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“You’re late.”
Jihoon’s voice is already coming at him from the second he opens the door, sleepy and irate, and his eyes mirror it perfectly. It’s so refreshing to see his face again after such a long time, and Junhui only wishes it didn’t have to look so sour. The lines are so much softer when he smiles, and he remembers them better that way.
“I can’t control the traffic, baby,” Junhui tells him, shrugging his small bag off and dropping it to the floor. “I wouldn’t have been this late if I could help it.”
Jihoon stares at him for a long time, then sighs. “Well, whatever. Come in.” He shuffles out of the way to make room and leads the way toward the coffee table, cluttered with books and papers right up to the edge. Atop the tallest stack sits a pizza box, unopened. “I ordered this when I thought you would be here sooner, but it’s cold now.”
“You know I like it better cold anyway,” Junhui tells him, plopping down on the sofa. He watches Jihoon rustle around in his small kitchen, listens to the rush of the faucet running, waits. The silhouette by the sink doesn’t do much moving. “You’re not gonna sit out here and talk to me?”
“I’m tired, Junhui,” he sighs.
“I’m tired, too.” Junhui takes the first bite of his pizza and closes his eyes to really taste it. Jihoon is always good at remembering what toppings he likes. “Come on. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other.” With another thick breath out, Jihoon stalks back into the living room to rejoin him on the couch and cracks open a beer.
When Jihoon got the offer for the internship, they’d both initially been ecstatic. It was experience, it was good money, it was a payout for so much hard work that was too good to dream of passing up. It was also three hundred miles of distance, which sounds like a lot and feels like even more. Junhui thought it would be just a little bit easier, but when Jihoon is working and taking online classes at the same time to get through it all, there’s only so much that can be done. Every time Junhui visits, he looks just a little bit older in a scary way, so much wearier than he should, and it’s those times Junhui most wishes he could have come along to stay with him.
They don’t say much when they are together. Junhui usually spends the weeks he doesn’t see Jihoon compiling a mental list of everything good or bad that happens, everything he wants to tell him about when they’re together again, but when they’re actually in the same room, he never can. He can never figure out the right words to say, and maybe it’s the same for Jihoon. Junhui also forgets. When he sees Jihoon, he forgets all of it. Jihoon’s eyes have always done that to him.
For now, Junhui just looks at him instead of saying anything. It’s bizarre the way he can forget everything and nothing about this face at the same time, how he can remember the exact way he smiles and the small freckles below his eye but not be quite able to picture them until he’s got the real thing in front of him. He always looks so different in untraceable ways, nebulous ways, like all the colors on earth have shifted to paint him new somehow, and Junhui can never stop staring at him. He also just likes to look at him.
“What?” Jihoon asks after a while, taking another swig from his can. Alcohol is a weakness of his, maybe the only one, and his cheeks are already pinking when he’s only halfway through one drink. “Stop looking at me.”
“Why?” Junhui chews his pizza slowly, but the taste is mattering less to him by the second. He’d rather taste a kiss instead. “I missed you.” Jihoon rolls his eyes.
“Ah, whatever.”
“You missed me too, right?” Junhui sets his half-eaten slice down in the box and closes it again, spreads his arms across the back of the couch and leans into it. Jihoon watches him and sighs. Takes another gulp. Sighs again.
“I don’t know,” he mutters, rubbing at his eyes. God, does he look tired. All Junhui wants to do is hold him upright. “I’ve been so busy. You have no idea.” Looking around the apartment, at all the papers and everything else piled high in uneven stacks, Junhui thinks he has some idea, but he seals his lips and nods.
“Too busy to miss me?”
“Maybe.” Jihoon’s blinks are long and slow, and when he rests his chin in his hands, he looks like a sleepy kid. It’s been such a long time, Junhui thinks, since he’s been able to touch him. “Things are just crazy.”
“I guess they are.” He watches Jihoon finish off his drink and lean back against the couch, soft ends of his hair just brushing Junhui’s fingertips. Eyes closed, he lets out a long breath through his nose, hands tapping idly at his knees. “You look tired,” Junhui says.
“I stayed up late waiting for you,” Jihoon says back around a yawn. “I haven’t gotten much sleep this week.”
“You should sleep, then.”
Jihoon cracks an eye open. “Yeah, right,” he scoffs, one corner of his lips quirking up. “Like you’re not the one who made me stay up to talk.” He leans forward off the back of the couch and sends his weight to the side, until he’s a mass of pressure pushing Junhui down to his back on the cushions. When he exhales, his breath dusts over Junhui’s neck. “But I will lay down, though.”
“Better?”
“A little.”
It never occurs to Junhui how different they are in size until Jihoon does things like this, curling up over his chest without a problem, head comfortable with his shoulder as a pillow. As he lies there, his chest expands and contracts, the steady rhythm of breathing, and his warmth bleeds through Junhui’s bones from the outside. He closes his eyes, and his lashes are a tiny fan, twinkling with the dust of lost sleep.
“You’re so warm,” Jihoon mumbles, stretching his arm across to curl around Junhui at the waist. From this angle, Junhui can’t see his lips moving, but he can feel his voice in his ribs when he lets out a low hum, sustains it a while. Jihoon’s fingertips brushing against his side are so delicate.
“I have good circulation,” Junhui tells him, and Jihoon laughs just barely loud enough to be heard, shaking Junhui’s entire body along with him. If only he were a little bit closer, Junhui would be able to kiss him. If only.
“I really missed you,” Jihoon says. It’s only one beer, but that’s plenty to mix his head up in the simplest ways. He twists his fingers around in the fabric of Junhui’s shirt, bunches them up in a fist and lets go, takes turns tapping them one by one from pinky to thumb and back again. As he does, his breathing slows, and Junhui wishes he could see his face.
“I missed you too,” he says. With one hand, he starts combing through Jihoon’s hair gently, feeling the softness of it around his knuckles.
“Mmm.” Jihoon’s idle hand begins patting its way up Junhui’s side until it meets with his arm, then slides to his wrist and laces their fingers together. “Don’t touch me.”
“Alright.”
When he tries to pull his hand from Jihoon’s grasp, Jihoon won’t let him, instead allows himself to be pulled along by the hand until his cheek is pressing against Junhui’s chin. He scrunches his nose at the feel of stubble, but after a few seconds, his expression soothes again, lips falling into a slight frown. From under his lashes, he fixes his gaze toward Junhui’s eyes. His cheeks are so pink. Inside Junhui’s chest, his heart is skipping rope and getting its feet tangled in every jump.
“Why did you do that?” Jihoon grumbles, flailing their joined hands around.
“I thought you would let go.” He listens to Jihoon sigh, the sound of hot wind rolling across a desert.
“You knew what I meant.”
“How could I?”
“You always know.”
He drops their hands back to the cushions and blows out a breath that whispers over Junhui’s lips. Up close, he looks even more tired, frail, ready to collapse at the next breeze that passes by. He adjusts his arm to fit around the breadth of Junhui’s chest, then curls it around his neck, elbow soft against the top of his shoulder. When Junhui closes his eyes, he can’t picture anything else about the room, only the outline of Jihoon and the even flow of his breaths, their two bodies isolated in space together. It would be so nice to think this could last forever, this small world of only two.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks. Jihoon’s sigh sifts through his skin.
“Well, you’ll do it even if I say no.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
Jihoon places a hand on Junhui’s cheek and lifts himself just enough to have their lips meet, briefly and then longer, tongues melting together. There is just the faintest flavor of beer and the slight scent of Jihoon’s shampoo, and Junhui closes his eyes to forget time is passing. He opens them back up, and Jihoon is looking straight at him, stare heavy below heavier lids.
“You taste like pizza,” he says.
“How is it?” Junhui asks. “Tasty?”
“Gross.” He brings his lips to Junhui’s again, long and deep, salty-sweet. His hand on Junhui’s cheek is featherlight, tickles just beside his lips. “Really gross.”
Junhui’s lungs strain against his ribcage when they kiss again, heart strains against the layers of flesh and bone caging it in. All inside him is pink with desire to say it again, to say that he missed Jihoon, that he still misses him even though he’s right here now, but he doesn’t want to say it too much and tire out the meaning. There has to be some better way to explain himself, some perfect word to describe just how much he’s been wishing for Jihoon to be there, but all he’s got is a bunch of organs twisting themselves into knots and a string of tired kisses to give a much more tired boy. Jihoon plants a small kiss beside Junhui’s jaw and lays his head back to rest on the cushion directly beside Junhui’s. When he turns to face him, their noses just slightly bump.
“Is it okay?” Jihoon asks him.
“Is what okay?”
“This.” His hand swirls in lazy circles over Junhui’s chest, a soft trail of electricity.
“This is great.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Jihoon sighs. So much for Junhui always knowing.
“What do you mean, then?”
“I mean, you know.” He doesn’t. “This.” His arm swings lazily at the room around them before finding itself a spot to rest over Junhui’s chest again. “Us. The distance. Everything.” Junhui hums.
“I’m fine with it.”
“Really?” The circles continue winding across his shirt, just as lethargic. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
“But doesn’t it suck?”
“No.”
“It does, though,” Jihoon groans, balling his hand into a fist and giving Junhui one soft punch with the side of it. “It does suck. It really sucks. It sucks.”
“You think so?”
“Sometimes,” he huffs, “when I get home from work, I just want you to be here. I just want you to be here so nothing seems as bad, and you never are.” His dimples make their appearance when he flattens his lips into a line, pronounced and aggravated. Junhui wants to kiss him quiet, but he doesn’t. “Because you can’t be. I know. It’s not your fault I’m six hours away. It’s my fault. I know.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, but it is. I know you know it is.” His eyes shine when they meet Junhui’s. “Because I had to take this stupid internship and overload myself with work until I feel like I’m breaking all the time. It was my idea.” A sparkling tear slides forth from one eye and rolls down over his nose, drips onto the couch between them. “I’m going out of my mind here.”
“Hey, come on.” If Jihoon cries, Junhui is going to cry, and he doesn’t want to. He always cries when he leaves. It’s so unfair if he has to do it right when he gets here, too. “It’s not that bad. I’m here now, right? It’s not so bad.”
“It’s unfair,” Jihoon grunts, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “It’s so hard to do this.”
“It won’t be like this forever,” Junhui says gently, turning to look up at the ceiling. He’s been counting down the months. Only four more. It sounds so short, but it’ll feel like another lifetime. “There’s not that much longer left.”
“Will we even make it that long?”
Junhui’s heart takes a short break from beating, eyes going glassy as he stares straight up at nothing, at the inky sky beyond the roof. Mentally, he’s been skirting around this question ever since Jihoon left, pretending it isn’t there, isn’t even worth thinking about answering. He should’ve known Jihoon would ask it sometime, because that’s the way he is. Always thinking, always worried, always doubtful. Junhui tightens his grip on Jihoon’s hand and closes his eyes against the wetness he feels gathering in them.
“Of course we will.”
“Hey.” Jihoon grabs Junhui’s cheek again and turns his head until they’re facing each other again, waits for Junhui to open his eyes before drawing his palm away. The color in his face is all concentrated beneath his eyes now, a tender chalky red, and that small freckle peeks out from its grove of roses. “I know it’s been really hard on you, too.” His voice breaks when he says it, and it stings, a wasp right between the fingers. Jihoon gulps. “Haven’t you ever thought… about breaking up with me?”
“Huh?”
“It’s not that easy. I get it. And it would be so much easi—”
“No.”
Junhui cuts him off for so many reasons. First, that he doesn’t want to hear any of this, doesn’t want to go down any of the roads it takes him to. Second, because he can feel himself crying before he even has to, and he’s barely been here an hour. Third, when he looks in Jihoon’s eyes, he can see he doesn’t even want to say it. His mouth has started, and no matter what his brain wants, Jihoon can never stop a thought before he’s let it out.
“But—”
“I’ve never thought about it,” Junhui tells him. The shake in Jihoon’s breathing is impossible to ignore. “Not even once.” Jihoon presses his lips together resolutely, but it doesn’t stop another small tear from embarking on its journey down his cheek.
“Don’t lie to me,” he whispers.
“I won’t,” Junhui replies, hushed. “I don’t lie to you.” He watches Jihoon squeeze his eyes shut, face tense in its desperate endeavor to stay stone. “It’s never even been an option for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jihoon’s voice is hoarse from the strain of holding itself up. He sounds like he’s ready to collapse or like he already has.
“Just that I love you.” One hand crawls up to Jihoon’s side, to his shoulder, to his cheek. Jihoon blows out a sigh, but he doesn’t swat it away. “And I like you. And I like my life best when I get to do those things.” Jihoon huffs.
“Like it’s a privilege or something.”
“It is a privilege.” Junhui pushes through Jihoon’s hair with his thumb, brushes over his ear. “I feel very lucky.”
“You’re stupid,” Jihoon coughs, tensing his hand into a fist again around the fabric of Junhui’s shirt. “You’re so stupid.” The way he shakes his hand is making an unseemly stretch in this shirt, but Junhui can get over it. He’s got others. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, yeah. You can call me all the names you want,” Junhui hums, “as long as you’re not breaking up with me.” The fist freezes, relaxes, clenches again.
“Of course I’m not,” Jihoon says. “I wouldn’t, anyway. And you came all the way here.” The wetness in his eyes still gleams, but it seems to be dampening, slowly, slowly. He yawns. “I have courtesy, at least. I’d do it over the phone… Save the gas…”
“I think you just need to go to bed,” Junhui tells him.
“Maybe you’re right.”
Carefully, Junhui slips from the couch to his knees on the floor just beside it. He watches Jihoon eye him, dazed, slow in following, and just as he starts to sit himself upright, Junhui slides his arms beneath his body and lifts him from the cushions. It’s been a while since he’s done this, but Jihoon feels too light in his arms, too frail. He loops one arm around the back of Junhui’s neck and clasps his hands together for safety, yawning as they walk down the short hall to the bedroom.
“I hate it when you do this,” Jihoon grumbles.
“I thought you liked it when I do this.” Junhui turns sideways to go through the doorway, careful not to bump Jihoon’s head on anything. “Don’t you like me ‘cause I’m strong?”
“There are other reasons,” Jihoon says, pink. He holds his breath for a few steps before releasing it all in a huff. “This just makes me feel small.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being small.”
“That’s what you think.” Junhui rests Jihoon on the bed gently, sinking back to his knees by the edge of the mattress. In the dark of the room, Jihoon’s stare glows. “Even if I could pick you up like that, your legs would still drag on the floor, or something. That’s not fair.”
“Well, nobody says we both have to pick each other up.”
“Isn’t that what love is supposed to be, though?” Jihoon asks. “Picking each other up.” For a moment, the room isn’t dark, or doesn’t feel like it. Junhui can see every color clearly, every shape, every dip of Jihoon’s silhouette and wrinkle of the sheets on the bed. Then Jihoon reaches out to pat him on the shoulder, and everything stays dark. “I know. I should go to sleep.”
There are no birds living near Jihoon’s apartment complex, at least not the kind that sing, so what wakes Junhui in the morning is the sound of traffic. It seems like the sun here rises so much earlier, dusting pale gold over the room through the three inch slit of parted curtain. Around him, everything is still as silver, delicately mussed but unmoving, perfectly rustled like each fallen leaf in a museum diorama. Jihoon’s arms are laced around him from behind, wrapping his waist in a slim belt of warmth. Junhui doesn’t want to move and disturb him, but when he cranes his neck to take a peek at his face, it seems like he’s already awake.
“Morning,” Junhui says. Jihoon opens his eyes just slightly and loosens the circle of his arms enough for Junhui to edge onto his back.
“Morning.” His voice is soft.
“Feel better?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
For a short while, they lie there just breathing, soaking in the thick silence of the early morning. Junhui can feel all of Jihoon’s fingertips against his stomach, the infinity of swirling lines etched into them, a dusting of stars hovering just shy of his ribs. With each exhale, Junhui loses touch with reality more and more, until he feels that they’re floating in their own pocket of space, that the door only feet away opens up to the liquid nothingness of the universe. Jihoon flattens his palm.
“Why did you let me drink last night?” he asks. “You know I say stupid stuff when I drink.”
“Let you?” Junhui hums. “I don’t let you do anything. I’m not the boss of you.”
“You should have stopped me.”
“As if you’ve ever let me stop you.” Jihoon smacks him gently, and it’s quiet again for a minute.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I’ve been really stressed out,” he continues, “and I’ve been thinking too much about too many things—you know, because I’m me. It’s been hard.”
“I know.”
Junhui draws his arm under Jihoon and rubs his hand across his back. It’s comfortable, that stretch of skin, those notches of spine. He keeps up a steady tempo with his palm, back and forth like clockwork, and Jihoon’s heartbeat starts to mirror the rhythm. He moves his own hand until it sits over Junhui’s heart, light but heavy, concrete and cloud, and breathes out slowly.
“Just to clarify,” he says, gentle, “I don’t want to break up. I never wanted to.”
“I know.”
Jihoon sighs. “I told you you always know,” he says, and Junhui lets a soft laugh bubble forth from his chest, light and dancing on the still air. It just drowns out the sound of honking from below.
“I guess you did say that,” he admits. Slowly, Jihoon lifts his hand and brings it to Junhui’s face, turns him by the cheek.
Jihoon says he hates them, but Junhui’s always been fond of kisses in the morning, right in the morning, before either of them have moved from bed yet. There are so many reasons behind it: he likes the feeling of Jihoon’s lips first thing in the morning, how they’re barely chapped but still soft; he likes the setting of the bed alongside the natural light, none of the harsh fluorescence that comes with the evening; he likes that they can wake up beside each other. Morning breath is negligible when Jihoon’s thumb smudges below the corner of his eye, when their chests press close together. It’s very negligible when it’s Jihoon’s idea.
Gradually, Jihoon works his way closer, until he has a knee on either side of Junhui’s body and holds himself above in a weak straddle. While he kisses, tender and slow, his hand moves from Junhui’s cheek. It flits to his ear, then traces leisurely down his jaw, his neck, chest, before coming back to join his other hand holding both sides of Junhui’s chin. Then he kisses away from the mouth, along the line of small moles he’s always liked, then down to the neck, collarbone. He drops gently to rest his body atop Junhui’s, chin fit into the crook of his shoulder, and tugs the covers back up toward his own shoulders.
“You’re so warm,” he sighs. Junhui smiles, finds the notches on Jihoon’s spine with his fingertips and walks down them step by step.
“I have good circulation,” he says. Jihoon’s laugh rattles through both of them, the earth’s tamest quake. Junhui lets the sound ring a while, savors it on his ears. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“You never kiss me before you brush your teeth.”
“You like it when I do, though.”
“So you know, then,” Junhui hums, “and you just like to deprive me of that joy.” Jihoon laughs again, pushes himself until he slides off to Junhui’s side. He’s always fit perfectly into the negative space Junhui’s silhouette leaves beside him. Junhui doesn’t believe in destiny, but he does believe in something.
“I want to ask you something,” Jihoon says.
“I’m listening.”
“Have you ever thought about getting married?”
Junhui raises his eyebrows and turns his head. Jihoon looks very serious. “To you,” he asks, “or just in general?”
“Either.”
“Many times,” Junhui tells him. “For both.”
“Really?” Jihoon asks, eyes slightly wide.
“Did you want me to say no?”
“Not really,” Jihoon says, “I just wasn’t… I don’t know. I didn’t think you would say yes.” Junhui grins at him and sweeps some of the hair back from his eyes.
“Is there a reason behind that,” Junhui says, “or is it my turn to ask you something now?”
“Well, I mean, yes.” Jihoon straightens his face like he’s focusing, hard lines and steel eyes. Somehow, he still looks so impossibly soft. This morning, he seems so much less tired. He takes a stiff breath in. “It’s just… I want to marry you, sometime. Later.”
“Later?” Junhui is biting down a swarm of butterflies. Jihoon doesn’t talk about these things, so he always figured he’d have to be the one to bring it up if he ever wanted to. It feels like a dream to hear those words right now. Maybe it is one. Only barely, he resists pinching himself.
“After this.” He gestures at the space between them, the room around them, fingers catching flecks of the light and throwing them into Junhui’s eyes like glitter. “After we graduate, maybe.” While he takes another breath, Junhui holds onto his. “I don’t have a ring or anything, so I’m not proposing right now, but I just want to promise, I guess. I don’t know.” The exhale he blows out tickles Junhui’s chest. “I want to know if you want to do that with me.”
“You already know I do,” Junhui says, a single dot above a whisper. “Even if I didn’t want to, I would. Because you want to.”
“I need to be sure,” Jihoon tells him. “Marriage is marriage, you know. It really means something. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.” Junhui whistles, small and low and airy. A lot of time, he says.
“And just yesterday you asked me if I wanted to break up.”
“Think about how embarrassing it would be for the both of us if you wanted out and then I told you I wanted to get married.” Far below them, far outside, millions and millions of miles away, there is a bird singing for the first time this morning. “I know you’ve put up with a lot for me.”
“I’d put up with more,” Junhui says. “Gladly.” He follows the line of Jihoon’s body with his knuckles, dips and curves mother nature could only dream of having in her finest landscapes. “So I want to marry you, of course. Sometime. Later.”
Jihoon beams gently, and he is the sun and the moon rolled into one, every star in this galaxy and the next, every pocket of light in the observable universe. He closes his eyes when that smile dissolves into subdued laughter, smashes his cheek into the wrinkled sheets and lets himself breathe it all out. After a minute of silence, he opens his eyes again.
“Should we get up now?” he asks.
“Not yet,” Junhui says. “I wanna lay here a little bit longer.”
“That’s fair.” Jihoon snuggles closer into his side. “So do I.” Junhui eyes him carefully from his higher angle, though he can’t quite make out Jihoon’s expression.
“Kiss me again,” he says. Jihoon sighs.
“No way.”
“Just once.”
“It’s never just once,” he says. “Let me brush my teeth first. And you brush yours.”
“Come on, Jihoon,” Junhui coos, shaking him by the shoulder. “I’m only here for a few days.”
“Someday,” Jihoon says, “you’ll be here every day, and you’ll still try to get me to kiss you every morning. And I already did it today.”
“Just once,” Junhui repeats. Jihoon groans and places his palms on each of Junhui’s cheeks.
“Just once every single day turns into a million times,” he says. “And you know I think it’s gross.” Junhui watches Jihoon roll his eyes, aching with misgivings, then pull himself forward on his elbows and linger in front of Junhui’s face, stare soft. Then he sighs and takes a breath.
And he kisses him anyway.