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"That's boring," Kihyun said, stabbing a piece of teriyaki chicken with his fork. "Overdone. Cliche. You can do better than that."
"We're boring," Minhyuk countered, capturing as many chunks of iceberg lettuce as he could before stuffing all of them in his mouth at once. "That's like... our thing. Being boring."
Kihyun sighed, shaking his head. "Dinner and a movie, though? For your third anniversary?"
"It's a play," Minhyuk protested.
"It's March Of The Falsettos," Kihyun said. "Wanna know how it ends?"
Minhyuk clapped his hands over his ears. "No spoilers! I can't hear you!"
"Just leave during the intermission, all right?" Kihyun dabbed primly at his mouth with the corner of a paper napkin. "Unless you feel like rocking Honey to sleep as he cries about the inherent unfairness of the universe."
"That's every night."
"Sorry, did I ask?"
It was friday, thank god, and sunny— chilly in the shade but warm in the sun, rubber coated mesh of the picnic tables heating up all morning to feel almost comfortable by noon. Outside the teriyaki joint down the block from their office the traffic wasn't too bad so they didn't have to shout to hear each other, which was just as well. They usually shouted at each other eventually, and it was hard to get louder when you started out pretty damn loud in the first place. It was efficiency, really.
Minhyuk tightened his grip on his fork. "I don't have to sit here and take this. You're the one who took your last tinder date birdwatching."
"Birdwatching is interesting and unusual."
"Birdwatching is for nerds and people who never want to have sex again."
"I have sex," Kihyun spluttered.
"Sorry," Minhyuk replied coolly, "did I ask?"
Kihyun reached forward and took a piece of Minhyuk's chicken, looking him right in the eye as he ate it. "You've barely touched your meat. Something wrong?"
"Nothing. My stomach hurts," Minhyuk replied, setting his fork down in lieu of jerking forward to stab the back of Kihyun's hand. It was a close thing, but he knew it was a bad idea in the long run. If he got arrested he wouldn’t be able to take Jooheon to dinner. "And my anniversary date is gonna be fantastic, so shut up."
"Your stomach hurts? What, are you nervous?" Kihyun goggled at him, choking a little on his bite of stolen chicken. "No. Are you—"
"No," Minhyuk interrupted. "I don't know what you were about to ask but judging by the look on your face the answer to your question is almost definitely no." He flipped the styrofoam clamshell container closed and stuffed it into a plastic bag. "I'm taking off early. See you Monday, all right?"
Kihyun dropped his fork. "Hey, you drove us here."
"Bummer," Minhyuk said, standing up and jingling his keys in the pocket of his slacks. "Guess you'll have to walk back." He glanced at his phone. "Better get going quick, it'll take at least fifteen minutes with those tiny legs of yours. Bye!"
"Bastard," Kihyun yelled after him. "The least you could do is warn me."
"Where's the fun in that?" Minhyuk called back over his shoulder. "Seeya later, I got places to meet and people to do."
—
Minhyuk lay on the bed, splayed out and happy. His stomach still hurt but maybe Kihyun was right (he shuddered at the thought) and he was just nervous for some reason. There was nothing special about today other than it being their anniversary, their third anniversary, but then again Jooheon always had managed to give him butterflies.
"How do I look?" Jooheon asked, staring down his reflection in the mirror as he smoothed down the front of his slacks. "I dunno, is the vest too much?"
"You look delicious," Minhyuk replied, drawling the words a little with a huge sigh of contentment. "Can't believe my luck. Those slacks look amazing on you, where did you get them?"
"Changkyun had me get them altered to fit," Jooheon said. "He's got a tailor he goes to to hem his pants, and— wait, you never answered about the vest."
"I love it." Minhyuk patted the quilt next to him. "Come over here, baby."
"We have a reservation for 6pm," Jooheon said, but he smiled as he said it and came over to sit on the edge of the mattress anyway. "You all right? You're normally all over me."
"Mm. I'm happy just watching for now. Saving up my energy for later."
"You always have energy," Jooheon replied, rolling his eyes. "It's the worst thing about you."
"No," Minhyuk cooed, grabbing Jooheon's upper arms and dragging him in close, "it's the best thing about me. My casual sadism is the worst thing about me. Get it right."
"Agree to disagree," Jooheon said, coughing out a rough-throated laugh as his hands fisted self-consciously in the smooth cotton of Minhyuk's button-up. "Hyung, we have a reservation—"
"Mhm." Minhyuk smiled, sliding both hands behind Jooheon's neck to pull him in even closer. "Wanna have a quickie?"
"How quick?"
"Not that quick." Minhyuk kissed Jooheon at the purse of his lips. "What do you take me for?"
"I was sort of thinking I'd take you later," Jooheon said, whispered really, eyes closing just enough for his eyelashes to thread together. "C'mon. Have a little pity. I finally finished getting dressed." Minhyuk pouted, and it was cute enough that Jooheon had to kiss the tip of his nose. "Later."
"Promise?"
"Scout's honor. Hurry up, I want to eat fancy expensive food that somebody else pays for."
"That's only fun for you; I'm the somebody else in this scenario." When Jooheon leaned back Minhyuk followed, peppering his cheeks with kisses. "Just kidding. I'd pay a million dollars to spend an evening with you."
"I'm not a prostitute," Jooheon said, disentangling himself from his boyfriend's suspiciously strong noodle arms. "And even if I was you'd still get it for free. Stand up! I'm not gonna lift you, hyung."
"Do, though," Minhyuk said, sticking his arms out expectantly, hands flopping on loose wrists. "I'm weak. My tummy hurts. I need assistance, preferably from a gorgeous boy with an ass that won't quit." He opened one eye. "You know anybody like that? Ow, fuck—"
"I'm gonna go on this date without you," Jooheon said, surreptitiously rubbing his hand. (Minhyuk's knees were so bony. It was a public hazard.)
"You've got good taste in men," Minhyuk replied, sitting up and scootching to the edge of the mattress. "Let's go on a date, baby. I'll date you, you can date you, it'll be great. A double date. A date and a half. A threesome without all the trouble of finding somebody on grindr who isn’t a serial killer."
"I love you," Jooheon said, nudging the side of Minhyuk's leg with one knee. "You're dumb and horrible."
"And employed," Minhyuk countered, standing up and offering his boyfriend a hand. "And sexy. And truly, madly, deeply—"
"No more 90's music references. We talked about this."
"That's Savage Garden. They're classic. Timeless. Chicka-cherry cola, Honey."
"Let's take separate cabs," Jooheon sighed.
—
Their uber driver was a college student named Ethan who was majoring in Architecture with a minor in Underwater Basket Weaving and was biding his time until graduation by driving strangers around in his mother's 2017 SUV. Possibly, Minhyuk could only assume, so that he had a few years of experience to get a job with uber again after getting out of school, when capitalism had finally destroyed modern civilization and only the strongest startups survived.
"What? I heard my name," Minhyuk said, blinking back to himself. "Sorry, I zoned out. What's up?"
"I was telling Ethan about Dambi," Jooheon said, giving him a funny look out of the corner of his eye. "What breed is she again?"
"I don’t remember," Minhyuk replied, sitting back against the leather seats and crossing his legs tight together. His guts hadn't stopped complaining and if anything it was worse now— more discomfort than pain, really, but coming dangerously close to the thin line separating the two— but he could stick it out. It was probably nothing.
"What?" Minhyuk said, blinking back to himself. His vision tunneled a little bit as he turned his head to look at his boyfriend, the edges crumbling into brittle shadow. "Sorry. Did you...?"
"I asked if you were okay," Jooheon said slowly, leaning over to put a worried hand on his leg. "You seem really out of it. Do you need to go back home?"
Minhyuk opened his mouth to reply but something twisted, turning up the thermostat, and he fell against the blessedly cool glass of the window. "Aren't you hot?" he groaned. "It's way too hot in here. Where's the window control?"
Ethan, bless his heart, glanced back via the rearview mirror, hipster brows knit together in woke concern. "You all right back there?"
"It's too hot," Minhyuk said. "Are you hot? I'm hot."
"It's not that hot," Jooheon said. "Hyung, you really don't look good, seriously—"
"I'm very attractive," Minhyuk said. "How dare you."
"There's a light here, I can pull a U turn—"
The car rolled to a stop at the red light, and Minhyuk took the opportunity to open his door, roll out onto the asphalt, and vomit in the middle of the street.
"—Oh my god," Ethan finished, yanking at the emergency brake and slapping his hazards on.
"Oh my god," Jooheon said, scrambling over the seat to reach Minhyuk's side. "Babe, holy shit, are you okay?"
The whole world swayed back and forth like a boat in a cartoon, so strange and exaggerated that he almost expected the cars on the street to roll from one end to the other, but he had a horrible suspicion that the only thing swaying was his perception of reality. At first this seemed like a good thing, because if he was disconnected from reality that meant that his stomach would stop hurting, but then he realized that his stomach actually did still hurt and reality, while slightly loose, was still inextricably and tragically bound to him.
Minhyuk looked down at his hands, the speckles of gravel and dust stuck into his skinned palms. They seemed very clear in that moment, even when nothing else was. "I think," Minhyuk said, "that I might be dying."
Somewhere above and behind him he heard Jooheon's voice, saying, "Hey, Ethan, can we change our destination?"
"Emergency room?"
"Emergency room." Cool hands on his forehead. "Jesus, Min. You're burning up."
"Told you I was hot," Minhyuk mumbled wetly, and passed out.
—
“An Asian guy,” Jooheon said for what he was pretty sure was the millionth goddamn time, “he’s a little taller than me, he was wearing a suit when he came in to the ER, he’s got blond hair…”
“How do you spell his name again? M…?” The receptionist pushed his glasses up his nose and clicked his tongue, reaching up to hand Jooheon and pen and a stack of sticky notes. “Just write it down. Clearly,” he added. “In English.”
“In English,” Jooheon muttered under his breath. He felt the terrible urge to use several dozen sticky notes to write a letter of complaint about discriminatory behavior exhibited by the hospital administrative staff, in full formal Korean complete with hanja, but he didn’t have time to sit down with his Korean-English dictionary app just to prove a point. “Minhyuk Lee. I came in with him a few hours ago with a high fever and vomiting and they took him back while I was filling out the paperwork and now—” He took a breath and raked both hands back through his hair. “Now I don’t know where he is.”
The receptionist scrolled through a long, long list. “Post-op,” he said finally.
“Post-op?” Jooheon blinked. “They operated on my boyfriend? We just got here!”
“It just says post-op,” the guy behind the desk said, shrugging. Jooheon pledged to curse his name later, provided he could remember it. “You can try the desk up there but visiting hours are over.”
Jooheon closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said a few seconds later, after having counted to ten. “What floor is it?”
“The fourth floor,” the receptionist replied.
“Oh good,” Jooheon said. “Thank you so much for everything, you’ve been really helpful.”
The receptionist put a hand to his chest, looking touched. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Couldn’t imagine why,” Jooheon said, making for the elevators.
—
It wasn’t the worst thing, having his boyfriend apparently recovering from surgery on the Floor of Sino-Korean Death, but pressing the big number 4 button in the elevator made him think about his grandmother and what she’d say about all this western nonsense. The floor itself wasn’t that bad, in the way any hospital floor can be deemed “not that bad,” and he only got lost twice looking for a nursing station.
He turned the corner and three nurses turned to look at him at once. “Hi,” he said, stumbling a little. “I’m looking for Minhyuk Lee.”
“What’s your nickname?” said one of the nurses. She looked like she was very much in charge, if not in rank then at the very least in fear.
Jooheon froze. “Honey?” he said back.
All three nurses visibly relaxed. “He asked for you on the way in to surgery but nobody knew who he meant. We tried to get your number but he just kept saying you were an 11.” The bossy one stood up, pulling a folder from a tray next to her computer monitor. “Appendicitis. They got it out before it ruptured. He’ll be fine, but they put the patient under general anaesthesia for laparoscopic appendectomies so he’ll still be pretty out of it for a little while.”
“Lapra skoppick,” Jooheon echoed back. Wasn’t that a pokemon? “Can I see him?”
—
Even in a hospital bed Minhyuk still managed to look vibrant, bright blond hair spread out over the light blue cotton pillowcase like the rays of the sun in the sky of a child's crayon drawing. He looked pale, or bloodless anyway— there were shadows under his eyes that Jooheon hadn't noticed earlier that day, cheeks hollow and lips tight and straight. But vibrant. Alive. Asleep, but asleep in the way a spring slowly twisted into tension lies in wait.
Jooheon pulled up a chair, lifting it up and then setting it down to make as little noise as possible, and then sat down. Minhyuk's suit was hanging on a hook next to the bathroom door and they'd actually thought to fold it nicely, which Jooheon found oddly comforting. Even in an emergency there was somebody keeping things tidy. (Heroism is all well and good, his mother had said to him once, but somebody's still got to sweep up.)
"Happy anniversary," he said into the quiet, and then laughed because— god, what else was there to do? It wasn't tragic enough to cry about, just a missed dinner reservation and a trip to the ER with a happy ending. He and Minhyuk had gone on a lot of dates over the last three years but this one might have been the most representative of their relationship out of all of them. The only way it could be more accurate was if it was Jooheon in the hospital bed.
Minhyuk sucked in a long, deep breath before finally opening his eyes just a crack. "Hey there, handsome," he croaked.
"Hello," Jooheon said back. "How are you feeling?"
"Are you the doctor?" Minhyuk asked.
Oh god. Please. No. "No, I’m not the doctor," Jooheon said. "My name is Jooheon. I'm your boyfriend."
Minhyuk picked up his head, neck wobbling, and stared at him. "I'm gay?" he asked.
"At least a little, yeah."
"And you're my boyfriend?"
Jooheon tried not to slide down too far in the chair. "You don't have to sound so shocked."
"Wow," Minhyuk sighed, letting his head fall back against the pillow. "Are you for real? You're my boyfriend?" He looked down. He looked up. Then he looked Down again. "Wow. I'm so gay. You're so hot."
"Uh—"
"For real?" Minhyuk hummed, eyelids heavy with an odd sort of excited contentment. "Do we kiss?"
"Yeah, we kiss."
"God," Minhyuk groaned. "I'm so gay. You're the most gorgeous man I've ever seen in my whole life. How did I get you to date me?"
"You asked," Jooheon said. He was beginning to realize that he probably could have played a lot harder to get.
Minhyuk stared at the ceiling, dazed. "We’re dating,” he rasped. “For how long?"
"Three years today." Jooheon glanced up at the clock. "Yesterday. Three years yesterday."
"Well hot damn. I’m the luckiest man on earth. Buy me a lottery ticket," Minhyuk said. He shifted a little, adjusting over to one side of the mattress before patting the empty space he’d left behind. “If we’re so in love you can come over here and prove it.”
“I never said we were in love,” Jooheon said, standing up.
“I dunno if you are,” Minhyuk countered, and patted the bed again. “I’m definitely in love with you. That or terrified, but I don’t remember being the kind of person who gets aroused by fear.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Jooheon sat down on the edge of the mattress, shifting around so that he could lie down without crushing anything and still keep his shoes off the bed. “So you love me, huh?”
“Of course I do,” Minhyuk said, laying his head on Jooheon’s shoulder. He flopped one hand over onto Jooheon’s leg, palm up in invitation. “Happy anniversary.”
—
"So let me get this straight," Kihyun said, setting down his sandwich meaningfully. "Your anniversary date started by catching an uber, then you threw up in the street, then you went to the hospital, and the night ended with you in a hospital bed?" He whistled. "I told you to leave during the intermission. It's March Of The Falsettos, man."
Minhyuk rolled his eyes. He'd been out all last week recovering from surgery and his cubicle neighbor had been dying to ask what the hell happened on his anniversary that had him out on medical leave that long. He'd demanded every last detail, which Minhyuk didn't actually mind because he loved talking, but he needed to act annoyed just to keep up appearances. He had a reputation to uphold. "We didn't make it to the play," he said. "So I still don't know what you're talking about."
"It's Broadway," Kihyun replied authoritatively. "Somebody's gotta die at the end or nobody's getting a Tony."
"Well thank goodness the person writing my life prefers romcoms over Broadway," Minhyuk said, "because otherwise it sounds like I'd be in pretty big trouble."