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“Bangtan is coming to Japan for a two-day concert in Yokohama-domo!!”
Someone properly screams those words in the middle of the bustling street. But is too noisy, too crowded, to actually know the direction it came from. It also was in a mix of Japanese and Korean, so maybe it wouldn't be of any help.
Or so he lies to himself.
Standing at the corner of the first plaza he found, a group of girls chit chatting eagerly in another language at his side and people coming and going barely sparing a few glances to him, Donghan feels lost. Maybe some part of him is realizing that besides the excitement, something else is churning and twisting inside him. Something thick, dense that press his chest in all the wrong ways. He hasn’t felt this ways since he left Daegu for Seoul, comfort for dreams.
A voice at the back of his head that suspiciously sounds like Taehyun’s tells him that is partially his own fault. He was the one who booked a flight and launched himself to another country without knowing a single word beside arigatou, sayonara, konnichiwa, ai shiteru.
Donghan grunts and tsks and grunts again.
He may be in trouble, but there’s nothing that food can't solve.
He spots a café far behind the Hachiko statue, the usual cutesy type he’d seen in a few animes and once in uptown Seoul. But it has pastries, coffee and WiFi connection plus a lot of girls clients, so maybe he'll find an Army over there. Or at least he will be able to search for the right route to the Arena in GMaps and bitch over texts to Taehyun.
A smooth pop tune mixed along with the sugary scent of the cupcakes’ butter cream welcome him. The girl behind the register machine has a nice polite smile, quickly tinted with confusion when he fails to ask for a beverage.
“English?” she suggests and he is dumb enough to say oh, yes in Korean. Then he tries to correct himself but seems useless. The girl nods without losing the smile but turns away and shouts something to the back. Donghan doesn't know what the hell is happening. He's not that bad at English, really. Maybe he's not at Taehyun or Hyunbin’s level, but his English is fine. Unlike his Japanese, clearly.
From the back door, the one that connects the store with the kitchen maybe, comes out a guy. A skinny lanky guy not much younger than Donghan, wearing a blue apron dusted with some flour and fine glasses. The two employees talk a little bit before he turns around to face him with a big blinding smile.
“What would you like to drink?” the guy asks, voice high and chirpy. And Donghan is lost for a second in his cute face. Nothing extraordinary, not your typical Japanese face either, and yet. He can't find his words, his English.
Oh, man. Thanks God Taehyun’s not here. He would have laughed so much at his usually witty dongsaeng standing still and short-circuiting.
The guy waits patiently until Donghan finally reacts. “Latte, please, and, uh,” he mumbles and points at the chocolate cake in the counter. He’ll need loads of chocolate to survive this embarrassment.
The smooth pop tune has changed into a more hyper cutesy song when he sits in a small table near the receiver. It somehow reminds him of Twice and Red Velvet and the guy that took his order, the same one that sings under his breath while standing in front of the coffee machine. Donghan’s not really sure if he’s a cook, a barista or a waiter but he doesn’t complain when the guy approaches him minutes later.
“Here’s your order,” he says while leaving above the table a big portion of cake, filled with a lot of overly sugary cream and big strawberries. It’s not the one Donghan chose, but he couldn’t care less. Not when it’s food and looks delicious, even less when he realizes that the cute guy isn’t speaking in Japanese nor English. “And here’s your coff—coffee,” he adds and places a cup filled with the dark liquid until almost the brim and with a weird yet cute drawing done with the cream.
It looks like a face, something like a hippo or a cow or—Donghan’s not sure, but it’s endearing.
Maybe his expression doesn’t show it, maybe he seems puzzled or even disgusted, because the guy hurries himself to explain. “I did it! It’s a… ah. It’s because you look like that cartoon. You know, Moomin? The big eyes and the… cheeks?” He does some vague motions with his hands to point out his own reddening cheeks. The employee’s embarrassed. Even more than Donghan himself, but he looks cute. “Ah, maybe I didn’t do it right, I’m really sorry, sir.”
That snaps Donghan out of his mind. “Oh, no, no! It’s fine! I think I do resemble it?”
The employee smiles, relaxed. “Enjoy your food.”
Donghan totally forgets about the WiFi password.
A good half an hour has passed by and the delicious looking cake has been destroyed and reduced to mere crumbles and some whipped cream by the time the employee comes back to the table. He sports the same relaxed smile and the same blue apron, now flour dusted free.
“Everything’s OK?” he asks. The accent is heavy, even in those few words. Even when one it’s in English.
“Yeah, thank you, yes,” Donghan answers and then stumbles over his own words to stop the employee from leaving. “Actually, can you help me with something?”
The guy nods with all the eagerness of a cute puppy.
“Yokohama, huh. How do I get there? Do I have to go to Tokyo’s central station?”
“You’re going to Yokohama?” the guy immediately asks, almost cutting Donghan off. “Nice! I always wanted to go!”
Donghan is utterly captivated by his happy easy-going demeanour, maybe the first time he sees it since he arrived in the country, but he’s also kind of disappointed. By the employee’s words he can tell he never went to Yokohama.
“So you don’t know how to go?”
The guy shakes his head vehemently. “I do, I do! Just, you have to, ah…” he mutters. A feminine voice says something from the kitchen, something that Donghan is late to realize as a name. A Takada-kun. And the guy responds in Japanese, something that surely is along the line of coming. “You know, my shift ends in like half an hour. If you want I can take you there? Just to Yokohama, I swear!”
Even if he stammers and looks flustered, the guy’s weirdly polite and—let’s just be honest, Donghan says yes in a heartbeat.
At three o’clock, the pop music nearly completely drowns the soft steps. If it weren’t for the anxiousness and the boredom that kept Donghan glancing around, he’ll have missed Takada-kun’s lanky self and embarrassed smile as he was getting near to the table. Without the blue apron and the plain white shirt, he looks a little bit different. A lot livelier, younger even.
The purple plaid shirt and the grey coat hangs from his shoulders and engulfs his skinny frame and the beret accentuates the soft curls of light brown hair.
“Let’s go?” he asks, still a little bit insecure.
Donghan doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah, yeah,” and he stands up. “I’m Kim Donghan, by the way,” he says nonchalantly as he opens the door and they’re hit by the chilly fall air.
“Takada Kenta.”
He’s about to say thanks for the help, but what escapes from his mouth is a “Nice to meet you, Takada-san.”
And the guy laughs. Loudly. “Just call me Kenta, Donghan-ssi.”
Donghan tastes the name in his tongue. It’s kind of tough and yet sweet. So sweet, like caramel latte. And it rolls off his tongue easily.
They slide into the busy streets of Shibuya with some difficulty, walking side by side and being blinded again by the afternoon sun and the luminous signs. It’s hard to maintain a nice talk when they’re concentrated in not being pushed back by the growing crowd. But they try anyways. Kenta sticks by his side and talks about having to take the Shinkansen to Osaka, but they’ll get down in Shin-Yokohama and a lot of gibberish that Donghan tries really hard to understand.
“This place… is big,” Donghan comments, awed at the size of the streets and hundreds of people waiting for the traffic lights to turn red.
“I know, right?” Kenta laughs, bright and bubbly. “It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been here, these streets, this intersection, still overwhelms me. It’s crazy. And it’s fun!” Yeah, Donghan can understand him. Born and raised in a big city, he’d grown to like the noise and the chaos. But when he moved from Daegu to Seoul, he just loved it. He got called a fucking transplant once or twice, but he learnt to tolerate every aspect of the big big city. For some reason, Kenta speaks like he’d lived something similar too. “You know? They say that if you stand here, at the Shibuya crossing long enough you’ll eventually see everyone you know. Well, not…ah, it’s red.”
People start to walk pass them, slightly bumping into their shoulders and pushing them into motion. Everyone walks quickly, without clear directions. Or that’s Donghan’s impression in front of such organized chaos.
Soon, without realizing it, they slow down the pace and fall into step together.
“Why are you going to Yokohama?” Kenta asks somewhere between an Etude House and a Comme des Garçons pop-up store.
They entered a big shopping mall because Have you go to Shibuya109? You can’t say you’ve been in Tokyo if you haven’t. And Donghan’s okay with that, he isn’t in a hurry yet. Apparently window shopping is a hobby they both share, but where Donghan looks for monochromatic outfits, Kenta points at colourful ones and try to say its names in broken Korean. It's weird and endearing the way he's so smooth at some phrases but fails at basic words.
He pushes Kenta over to the changing room with an expensive looking jacket in his hand and makes him trying it on, while he's carrying a pair of washed jeans on his own. Kenta refuses with I'm not buying it, I don't have that much money! And Donghan laughs loudly because he doesn’t either. But that’s the fun, Kenta-ssi. Kenta looks at him incredulously for a moment, then reluctantly agrees. The jacket is big, more adequate for Donghan’s shoulders, yet it worths every yen on Kenta.
“Huh? Bangtan is having a two days concert and I got my ticket for tomorrow…”
Kenta starts laughing out loud almost like a hyena and gets some unwanted attention from passer-byes. Little tears start to roll down his cheeks and his beret is about to fall down. Donghan is just puzzled at such reaction. “So you're another k-pop fan. I thought you'll be some kind of rookie model.”
“What? Why?”
“Well, you know…” Kenta splutters and looks at him from head to toes. Maybe he's a little flustered, maybe both of them are.
“Well, I'm not. Hyunbin is the model, I'm just a college student.”
It dawns in him a little too late that the other guy doesn’t know who Hyunbin is. It isn’t hard for Donghan to get comfortable around other people, but never this comfortable around a stranger that he met less than an hour ago.
“Yeah? Me too!” Kenta’s expression brightens, like if it were a rare thing for young people to be. “Design school, and you?”
“Politics.”
“Like government and blue house? Woah, unexpected.”
Donghan shrugs, still a little bit hesitant. “If you want to change the system you have to start somewhere.”
“Yeah, I guess. I’d rather change the curtains. But it's great and admirable, really,” Kenta reassures him.
“Yeah, I guess,” Donghan repeats. “That's what bangtan taught me at least. Why I liked them. That and those mother fuckings choreographies.”
Kenta nods. Doesn’t seem like he’s being condescend or making fun of him. The opposite. He listens well and reacts even better.
It’s really so easy to be around him.
“What did you mean by ‘another kpop fan’?” Donghan asks once they reach the outskirts of Shibuya. The big shoppings and LED screens giving way to smaller restaurants and office buildings.
“How do you think I learnt Korean?” Kenta laughs, a little embarrassed. “Teen Top and SHINee biased. I don't have a big deep reason behind though. I just like them.”
“No reason is OK too.”
No reason led them to meet.
Sunlight starts to dim when they reach Chiyoda City. There’s the Tokyo Station and it’s so impressive that halts Donghan for a second. Nothing like the surroundings big grey skyscrapers, the Station has this warm European feel with lots of windows, columns and a magnificent dome on top.
“You were saying?” Kenta comments after a moment, a little proud smile dancing in his lips. It strikes him the thought that Kenta is less than an amicable stranger doing him a favour and more like a friend giving him a tour around the city.
“Ah, yeah. As I was saying, I wouldn't be in this issue if those fuckers had come with me. But nooo, Taehyun had to have some important exam and Hyunbin preferred to do some model gig in some town of mainland China, not even Hong Kong or Beijing! And then he stayed there annoying some poor dude into being his boyfriend,” Donghan goes on, showing the message he received a week ago from his friend. Objectively, is a nice message. An artistic picture of Hyunbin back-hugging a good looking guy with an unusual expression between blank and inciting, followed by a Sorry Hodu, he won me over. “Those two… they know Japanese, they know I don't know Japanese, and yet they broke my kokoro and left me alone. Fuckers.”
Kenta blinks, confused. “Fuckers?”
“Ah, yeah, that’s how we call our friends older than us. Totally formal.”
“That means I’m your fucker?”
Donghan bites his lips, holding back a laugh. And maybe something else.
“No, of course not… wait, you’re older than me?”
No way. The guy standing in front of the railway isn’t tall nor short, but his cheeks are still round and he barely looks older than nineteen.
“I think so. How old are you?” Kenta inquiries while he searches for something in his pockets.
“Twenty-two.”
Kenta’s lips curls up in a smug smile as he holds his ID in front of Donghan’s eyes. “Ha! 95-liner! You should call me fucker.”
He can’t believe it.
He knows that looks can be deceiving. After all Taehyun looks like an overgrown toddler from the back, but. But.
Kanjis that Donghan can’t understand are written all over the place in the small card yet the numbers are the same in almost every language. 10 01 1995 is written right next to an unflattering photo of the man at his side.
“See? Me, fucker.”
Donghan rolls his eyes and bites down his lip. “I’d rather call you hyung.”
At some point of the train ride, Donghan stays still, his stare fixed in Kenta's sweet smile showered by the warm last rays of sunshine. It's a peaceful smile, a little crooked and almost too big for someone who hasn't (strangely) been talking in the last few minutes.
Kenta doesn’t avert his eyes. “It's real, you know,” he says, filled with some kind of pride, and shows his snaggletooth.
Donghan blinks and blurts something along the line of why wouldn't it be?
Kenta laughs. “Right, Koreans and your perfection. Here the fashion is to highlight your imperfections. That makes us unique and beautiful.”
Donghan can see it. “It looks cute on you.”
“I know.”
Guided by GMaps, they do the short walk from the Shin-Yokohoma Station to the Arena. They take their time sightseeing the city the most they can and sometimes seems like is Kenta the one who’s a tourist. His eyes go round and he goes woah at signs that Donghan doesn’t understand. Kenta tries to explain most of them, but true to himself Donghan barely and only gets when is about food places.
A long line of girls is already formed outside the stadium with huge banners, masks and comfy blankets. Some of them look curious, others bored out of their minds, but most are truly and extremely excited. Donghan’s insides churn with a similar feeling.
“So, here we are,” Kenta announces. There’s an emotion hidden behind his high happy voice that Donghan isn’t capable of pinpoint. “Are you going to camp?”
It takes him a moment to process the question, glancing around and at Kenta’s expectant expression for it to click.
“No? I bought a numbered ticket.” The idea was to crash in any cheap hotel nearby.
“But to camp is half of the fun! Tsk. You don't seem that much of a fanboy right now.”
“I'll do it later,” Donghan reassures him with a smile. He can’t also help a quick hug, just a squeeze in the shoulders that is against all etiquette. The other guy is a stranger. But he’s already his hyung too and. I don't want to break away yet.
Kenta smiles back. “I'll do it with you then. Tomorrow is my free day after all, so you can catch me up in all your BTS’ fan things.”
“The name's ARMY, hyung,” Donghan laughs and grabs his hand. He wants to ask are you sure? He doesn’t do it though, he longs even more for Kenta to stay.
“Yeah, yeah, that. You can catch me up over dinner? I think I saw a nice restaurant a block away.”
Magic words. Donghan’s eyes lit up and his insides warm up even as the night falls down with its cold air. This lead to known territory, to insolent teasing and cheeky talks.
“Are you inviting, hyung?”
Kenta gasps dramatically and then pouts. Is cute. Overly cute. He’s about to coo, but food is in the way and pouting is battle for two.
“Fine,” Kenta admits defeat. “I guess I should play host after all.”
Donghan hugs him again in victory. He can feel the warm skin of the guy’s neck heating up under his fingers and the awkward giggling ringing in his ear. When he pulls apart, Kenta avoids his eyes and pushes him lightly in direction to a nice familiar restaurant.
His broken Korean gets amazingly sharp when he complains about Donghan milking him dry, but he orders for takoyaki and sukiyaki and oh, you should totally try natto.
The night is harsh with the campers. Biting cold and noisy, the bright city lights keep them awake. They have on-and-off talks about idol groups, performers, food, school life, culture differences. Jumping from one topic to the other, sometimes excited, sometimes drowsily. Even if Kenta ran to the nearer convenience store earlier for hot packs and Japanese snacks, at some point of the night it isn’t enough and they end up hugging each other. Kenta laughs a little bit ashamed and Donghan bites down his smile as he coerces the other guy to hide his frozen face against his chest.
Finally the fall asleep like that: small head fitting perfectly against his neck.
In the morning Donghan tries to buy one latte and maybe one caramel machiatto, but gives up when he doesn’t find any decent coffee shop so he just takes some canned coffee from a vending machine. As he goes back to the spot where he left Kenta before, he sees the later chatting animatedly with the other fans in the line. The girls coo when Donghan says a shy konnichiwa and answer him with broken Korean. Then they coo even more when Donghan gives Kenta his coffee.
Donghan has mixed feeling about not understanding a single phrase in Japanese when he notices the red blush creeping up Kenta’s neck and ears.
Somewhere near the midday Kenta asks the girl behind them to save their places while they go for something to eat. A lot less fancy than last night dinner are the two cups of instant ramen that Kenta buys from the same store he got the hot packs. And yet Donghan couldn’t ask for a better lunch.
He smirks. “Ramen and go, hyung?”
Kenta splutters and hits him in the same place he laid his head earlier, neck and ears flushed.
At 7 p.m., Donghan enters the arena. “Enjoy!” Kenta screams at the door.
At 11 p.m. Donghan leaves the stadium. In the middle of the sea of people, he feels disoriented. Even with the euphoria and post-show glow, something is missing.
That’s it until someone doesn’t bump into him in the exit, but tugs his arm.
“What are you doing still here?” Donghan blurts and the other guy shrugs.
He can’t help but laugh loudly and envelop Kenta in a bone crushing hug.
Sadly, they have to go back to Tokyo right away. Kenta needs to shower before his shift at the café, Donghan has a flight to take early morning. The train ride back seems even faster than the first time. Donghan retells the concert in every detail and Kenta listens well. The way he nods along and how he stops him to ask to repeat what he just said again in a slower and clearer pace and the way he just does the right reactions it’s genuine. It’s really genuine and sincere and maybe, just maybe Donghan is beginning to finally realize.
Everything is rushed, the city lights behind the window glass all blurred altogether but Kenta is the only thing constant in front of him.
“I don't want to go back,” he confesses once they reach Tokyo Station. He almost expects for a then don't. But.
“Why do you think we travel, Donghan-kun? Because it's fun? To find something important, someone important?” Kenta says instead. He doesn’t avoid his eyes, he doesn’t look right at him either. Donghan shrugs timidly, internally rejoicing on how the Donghan-kun sounded. “But what happens when you find it, when it's no longer just fun? We go back?”
“It's not the same. Home is neither the same.”
Kenta frowns, pensive. “But it's home, huh?”
Donghan nudges him in direction to one of the food courts. He claims he won’t leave the Tokyo Station without tasting everything in Kitchen Street at least once. He only buys two overpriced milk green tea and strawberry milk tea in the end.
“Are you coming to Seoul sometime, hyung?” he asks as they wander around Gransta, between the big department stores and the stand of cute Pokémon keychains.
Pikachu swings under his fingers before he gets an answer. “Maybe, probably. I hope so,” Kenta mutters, then he shows Donghan a cute Moomin plushie. “And you? Will you visit me here, in Tokyo?”
“I hope so.”
Reluctantly, their steps take them closer and closer to the bus stop. They’ve been killing the last hours of the night inside the Station and in the outskirts, doing some more window shopping and taking lots of pictures of everything—architecture, toys, expensive food, aesthetics, themselves. Some will go to Donghan’s instragram, some will be saved in his heart.
“Let's exchange katalks, hyung.”
Kenta shakes his head. “Let's not. I'm not that confident in my Korean.”
“I won't make fun of you. I swear. At least never in that subject.” Donghan assures him and lifts his pinky finger. He receives a cautious look that barely last a second before is changed by an adorable eye smile. Kenta giggles and sways his pinky away, still Donghan holds it vehemently. “I think I like you, hyung.”
“Yeah, you are nice too.” Kenta tries to sway his hand away again. “Sometimes.”
In a quick move, Donghan grabs his hand. Small cold fingers burn against his palm, yet Donghan feels like he couldn’t, he shouldn’t drop it. He clutches it more firmly instead.
“No, hyung. I like you. Like of possibly ai shiteru like you.”
The expression in Kenta’s face is of utter surprise. Bug eyed, mouth wide open, trembling jaw.
“Yeah?” is whispered through fine lips.
“Yeah. No big deep reason behind though.” He’s not sure if that’s true or a blatant lie, but it makes Kenta laugh. It makes Kenta laugh and laugh like a hyena and then hug him tightly. Hug him like he fears he will lose him if he doesn’t.
Like if the airplane isn’t going to take him away in few hours.
He's in the middle of the bustling streets of Shibuya, standing right in front of the famous crossroad and waiting. Waiting for the traffic lights to turn green, waiting for the people to stop bumping into him and cursing him, just waiting. It’s his fourth time there trying his luck, looking around for something that call his attention.
If there’s a thing that his friends (or Taehyun mostly) complain about him is his stubbornness. He won’t give up until—
--until some strawberry blond curls almost hidden by a white beret stand out of the crowd. Donghan cranes his neck to see better at lanky dude wearing loud colours and fine glasses.
Without thinking it twice, he starts running in his direction as he shouts “Kenta hyung! Kenta hyung!” at the top of his lungs.
The dude turns his head back, curiosity and confusion mixed together in his gaze. Soon it changes into surprise as he gasps.
“Donghan? You're in Tokyo?” he asks almost stupidly and Donghan is tempted to be as sassy and sarcastic as he can. “Why didn't you tell me?”
It takes him a few seconds to recover and normalize his breathing. Also to take in the reality: Kenta is in front of him, as cute and pretty as he was last year. Even more. “I looked for you at the café.”
Kenta frowns and hits him in the arm. “I told you I have my own studio now! I posted it in Instagram! Why would I be there... Never mind. What are you doing here?” he questions, disbelief still gripped around his words.
Donghan grins so hard his cheeks hurt.
“I asked for a scholarship.”
People start to bump into them again when another red light strikes, but he doesn’t really care. Not when Kenta is in front of him, blinking cutely and hitting him without real strength. “Why didn't you tell me?” He asks again loudly.
“Surprise?” Donghan says as only explanation. There’s so many emotions, so many thoughts, so many wishes bubbling inside him that he goes blank for a second. It’s not like he didn’t practice this right moment a hundred times in his head. But there with Kenta cheerful demeanour and charming face and all his hopes up, his Korean fails him. And his English and Japanese are less than helpful. So he follows his impulse and reaches for Kenta’s hand. “You know, hyung? They say that if you stand in the middle of Shibuya long enough you'll see every person you know at least once. I just was looking for the most important one.”
He’s staring so intensely that he can notice the way Kenta’s pupils shake, the way his cheeks redden and the way his lips curls up in a big bright smile where the snaggletooth pokes out.
Shibuya is a blur around him, around them, and the only constants are Kenta and the loud beating of his own heart.
“Yeah? More than bangtan?”
“Don't push too much,” Donghan grunts before kissing him, right in the lips, with an enthusiasm that means otherwise.