loving smile.
When he reached the entrance, he cast one last glance around himself, quickly interrupted by his father, who brutally grabbed his arm. His adult face – red with anger, frustration, and hate – inspired nothing that could look like the bond between a father and a son to Jongho, and before he could open his mouth to say anything, Mingi showed up behind Jongho and made him let go.
“I don’t think there’s anything else to add, sir,” he politely said, and Jongho got out without further ado, dragged by Wooyoung.
He allowed himself a last look at his mother and tried with all his strength to sincerely smile at her before his father slammed the door shut behind him for good. He then turned to the two carts where his belongings were stuffed and burst out in nervous laughter when he saw San half knocked over inside the cart, in fits of laughter and his ass up in the air. Wooyoung threw himself behind him, also laughing, and tried to carry him in his arms, while Yeosang was calmly settling in Hongjoong's car, after taking off his coat so Seonghwa would agree to sit on it, on the backseat. Hongjoong opened the front door, next to him, without looking away from Jongho.
“You’re coming?”
*
Jongho’s beer clinked with Hongjoong and Wooyoung’s ones, respectively on his left and right, as all eight of them were drinking in the middle of his tiny student room. They were crammed to the point that if one of them stood up, he would have a hard time not stepping on anyone, but no one of them seemed bothered in the least by this proximity admittedly stuffy, but comforting.
Mingi had brought a polaroid camera, that he had already used a lot to try and take the perfect picture of San and Wooyoung inside the shopping carts filled with boxes, impersonating the main characters of Titanic. There already was, in a small cluster on Jongho’s bed, a picture of him and Hongjoong with his cheeks pink from shyness, some of Yunho making funny faces, each one weirder than the last, one of Wooyoung and Jongho posing like two movie spies; and lastly, the tall pole with his powerful voice had made them all sit on the small bed.
“What do we say, cheese?” San said, amused.
Multiple times Seonghwa and Yunho left the frame while chuckling, Yeosang violently elbowed Wooyoung in the ribcage, and Jongho wrapped his arm around Hongjoong’s waist as Mingi stretched his arm the furthest he could, at the bed’s feet.
“Shut up and make an effort!”
They spent the evening playing cards on the floor, Wooyoung sometimes stopping to hang one of the photographs on Jongho's wall. San made Mingi lose four times in a row while Seonghwa took great care into removing the smallest piece of his beer's paper label while laughing at Hongjoong's remarks. The apartment was noisy, and each one of them had a hard time making themselves heard amid bursts of laughter and offended shrieks, boys who bumped into walls when they wanted to go to the bathroom or smokers who opened the windows in their own faces. Everything was chaos and noise; and Jongho had never felt this much like he was at the right spot. He had never smiled this much; his cheeks were almost hurting. Even once they were all gone and only Hongjoong and he remained in the apartment, it was like he could still hear this cheerful echo that now resounded inside what he could call home.
“I still have something for you,” his boyfriend whispered, pulling him with him on the newly done burgundy bed covers.
It took Jongho a few seconds to process what he had just told him, his full attention turned towards the cottony feeling that was invading him with the thought that he felt safe, alone and hands in hands with the boy he had fallen in love with.
“Stop looking at me like that, idiot,” Hongjoong mumbled, failing to hide his blush.
“Like what?”
“Like…”
Hongjoong only let out a series of inarticulate groans before rummaging through his oversized jacket, to take out a small flat box.
“What is this?”
“Give me your wrist.”
Jongho obeyed, before seeing Hongjoong’s small hands open the box to gently take out a very thin silver chain, as simple as it was shiny. He slowly clasped it around his boyfriend’s wrist, visibly trying to keep himself from shaking.
“It’s steel… not precious, but hard-wearing enough that you don’t have to take it off to swim.”
The swimmer didn’t answer anything, while Hongjoong slim fingers slipped from his golden wrist to fall back on the mattress. The jewel was sparkling on his skin, timidly reflecting the electric rays of the streetlights that filtered through the window.
“What is it for?” he eventually managed to stutter out, his throat dry.
Hongjoong hesitated, uncertain.
“When I saw it in the window display, I thought about you. I thought it would suit you. Or…”
The steel had already heated up against Jongho’s skin.
Or, I like the idea that you'd think about me every day. He heard everything Hongjoong was implying but failed to tell him, multiple echos resounding each one at the same time in his skull. Overtaken by an almost unbearable warmth, he leaned towards his boyfriend with the firm intention to get closer to the sun.
Or I’d like to show everyone that you’re mine. Like a consecration, the bracelet shined in the twilight, freeing handcuffs and paradoxical symbol of a definitive tie to a new life. At Hongjoong’s side, the blurry future wasn’t scary anymore. Jongho forgot about his questions, his doubts, and simply found himself greedy to learn everything he didn’t know. He was confident, perhaps he even had faith, in himself, in themselves no matter if they would share a bed for their whole lives or not. Hongjoong had awakened something in him, he had given him the strength to spread out his wings, and if it had only been about love, Jongho knew he wouldn't have gone this far. Hongjoong revealed his own self to him, making their relationship something even more sacred.
Or, I needed an object that would make us real. Jongho felt teeth graze over his ear as his fingers dug into the inferno of his lover’s skin. They had yet to go this far, both giving their all to each other and yet active in some kind of carnal devotion. Hongjoong had removed his shirt on his own accord, his eyes blazing, and was allowing the swimmer to roam his body with his eyes, discover him, devour him. The words that were flying between them were naturally born of a new language, subtle blend of sounds, and touches.
Or… choose the reason you want. After more than a year spent timidly dreaming, it was surprising to notice that time was crumbling into the slump of a sensual eternity. Though, Jongho had thought he would die of frustration the whole summer; but now that he was finally burrowed inside the small ruby’s arms, the rush of first times had faded to morph into an appeasing fulfillment. They had the time of a whole lifespan waiting for them and, above all, they felt more at their right spots than ever.
I don’t need a reason to give you anything.
“Thank you.”
*
“How did you know you were gay?” Hongjoong suddenly asked, in the autumnal alcove of Jongho’s nest.
He was mesmerizing, the young swimmer thought, lying there, between the burgundy sheets of his new room, only wearing sweatpants he had stolen to him, that smelled like flowery detergent. The bed was undone, the blankets didn't cover them, the ambient temperature nearing twenty degrees even in the middle of the night, remnants of lingering summer. Hongjoong was spread out there, his translucent skin contrasting with the deep wine of the comforter. Contrasting even more prettily with the swimmer’s skin, tanned, as if their colors though so different had been made to match and blend together. Jongho was convinced he would never be able to grow tired of this heavenly sight, one where a pale and strawberry-haired Hongjoong was lasciviously lounging on his back, half-naked, his hand linked to Jongho's and resting on his chest, where his heart was calmly beating, while the swimmer was lying on his side to watch him. Usually, he only felt this good when he was in the water, and the world disappeared to get drowned in blue; but Hongjoong had this magical ability to transform space and time, of changing gravity to his will and make the Earth spin in the right direction.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean," he started speaking again, turning his face towards Jongho, "swimming is all your life, and I guess that you don't usually vow an eternal affection to the first weird guy covered in piercings you meet in the street. I can't imagine that you've had time… to come to terms with it, especially knowing that your parents…"
The end of his sentence died down on his lips, hesitant about the way to word it.
“It helped to know Wooyoung,” Jongho admitted, “but there was this boy I met in an intensive swimming camp, one summer. It was two years ago, he was called Wooseok.”
He stopped to look at his boyfriend's face, half expecting to be met with a jealous pout, but wasn’t surprised to only see him attentive. It was easy to understand that Hongjoong, despite his insecurities, was all but jealous; perhaps was it due to his natural understanding of the people who surrounded him. He always seemed to have a head start on his friends, on Jongho, who allowed him to trust, if not himself, at least them.
“He was older than me, three, or four years, something like that. He saw how I was looking at him, and he knew before me… We kissed after the second dinner of the camp, his friend had secretly brought alcohol, and it was the first time I was drinking. We were playing dumb games, betting who dared to french kiss who… I knew that my father would hate this, but it didn’t feel dirty, nor criminal, at the moment. So we kind of stayed together for three weeks.”
“Kind of?”
“Kind of because we knew we wouldn’t be a couple after the camp, because we never confessed anything, it was only… physical?”
Jongho was blushing despite himself, and Hongjoong was looking at him with an amused gaze, a bit fond, without interrupting him.
“I guess that for me, it was mostly testing, even if I did have a huge crush on him. I sneaked into his room at night, and we kissed, we talked a little… and one thing after another, we tried a little bit of everything. When I think about it now, I think that we may have gone too fast, but I think that, without saying anything, we both knew things wouldn't be easy for us. Life, I mean. To find someone to discover our bodies with another boy. The fact that we knew we probably wouldn't ever see each other after this must have come into play too. There was less pressure."
“Yeah, I understand,” Hongjoong breathed out with a low voice.
“And after him… you’re the only one.”
Taken by surprise, the other chuckled.
“Oh, really? So you really threw yourself body and soul at the first comer?”
Jongho groaned, pulling Hongjoong against himself to roll on his chest, and it was hovering above him and staring straight into his eyes, that he answered:
“I don’t think you realize how much you deserve to be loved, idiot.”
“Getting insulted by my boyfriend doesn’t help, not gonna lie,” the small ruby retorted, but his glimmering eyes and his pink cheeks contradicted his disdain.
“Let me speak, for once,” Jongho scolded, not moving an inch, “I don’t know what I did in another life that was heroic enough to deserve to meet you, but I still think what I told you the first night. You’re precious, Hongjoong.”
The person of interest’s gaze was currently scrutinizing the ceiling as if it was the most interesting artwork he had ever seen.
“I don’t understand… I didn’t do anything. I never stopped running away from you, putting boundaries between us, I… I didn’t do anything, and listening to you it sounds like I’m a hero, but you are the athlete who can move mountains, Jongho. You are the one we should look up to.”
He sighed for a long time, shaking his head and took the time to kiss the tip of Hongjoong's nose before replying.
“You are precious. You’d give everything up for the people you love, that’s why you’re so afraid of commitments because you need it to matter enough to give this much. You have a world that’s only yours, that’s hard to enter, a world filled with so many fascinating things, all the movies you’ve seen at the theater thanks to your job, all the people you’ve met who taught you things, all the books you’ve read to analyze them yourself because you couldn’t take notes correctly in class. You’re clever, you understand the world, you’re a fighter, I’ve never met anyone as generous as you are. And above all, when I’m with you, I feel good, I feel like myself, and all I can think about is the need I have to make you feel the same way. To make you happy.”
A sniffle answered his soliloquy, Hongjoong’s eyes fluttering to stop their dampness. He eventually raised his head to rub their noses together.
“Mission success,” he whispered.
Jongho smiled, and then he let himself lean down on him for good. He snuggled against his heart, his arms on each side of his boyfriend, and closed his eyes. Multiple questions were churning in his mind, some dumb, others more pertinent, but all of them revolving around Hongjoong’s past, of his life before they had met, even before Mingi and the others guys, that he never talked about.
“And you,” he finally breathed out, “you’ve had a lot of boyfriends?”
A tremor in Hongjoong’s chest almost made him fall from his spot.
“You’re sure you want to know about it?”
His voice was full of mischief, obviously referring to the tiny jealousy Jongho harbored for Mingi.
“Stop it, I’m being serious. You never talk about it.”
He felt him shrug.
“Because it doesn’t matter too much anymore, but yeah, I’ve had a few. I didn’t stay single for too long until I finally could enroll back in college, probably because I couldn’t stand to stay by myself.”
There were a few seconds of silence, during which Jongho stayed quiet, encouraging his boyfriend to continue. Hongjoong slowly sighed and told him about it. A boy of his year, in high school, with whom he had only shared a few drunken kisses. A boyfriend who's dream was to produce music, a passionate relationship that had ended in frustrated shouts, and in regretting their lack of maturity. A shy and lost young boy for whom it had been too early and that Hongjoong had without success tried to help out of depression, who had needed a break up to learn how to help himself. There was a peculiar gleam in Hongjoong’s eyes as he was talking without a stop, his voice recounting with a waltz tune, regular and sounding like a lullaby. Jongho was watching him without saying anything, attentive to this puzzle of memories that was little by little forming this picture of the Hongjoong he had met. All the stories he had lived were the many pieces that Jongho wanted to find.
They were still snickering like children when the first rays of dawn started invading their room.
*
“We’re lucky it’s still sunny.”
“Jongho, when are you leaving for your competition, again?”
“I still have a month left.”
“Don’t bother him with this, Yunho…”
“Stop whining like this, it’s gonna do you some good not to live glued to him like a damn koala, Hongjoong…”
“Well, it’s not Wooyoung who’s going to miss me!”
“Let it be, he’s not listening.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to listen to San’s crude remarks.”
Jongho helped Hongjoong to be seated better on his lap while fondly smiling at the languid kisses Wooyoung and San were sharing, lazily sprawled in the grass a few meters away from their picnic table. Seonghwa was bickering with Mingi about the swimming team’s new recruits, Yeosang was sunbathing in silence, his earphones inside his ears, his eyes closed and his head on his boyfriend’s lap, while Yunho was trying hard to take the first group picture of their year with his phone.
The young swimmer had never felt happier than at this moment that wasn’t out of the ordinary. The same way a chrysalis turned into a butterfly to fly away, he was finally taking his marks in a new life, swimming in the blue sky and spreading his wings inside the pool’s water; squeezing against himself the treasure he had never had to deserve, that he had found inside a small ruby who smelled like cigarettes and old leather, sitting on his lap.
*