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Sungjin isn’t quite sure what he’d been thinking --or if he’d been thinking. All he knows as he stands by the coast, watching the sun come up, he and Wonpil both a bit tipsy, is that whatever he’s about to do is probably going to be the absolute dumbest thing that he’s ever done. He glances at Wonpil: bright eyes, beautiful smile. His bestfriend, the man he’s been in love with for the better part of four years.
He takes a deep breath.
“Pil.”
“Mmm?” Wonpil turns to look at him, eyebrows raised, eyes bright.
Here goes nothing.
A few months before graduation and he and Wonpil had been in their room, talking about life: one of those few introspective moments when neither of them were in the mood to roast each other, neither of them in the mood to tease or to stay stupid things, when Wonpil wasn’t trying to annoy Sungjin and Sungjin wasn’t pretending to be annoyed. It was well past two in the morning and the lamplight from outside was illuminating their small, cramped dorm room. Sungjin could see Wonpil in the single bed opposite from his own: his figure was small, wrapped up in his blankets, surrounded by his stuffed toys. Wonpil wasn’t wearing his glasses; Sungjin always felt a little more secure, then, because he could be a bit more candid with his emotions--didn’t have to worry about Wonpil detecting it, seeing it plastered all over his face: the admiration, the care, the sincerity of how much he cared about him.
“I just feel like I haven’t really done anything momentous ,” Wonpil was saying, pressing his cheek to a plushie of Pusheen the cat.
Sungjin frowned in the darkness, holding his own pillow closer, his knuckles tightening against the fabric of his pillowcase. “What do you mean? Like something wild? Parties? Like, promiscuous sex?”
The thought of Wonpil at a party, making out with someone, kissing someone and then heading home with them, didn’t sit quite right with him, made his stomach turn. Whenever he’d thought of Wonpil and love--which was more often than he’d like to admit--Sungjin always found himself in an unexpected amount of pain. When they’d first met, he’d found himself extremely uncomfortable: not only was Wonpil extremely attractive, he was also extremely affectionate, always touching him, always leaning on him, brushing Sungjin’s hair away from his face like it was the most normal thing to do in the world. Over the years, he’d learned to sink into it, learned to live with it, learned when he could get away with telling Wonpil the truth (staying silent during a long hug) and when he would have to cover it up (shrugging out of Wonpil’s grasp whenever he reached out to ruffle Sungjin’s hair). Over the years, as he’d fallen deeper and deeper in love, realizing that not only was Wonpil incredibly handsome, but also incredibly smart and hardworking, kind and generous, always putting other people before himself, he’d learned roll with the punches--enjoy them, even. The pain had worsened because the more he thought about love, the clearer he saw that for him, it would always be Wonpil and that he just wouldn’t like him back that way.
It’s just not how we are.
As far as Sungjin knows, Wonpil’s only dated someone once in college: their buddy Jinyoung from production 101 back in Sophomore year. It only lasted two months but those two months were hell for Sungjin--the seeing them together, the having to hear Wonpil sing love songs every waking second and knowing that he was thinking about Jinyoung, and of course, the having to see him cry after Jinyoung had broken up with him. Yeah, that was definitely the part that he hated the most: having to listen to all of the stories of how Wonpil was treated, how much pain he was in, how much he just wanted him back--and how Sungjin couldn’t say what he wanted to say the most because things just weren’t like that between them.
If it were me, I would make you the happiest you’d ever been--the happiest that I could make you.
Wonpil shook his head. “No, something whimsical. Romantic but not necessarily in a love way--more of in a coming of age way? In movies, they always go on roadtrips, that kind of thing.”
“Ahhh,” Sungjin says, nodding. “Something to culminate your college years, you mean. Something to gather the experiences?”
Wonpil nodded. “Yeah, culminate . That’s the word. Sometimes I wonder if I’m all work and no play. I want to feel like I’m graduating. Really, really feel like it. When I start working or when I’m older and I look back on these days, I want to think ah, okay, that was really when I was on the brink of something great .”
“If you could do anything, no holds barred, what would it be?”
“Go to the coast on a whim. Watch the sun come up and get drunk and then have to make it back home in time for finals which I’m going to take even if I have a massive hangover.”
“You’re crazy,” Sungjin had said, closing his eyes and knowing that he would buy the tickets that very morning, before Wonpil even woke up. “I can’t believe you actually want to be hungover. What kind of idiot wants to suffer through an exam?”
“Maybe I am. What’re you going to do about it? Dance me to death?”
Sungjin snorts. “You’re blind. Even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway.”
In the other bed, he could hear Wonpil laughing. Sungjin opened an eye to peek and glimpsed Wonpil’s smile--that beautiful sunrise grin that made his eyes crease up at the corners, that lit up his entire face. Sungjin’s heart lurched in his chest: longing undercut by relief coursing through him like a wave cresting and crashing onto solid rock. Even if nothing ever happened between them, Sungjin thought before he drifted off to sleep, having made Wonpil laugh like that was already a reward in itself.
Enough. More than enough.
For a minute, Wonpil thought that he’d gone crazy. When he woke up, he’d dragged himself out of bed and stood by the coffeemaker that he and Sungjin shared, staring down at the envelope of tickets for a moment longer than it should’ve taken anyone who could read. He’d peered at the note, read it quickly before reaching for his glasses and reading it again, just to be sure.
Skip last period. Meet me at the station. -PSJ
Wonpil’s heart was pounding in his chest, the butterflies in his stomach fluttering even if he willed them to sit still. The thing about Sungjin, as far as Wonpil was concerned, was that he was incredibly out of Wonpil’s league but was always acting like he wasn’t. When he’d first met him that day that they’d moved into the dorms, he’d felt like someone hit him in the face with an anvil like one of those old cartoons. He was gorgeous: tall, broad in the shoulders, his back wide, his face that classic leading man calibre with eyes that were as bright as they were deepset.
The thing about Sungjin was that they were alike in so many ways: both of them extremely driven when it came to music, both of them the types to stick to things they knew, both of them valuing the same kinds of kindnesses, the little things--but both of them extreme opposites in expressing it. Wonpil had learned to read Sungjin over the years, had come to know that while Wonpil preferred hugs and cuddles, Sungjin was more cautious about those things. Wonpil learned to read when a smile was hiding, tugging at the corners of Sungjin’s mouth, meaning it was okay for him to lean in and hold him close even for a split-second--and when he wasn’t in the mood, when to try and touch him would mean a fight or Sungjin closing himself off for a while. Wonpil had learned that Sungjin was caring in his own way, did rather than said : most mornings, Wonpil woke up with a fresh batch of coffee grinds ready to go in the coffeemaker, woke up to a muffin or a danish set on the dining table in a paper bag for him. Whenever he was sick, Sungjin came home with a bag from the pharmacy. And of course, there was the Jinyoung thing: Wonpil had fallen hard, fast, had thought that it was more serious than it was.
We’re only Sophomores, Pil, what do you want, like, a wedding?
That had hit Wonpil close to the heart because in his mind, he didn’t understand the point of dating someone if it wasn’t supposed to last. Why waste the energy? Why bother? And through his grief, he’d seen the one person who shared that view, who listened to him and who he could trust to be honest and open, ruthless and kind: Park Sungjin, holding him close even if Wonpil knew it wasn’t his ideal scenario. Park Sungjin, staying up with him until four in the morning recounting for the nth time how he’d been mislead. Park Sungjin making him breakfast. Park Sungjin, a safe, sturdy (read: smokin' hot) rock in the middle of a thrashing ocean.
How was Wonpil supposed to not fall in love?
But he didn’t know what Sungjin was into--he talked about love like it was a theorem, like something wide and vague. Love is something that should be practical, he always kept saying. Love should be developed over time. Love is a choice.
Yes, Wonpil had always thought. But who do you love? Who have you loved?
Could you ever love me?
When he’d walked onto the train platform and spotted Sungjin already there with his cap and jacket on, his knapsack slung over one shoulder and his shoes half-worn in that god-awful way that Wonpil had also come to love, he found himself saying it over and over again in his mind like it was a spell, like it could actually do something.
Love me. Please, please love me.
“Oy, Pillie-diot, you’re late.”
The whole trip up to the coast was full of excitement, both of them buzzing with the anticipation of being alone together somewhere romantic--both of them giddy but unwilling to say so. On the way there, they’d shared Wonpil’s earphones, Wonpil trying to keep his iPod out of Sungjin’s reach, out of his line of vision, as he clicked on his Romance playlist. Sungjin pretended not to see, pretended his cheeks didn’t burn as Skinny Love started playing--but Wonpil saw him from his reflection in the window as the train ran through the tunnel: Sungjin was grinning ear-to-ear, his bright eyes glad, the apples of his cheeks high in his handsome face. Wonpil’s heart soared.
They reached the coast at a quarter to midnight, had stopped by a convenience store to go and get drinks, snacks--they settle for instant ramyun (it’s cold by the shore) and a large bottle of corn makgeolli that they share between them. Wonpil was cold, had forgotten to bring a long padded jacket, so Sungjin had bought one off of a waiter at a nearby restaurant. And so they sat, bundled up by the shore, watching the sea thrash under the full moon.
“Since this is a culmination, we have to ask questions!” Wonpil said, slurping up the last of his ramyun.
Sungjin sighed, pretending to be annoyed, albeit his lips curving into a smile. “You’re so cheesy, I swear. If I’d known that we were coming here to go on a religious retreat, then I wouldn’t have bought you the tickets.”
Wonpil laughed. “You want to beeee here--”
“--shut up,” Sungjin said, grinning as he grabbed the bottle of makgeolli out of Wonpil’s hands and took a swig. “What’s the first question?”
Wonpil grinned. “Were you satisfied with your four years in college?”
Sungjin raised an eyebrow, leaning back against the sand, stretching his feet out in front of him and kicking his shoes off.
“In what aspect?”
“Overall.”
“Academically, I think I did my best. I don’t think I’m going to graduate top of the class, but honors are enough. I worked hard, I’m proud of that progress. We made a lot of friends--well, not a lot , but friends to keep. It’s been a good four years.”
“Ahh,” Wonpil said, nodding, reaching for the bottle and taking a tentative sip. “What about other stuff?”
Sungjin frowned, a crease forming between his brows. “What other stuff?”
“Like love?”
“Ah,” Sungjin said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Enough, I guess.”
“Hmmm,” Wonpil assented, wondering what that meant, wondering if Sungjin had been with people and never told him, wondering if he was taken and it simply hadn’t come up. “I see.”
“And you?”
“Well,” Wonpil said, sighing. “There are some things I’d do differently but they’re not worth talking about now. Next question.”
They went that way for a while, asking themselves questions and then lapsing into different anecdotes, different stories that they reminisce about--Sungjin asking Wonpil what he saw himself doing a year from now, Wonpil asking Sungjin what he would take with him on a deserted island if he could only bring one thing, Sungjin asking Wonpil about whether or not he believed that fate as a construct was feasible, Wonpil trying to fish for answers and asking Sungjin about who he would rather date among their batchmates (his answer was frustratingly simple: none of them).
Before they knew it, the sun was coming up, the dark night giving way to the pale pinks and golds of dawn. Before they know it, the moment is here and now: a new day, both of them thinking about chances and whether to take them, both of them thinking about how this could be the last chance for both of them--about how it could be the new beginning both of them want.
“Wow,” Wonpil says, getting up and walking toward the edge of the water to see the view better. “It’s so beautiful. Now that is a culmination. Now that is romance.”
Sungjin takes in the view, his gaze panning from the hills on the far side to the deep blue of the water, the golden pink of the sunrise, and Wonpil’s smile watching all of it: bright eyes, beautiful smile, that nonchalant laughter that Sungjin has come to treasure bubbling just beneath the surface. Sungjin takes a deep breath, realizing what he’s going to say just as he’s about to say it.
“Pil.”
“Mmm?” Wonpil turns to look at him, eyebrows raised, eyes bright.
Here goes nothing.
“I do have one thing I regret. Over the past four years.”
“Oh reallllllly,” Wonpil tilts his head slightly, holding Sungjin’s gaze. “What’s that?”
“Well,” Sungjin says. “See, I’ve never been a very outwardly sentimental man--”
“--no shit--”
“--let me finish. Please. Be patient, this is hard for me--”
Wonpil blinks, dumbfounded. “--okay.”
“--but being with you all of these four years has changed me. In an odd way, you taught me how to feel. Living with you taught me that it’s okay to be vulnerable, it’s okay to show people what’s in your heart.”
Wonpil nods slowly. “Thank you. I appreciate you t--”
“--I’m not done.” Sungjin says, wiping his suddenly sweaty palms on his long, padded jacket. “What I’m trying to say is that my one regret is never telling you how I felt--how I feel --”
“--how do you feel?” Wonpil’s voice is soft, only slightly above a whisper now.
“I--I mean I have been, I am--”
“--Park Sungjin,” Wonpil says, grabbing Sungjin’s sleeve “Spit it out.”
“I love you. I’m in love with you.” Sungjin feels a huge surge of relief as the words escape his lips, as his biggest secret is finally out there, finally rising with the sun.
Wonpil’s hands come to his mouth as he lets out a gasp.
“Well,” Sungjin says, kicking at the sand. “Say something.”
Wonpil grins, then, deciding to do this his way, deciding to show how he feels in the way he knows how. He slips his hand into Sungjin’s intertwining their fingers before turning to face him. He bites back a smile as he uses his free hand t brush away Sungjin’s hair that’s blowing across his forehead. He cups Sungjin’s cheek, leans forward on his tiptoes and closes the space between them in a soft, tender kiss.
Sungjin doesn’t flinch, doesn’t brush him off, doesn’t avoid him--for once, Sungjin just lets himself melt into the contact, lets himself sigh into the kiss, licking softly into Wonpil’s mouth, savoring the taste, the smell, the feeling of Wonpil’s lips against his. He pulls Wonpil closer, arms encircling his waist. Wonpil lets his hands ruffle the soft hair on Sungjin’s nape, kissing him slow, kissing him like waiting for the sun to rise after the longest night: like if or when it finally showed itself, you would never take your eyes off of it again.
When they pull apart, neither of them can stop grinning.
“For the record,” Wonpil says. “That means I feel the same.”
"Okayyyy," Sungjin says slowly, squeezing Wonpil's hand. "Okay, good."