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My dragonfly,
my black-eyed fire, the knives in the kitchen are singing
for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw,
and this is the map of my heart, the landscape
after cruelty which is, of course, a garden, which is
a tenderness, which is a room, a lover saying Hold me
tight, it's getting cold.
from Snow and Dirty Rain, by Richard Siken
--
The knock on his door comes at exactly 6pm, like last year, like always.
Jaeshin rubs a hand over his eyes, through his tangled hair. He glances at the bottle of painkillers on his coffee table, the dirty dishes in the sink, and briefly wonders if he should’ve cleaned up a little, if he should’ve pretended he’s doing fine. The thought makes him huff out a small laugh. He could never fool the person behind the door, anyway.
There’s another obnoxiously loud knock. “Moon Jaeshin, if you’re thinking of not letting me in, I’ll have you know I come bearing alcohol!”
Jaeshin opens the door, revealing what he can only describe as a human equivalent of a Christmas tree. “Sorry, I didn’t order a tree. Just hand over the booze and go,” he says, faux serious, holding out his hands.
“Sticks and stones might break my bones but words will hurt forever, Moon Jaeshin,” says the human Christmas tree with an exaggerated pout, slapping away Jaeshin’s hands. “My fashion sense is second to none, and you love me.”
One of those statements is true, the other is debatable at best. Jaeshin admits neither of them out loud. “Okay,” he says instead, stepping aside to let his guest in. “You know you do have a key, right? Or has the great Goo Yongha finally been defeated by a lock?”
Yongha grins, stepping in, shaking the snow off his shoulders. Some of it lands on Jaeshin’s bare feet, sending shivers up his legs. “No, but the great Moon Jaeshin needs a reason to get out of bed or off the couch.”
“Ouch,” Jaeshin says. It doesn’t really hurt. They both know it’s true. There’s no point in pretending Yongha hasn’t kept him sane ever since they were teenagers, ever since that winter day Jaeshin wore a suit and watched quietly as his heart was lowered into the cold ground.
“You’re thinking,” Yongha says, his voice softer now. “How bad is it this year?”
Jaeshin shrugs. He’s always been quiet – bad at voicing his thoughts, better at pouring his anger into street fights or downing his frustration with a bottle of soju – but this is Yongha. Goo Yongha, standing in his doorway, looking at him, dressed in a ridiculous faux fur coat and a lumpy scarf that has to be at least three metres long. “Pretty bad. I didn’t sleep.”
Yongha pulls the door closed behind him. “Alright. Well,” he grins again, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Worry not, old friend, I guarantee a whole evening of Running Man reruns and raspberry soju will have you snoring in no time. Though I understand it’s hard to sleep when you’re surrounded by my radiance.” Yongha hands Jaeshin his coat and scarf, places his shoes neatly next to all of Jaeshin’s scattered ones, and marches into the kitchen, swinging a massive tote bag back and forth. “Yoonhee sent you some homemade kimchijeon, by the way, I guess it’s her and Seonjoon’s way of apologizing for flaking, the traitors, I swear, you can never trust the straights, meeting the in-laws for Christmas dinner, gross, so domestic.” Yongha puts his bag down and gets started on the dirty dishes. “Oh, and Yoonhee even asked me to help her buy a dress for the dinner! Our Yoonhee! A dress! I swear, it’s disgusting, those two, I can feel my teeth rotting…”
Yongha keeps talking, making overly dramatic hand gestures, filling Jaeshin in on all the gossip while washing a whole week’s worth of dishes. Jaeshin sits at the kitchen table, listening, making an affirmative noise here and there.
He wonders if anyone invited Yongha over for Christmas dinner.
--
Sometimes Jaeshin thinks maybe they only stay with each other because they have nobody else.
Jaeshin doesn’t remember too much about his brother’s funeral – apart from the suit that was too big on him, the framed picture of his hyung, and the weatherman on TV saying it was the coldest December day in years – but he does remember showing up at Yongha’s door afterwards, shaking and gasping for air, and letting Yongha hold him until he stopped screaming.
After that it’s just been the two of them, most of the time. Seonjoon and Yoonhee join them sometimes, for drinks or an impromptu Lord of the Rings marathon. (Seonjoon called them double dates once but Yoonhee elbowed him in the ribs so hard he never brought it up again. Jaeshin pretended he didn’t hear anything. Yongha made a weird face Jaeshin couldn’t quite read, before downing another glass of soju and laughing like always.)
In many ways this little group of friends is more of a family to Jaeshin than his father has ever been. Jaeshin’s father thinks he’s too much – and not enough – like his brother. There is love only for ghosts, in his father’s house; ghosts of people long gone, and the ghost of someone he wishes Jaeshin could be.
Yongha’s family isn’t much better. He’s the only child of a woman who left, and a man with high expectations and a short temper. He still has a scar above his eyebrow from the last time he spent Christmas with his father. That was years ago. Jaeshin remembers the blood and the black eye, remembers running his thumb over the stitches as they healed. He remembers Yongha’s eyes shining when he swore he’d never go back.
It was an unspoken promise, then, that they’d always spend the holidays together, far from disappointed fathers and dusty old houses.
--
Somehow they manage to avoid talking about family for a while.
It’s not until later that Yongha brings it up. They’re sitting on Jaeshin’s small couch, thighs and arms brushing every now and then, Running Man on Netflix and glasses of raspberry soju in their hands. Jaeshin’s painkillers are still on the coffee table, but there’s a plate of Yoonhee’s homemade kimchijeon next to them now.
“So,” Yongha says, “did your dad text you or anything?”
Jaeshin snorts, gripping his glass a little tighter. “Why? To say merry Christmas to the son he wishes had died? Not likely.”
To someone else Jaeshin’s words might sound cold and unnecessarily cruel, but Yongha just nods, smiles at him, soft, like he did on the day of hyung’s funeral. He knows sometimes Jaeshin shares the wish of his father, too. “I guess not.”
“Did yours?” Jaeshin asks, though he knows the answer.
Yongha gives him a mirthless grin. “Mine? Why? To say merry Christmas to his, and I quote, disgraceful faggot of a son? Not likely.”
Jaeshin wants to say something stupid, like there’s not a single disgraceful thing about you and your dad is a complete dick and you are the most beautiful person I know, but he hasn’t drunk enough soju for any of those things, so instead he just raises his glass and says, “to asshole fathers.”
Yongha clinks their glasses together. “To asshole fathers and disappointing sons.” There’s a moment of silence as they drink. Then Yongha puts his glass down, leaning a bit more into Jaeshin’s space, and asks, “do you miss him a lot?”
Jaeshin’s stomach turns. “My dad? I don’t—“
“Jaeshin. You know who I mean.” Yongha grabs Jaeshin’s glass and puts it down, too. “Look at me. You know you can talk about him if you want to, right? I remember him, too. He was a good person, Jaeshin. You’re a good person, too.”
Jaeshin squeezes his eyes shut. “Yongha—“
“I mean,” Yongha says, “you don’t have to. But you can. Or you can cry, or scream, or whatever makes you feel better. It’s okay. I just wanted you to know.”
“You,” Jaeshin says, quiet, half-hoping Yongha doesn’t hear him.
“What?” Yongha leans closer still. “What about me?”
Jaeshin takes a deep breath. “Just, you said—I mean, it’s you. You make me feel better. Not crying, or the soju, or the painkillers—And it still hurts like hell, and I miss him all the time and Christmas is like—,“ he tries to remember the fancy words he heard from the therapist Yoonhee made him see once, “a, a trigger, I think, because the first Christmas after, you know, after hyung went, was so—,” he knows his breaths are getting short and shaky, but, “it was so bad, Yongha, there were all these presents for him that nobody was ever gonna open and, I just, my dad didn’t say anything—“
“Hey, hey,” Yongha whispers, “Jaeshin, it’s okay, I know—“
And then neither of them says anything for a while because Yongha puts his arms around Jaeshin and pulls him into his chest, and they don’t really fit that well on the tiny couch, but Yongha is warm and he makes everything a bit less terrible, so Jaeshin just goes still in his embrace and tries to breathe, like on that cold, cold day years ago.
Yongha runs his fingers through Jaeshin’s hair. “It’s okay, you’re not there, you’re here, with me. And if you think I’m leaving, well, tough luck because you’re kind of stuck with me.”
Jaeshin huffs out a laugh. “Not true,” he hates how his voice cracks, “you’re going to find someone nice and you’ll want to spend the holidays with them, and you deserve that—“
Yongha gives the back of his head a smack. “Moon Jaeshin, you absolute idiot.” He holds Jaeshin a little bit tighter, pushes his face into Jaeshin’s shoulder. “I think we both know why things never worked out with anyone I dated.” A pause. Then, soft and careful, so unlike the Yongha Jaeshin is used to; “Or am I wrong? You can tell me if I am.”
Jaeshin thinks of all the boys Yongha’s ever talked about. He thinks of that time Yongha showed up late to school with a bruised cheek because his dad caught him holding hands with the boy next door. He thinks of that New Year’s Eve party Yongha dragged him to a few years ago; there was glitter everywhere (Jaeshin kept finding it in his clothes for weeks afterwards) and, after a few drinks too many, Yongha got on his tiptoes at midnight and pressed a small kiss to the corner of Jaeshin’s mouth, with a whisper of Happy New Year, my love. In the morning Yongha said he couldn’t remember anything, and Jaeshin pretended he couldn’t either.
“You’re not wrong,” Jaeshin says.
He can feel Yongha smile into his shoulder. “That’s good.”
“It’s probably just Stockholm syndrome from spending all my life with you,” Jaeshin says, because ruining heartfelt moments with stupid jokes is what they do best.
Yongha laughs, biting Jaeshin’s shoulder lightly through his shirt. “Rude.”
They stay like that for a moment longer, just holding each other on Jaeshin’s couch, Running Man still playing in the background, Yongha’s phone beeping every now and then with dinner update texts from Yoonhee and Seonjoon.
“You know,” Jaeshin says. “Hyung always liked you. He said you were a good kid.”
Yongha pulls back a little, his arms still loosely around Jaeshin’s neck. His eyes are shiny again. “I really liked him, too. He made you happy.”
Jaeshin is exhausted from everything that’s happened, and he’s still hurting and that’s probably never going to stop entirely, but this is Yongha – always, always, his Yongha. “You make me happy.” He runs a thumb over the scar above Yongha’s eyebrow, thinks of glitter and New Year’s Eve and the cold, before leaning in and kissing his best friend on the mouth.
It’s a short kiss, the softest press of cold-chapped lips, but Yongha’s fingers are in his hair again and he’s smiling against Jaeshin’s mouth, and Jaeshin feels warm.