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"You...are gay?" They weren't the first words Doyoung ever said to his exchange roommate, but it was within the first week. The boy--the man, really--whose name was Johnny looked over at him with a startled eye.
"Kind of?" He said it in Korean. That was their pact, the one they'd made when they first met. Doyoung would speak in English and Johnny would speak in Korean.
"What does it mean, 'kind of'?"
Johnny chewed his bottom lip. "Like... I'm bisexual." He said the last word in English. "Do you know that word? It means I like... many people. All people. Not just boys, but them too."
"Bisexual," Doyoung said, letting the word roll off his tongue. He wondered if this were a word that had a Korean equivalent and resolved to look it up later.
"Why did you ask?"
"You have..." He gave up on trying to say it in English. "At the corner of your desk, there. You have a rainbow flag. Even Koreans know what that means."
"Oh!" Johnny's eyebrows raised. He had an expressive, honest face. "In English you say 'rainbow.'"
"Rainbow," Doyoung repeated. Having an American roommate was truly educational.
"Is it a problem?"
"No!" Doyoung said, horrified that Johnny might think he was being impolite. "No, no. It's good, it's very good. For you, I mean, I am not... bisexual." He had to pause and say the word at a slower pace again. "I mean, it is good that you are, but I am not." He could feel the blush of embarrassment starting on his face and added in Korean, "There's nothing wrong with you being... bisexual, but I'm not. Not that it would be bad if I were, of course! But I am not." He put his face in his hands, thinking that this would be a terrible semester given how badly he'd started off on the wrong foot.
When he looked up, Johnny was laughing; it transformed his entire face. He had a nice laugh, a low chuckle that reverbrated through his entire body. When Doyoung had first seen him, he'd been afraid; his aunt had warned him that gyopos were big and mean and they liked working out too much. So far only one of those had proven true about Johnny, and everything else in him seemed to work against that trait. For such a big man, his presence was not intimidating at all. Doyoung decided that if he could get his foot out of its permanent position in his mouth, they were going to get along well.
--
"I never did this before," Doyoung said in English. His clumsy accent embarrassed him, but he could feel Johnny smile against the curve of his neck before his lips pressed at the hollow of Doyoung's throat.
"With a boy?" Johnny's response was in Korean, keeping to their pact. His hand was at the hem of Doyoung's shirt, pushing up to brush the skin there and making the muscles in Doyoung's stomach jump. It was a curious feeling, one he had no control over.
"With--" He had to struggle to think as Johnny's fingertips circled higher and lower. He wasn't going anywhere with it--evidently he liked to tease, and the tight grip Doyoung had on his shoulder had to let him know how Doyoung felt about it. "With anyone?" Had he said that in English or Korean?
The hand stopped. "Oh." Johnny pulled back to look at him. "You're... this is your first time?"
Doyoung shrugged. "Sure. Yeah." It was strange that they could have kissed so much, but every single time, just like the first, he was hyperaware of all the places Johnny was in proximity to him. His big hands, his broad shoulders. He wondered if Johnny would think him creepy for saying that sometimes he wanted to crawl right into Johnny's skin. To devour him: it was the only way to satisfy this carnal urge. Kissing--and maybe a little more--would have to suffice for now.
Johnny blinked, and Doyoung remembered how it felt when those long eyelashes brushed his skin. "Is that... should we do something different?" Johnny liked to push his boundaries sometimes, so Doyoung thought the caution he was displaying right now was admirable.
"No." It came out as firmly as he had intended. "I like this. I want to do more." Short, simple sentences: wasn't that what Johnny had taught him? The lesson seemed to have paid off well; that irresistible mouth curved into a smile, and Doyoung leaned in. He closed his eyes when they kissed.
--
Johnny shifted from foot to foot. In Korean, he said, "So this is it?" Doyoung couldn't see his face; sitting on the bed in front of him and looking down at the floor, unwilling to make eye contact, all he could see were Johnny's sneakers.
"No," he muttered. Johnny put a hand under his chin and tipped his face up; without thinking too hard about it, Doyoung moved back. He registered, under the white dorm lights, the hurt look on Johnny's face. He didn't look that great; his face was puffy the way it always was when he didn't get enough sleep, and the lines around his mouth were pronounced. For a moment Doyoung felt regret. "No," he said louder. "We have tickets. For New York. So it's not the end." All of it came out in shaky English. He could hear, in his voice, the tears he was holding back, and fisted a hand in the comforter underneath him.
Johnny's lips parted. "That's true," he said, and Doyoung could hear how much he was struggling to keep his composure. "But until then..."
"You said--" Doyoung had to stop and breathe in for a moment. Johnny's hand appeared in front of him and he grabbed it, interlacing their fingers. "You said we were friends, so we can stay in contact. You have my Kakao ID. You can't lose me."
"Lose you?"
In Korean, Doyoung said, "Hyung can't get rid of me."
The lines of Johnny's face changed so much when he laughed. It was a physical pain to think that Doyoung would no longer see that smile every morning on the other side of the room, nor would he see it when they went out drinking. No one would sneak up on him anymore on campus to surprise him or tease him to make him laugh when he was in a bad mood.
"That's--'get rid of,'" Johnny said. He was still smiling. "You could say 'you can't get rid of me.'"
"You can't get rid of me," Doyoung repeated. He could feel his mouth setting into a mulish line. "I still can't say R and L. You need to teach me. You can't get rid of me." He crossed his arms and Johnny's face softened.
"Okay," he said in English. "I can't get rid of you. Doyoungie." His voice was so soft that Doyoung wanted to cry. "Can you look at me?"
With reluctance Doyoung stood up. He had to look up to see Johnny's face, but he barely got a glimpse before he was crushed into a hug so fierce he understood that what he was feeling was mutual.
He wondered if there was a way to communicate that he'd never felt this safe anywhere else. Johnny seemed like he'd like knowing that Doyoung only ever wanted to be in his arms, but there was no way that Doyoung could communicate that, no matter the language or medium. He settled for hugging back just as fiercely, smoothing his hands down Johnny's back and wrapping his arms around that solid chest, making the most of the time he had left.
--
The certainty he'd felt that night before Johnny left was replaced, in the coming months, by a dull dread mixed with resignation. The promised video chats rarely occurred, what with the time zone difference, and Johnny, who had always been only mediocre at responding to his messages even when they lived together, dwindled down to almost nothingness in Doyoung's phone. He caught only brief flashes, impressions of Johnny's college life back in Chicago, from his Instagram stories and his sporadic FaceBook posts. The short, dark-haired boy he'd seen on Johnny's FaceTime on occasion: Ten. He showed up often, as did Johnny's prodigious underclassman Jaehyun who'd also done the semester abroad with him. Some other people Doyoung didn't know, had never even heard Johnny talk about.
It seemed that Johnny's life in the States was casual, easy, fun--words Doyoung could never use to describe himself. He was humiliated over how seriously he'd taken Johnny's whispered promises, how much the intimacy had meant to him. Johnny's life without Doyoung was full and rich; Doyoung's life without Johnny was blank.
Even his mother noticed. On a weekend visit back, she pulled back the screen separating his room from the main one and said, "Dongyoung-ah."
He looked up from his laptop, where he'd been revising for an upcoming midterm. "Eomma," he replied uncertainly.
She hesitated at the door before coming to sit on the ground next to him. Not for the first time, he noted the similarity in their approaches. In his youth they'd fought often; he'd held a deep desire to become a singer, and on evenings and weekends he would skip cram school and practice with a group of older boys he'd met who wanted to form a band with him as the lead. Looking back on it now, he was shocked by his own irresponsibility. It came to an end when his mother sat him down and forced him to pore over the family finances with her. "You do not have the monetary advantages to become a singer," she had said. It was not steely or cold; it was matter-of-fact. So then he'd re-applied himself to his studies and eventually gotten into SNU and now he was here and could see that she was right. But even her being right didn't mean that he was happy now or that he would be any happier when he graduated. It just meant that he would be unhappy and financially comfortable.
All this passed through his mind as he looked at her. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yes." He looked at the corner of the desk instead of making eye contact. She placed a hand on top of his.
"I know you're graduating soon," she said, "and it's a time when things are changing for you. My son..." She paused, looking at their hands. "Maybe I never said it before. I am proud of you."
Doyoung nodded, a jerky mechanical motion. "Thank you." It was a formal reply, but he couldn't muster up the emotion for anything else.
"I think there was a time when we argued a lot because you and I disagreed on your future. But I only ever wanted you to be comfortable. You shouldn't have to live the way your father and I lived. Because at least I had him, and then later I had you and Donghyun. But you won't have..."
The statement caught Doyoung off guard; the breath in his lungs squeezed out. "So you..." His eyes searched her pale and resolute face. If he hadn't even known, how had she?
"Some things you don't need to talk about for your mother to know," she informed him, patting his hand. "Whoever is hurting you, I hope it's resolved. And I hope you know that however harsh I was with you, it was only ever for you, to keep you safe. Sometimes we have no other choices."
His eyes were burning dry. Not for the first time in the past few months, he wished he had Johnny around to message. He inclined his head, and mercifully his mother got up and left.
--
Despite all his misgivings, he and Johnny managed, through occasional messages and sporadic emails, to cobble together a plan for their trip to New York. Even all the way up til he left for the airport, Doyoung considered cancelling on him; it wasn't as if it would matter anyway. If he cancelled it that would be the end. It would be his college story, the one he kept with him till his deathbed and never told his wife or kids. He didn't need to live like this, he thought, this miserable half-life, strung along by someone else's whims. He too could be normal. But in the week leading up to the trip he hadn't been able to stop remembering what it was like to be wrapped up in Johnny's arms. Frankly, he wasn't sure that he would be able to survive being in the same space as Johnny without bursting into tears.
Nonetheless he accepted Johnny's proposal of an AirBnB; on his own, he looked up hostel rates nearby if anything went south and determined that he would be able to afford it. It was only a week and a half, he told himself. Standing now at the door of the apartment, hand sweaty on the handle of his suitcase, he rang the doorbell and waited, heart pounding in trepidation, for it to open.
The first thing he registered was the same as always: tall. Then other details started to filter in. Johnny looked good. He'd done his hair differently than Doyoung had ever seen it, parted and off his forehead, and something about it made him look older and masculine in a way that made it hard for Doyoung to swallow. He'd been working out, and his white tank top accentuated his tan skin and the corded muscles in his arms. And he was smiling, the same smile he always wore.
Unable to speak, Doyoung stood in the doorway for a moment, gawping. Then, remembering himself, he bowed, only to be caught halfway by Johnny's hands on his shoulders sweeping him up into a hug. "Fuck," Johnny said, voice muffled by Doyoung's hair. "It's really good to see you."
Doyoung, unable to hug back because his arms were caught by Johnny's embrace, tried to nod and got a mouthful of Johnny's tank for his efforts. "It's good to see you too, hyung," he said. It sounded stilted, and he couldn't tell for a moment if Johnny had caught on. Johnny's eyes narrowed before he laughed.
"You haven't been practicing your English enough!" he said in Korean.
"No partners," Doyoung replied. He managed to put on a smile. "Hyung's Korean is still too American."
Johnny's eyes crinkled with the force of his answering grin. He stepped aside and helped Doyoung wheel his suitcase in the door. "But I am American!"
Inside, it was a studio apartment; the furnishings were sparse, which didn't really matter. Doyoung looked around the room, registering: a kitchen, a bathroom. His eyes caught on the corner of the room.
"The bed?" he said, voice going up in a question. He pointed at it as if Johnny couldn't figure out what he meant.
"Huh?" Johnny turned from where he'd been pouring water at the kitchen counter. "Oh, yeah. There's only one bed. That's why it's so cheap. I figured it was fine, right?"
"Yes," Doyoung said. His voice was faint. He walked over to the bed to sit down. There was no couch and no other sleeping arrangements he could possible have made. For a moment he thought seriously about the hostel a few blocks over. It was walking distance and he only had one suitcase; it wouldn't have been the worst idea to get up and leave.
But there were other considerations to make, both practical and personal. He had questions he wanted to ask Johnny, and he wanted to go to certain places that would be much easier with an English speaker around. And Johnny would be hurt if he left and clearly Doyoung had read into everything that had happened between them when Johnny was in Korea. Really it was his fault that he'd had any expectations at all. It wasn't as if he were unfamiliar with the concept of friends with benefits, and hadn't he even told Johnny they were friends that last night? Maybe this was how Johnny treated his friends. Maybe expectations were for suckers, for people who clung on too hard and had no other options, for people like Doyoung whose pathetic lives revolved around only one or two other people and when those people left so did his sanity.
Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and he knew if he spoke he wouldn't be able to hide the thickness of his voice. He strode over to the bathroom, opening and closing the door roughly, and slapped his cheeks a couple of times, splashing water on his face for good measure. Then he walked out again and took a deep breath.
"What are we doing first?"
--
Johnny's short friend Ten was apparently well-traveled, and from that well-traveled brain Johnny had plucked ideas about what they should do for the week and a half they were there. He had bar recommendations, park recommendations, museums they should look at, historical sites to visit, and even a meal plan for almost every single day. Doyoung, who was used to Johnny being haphazard and all over the place, was both shocked and reluctantly impressed.
"You tried hard," he said, scrolling through the Google doc Johnny had shared with him on his phone. They were both lying on the bed after a meal out at the nearby halal cart, which Doyoung had enjoyed.
"Of course I did!" Johnny turned to lie on his side and face Doyoung. His cheek was squished against his arm and his dopey grin pushed his eyes closed. "It's your first time in the US!" They were still, without having discussed it, sticking to that pact they'd made months ago. Doyoung hadn't lied; Johnny's Korean really did sound more American. It was soothing, familiar in its clumsiness.
"It's nice that you did that." Doyoung didn't move his eyes from his phone. "It's really nice." He wondered if Johnny could tell how tense his entire body was from the proximity. Johnny had gotten out of the shower and now his hair was wet and he smelled amazing. It was taking a lot of Doyoung's self control to keep a normal distance from him, but he wasn't sure what other choice he had.
"Doyoung," Johnny said. Doyoung waited for a follow up, but he got none.
"Yes?"
"Nothing, just wanted to say your name." He could hear the smile in Johnny's voice. "It's nice that you're here. I really missed you." With that statement he scooted himself over and planted his wet head right onto Doyoung's torso, wrapping his arms around Doyoung's waist. Doyoung, who had not been expecting it, nearly jumped straight up in the air, but after a moment he forced himself to relax, bit by bit. His shoulders droooped, then his arms, and he pushed himself to release the tension in his legs and abdomen, and finally he found himself with Johnny's head on his stomach and his hands on Johnny's head, smoothing down Johnny's wet hair.
"I missed you too," he said. It was almost inaudible over the hum of the air conditioning unit near the bed, and for a moment he wasn't sure if Johnny had heard. That dark wet head was still, a warm weight on his abdomen, before Johnny shifted, all his long limbs moving upward in a confusing shuffle. He wriggled with surprising dexterity up until he was resting next to Doyoung, his head on Doyoung's shoulder and making Doyoung's neck wet.
"I wasn't sure," he said, his voice low. It was so rare for Johnny to be serious that Doyoung put his phone aside and didn't say anything else. He didn't think he could handle making eye contact, but he wanted to listen.
After a few moments, he realised that was all Johnny had to say. "What do you mean?" He hadn't been sure about... what? Doyoung's feelings?
"I didn't know if you missed me like I missed you."
Doyoung could feel the bright flare of humiliation in his chest again. He thought there could be no way to respond to that. Finally, after a deep breath that made Johnny's arm on his chest rise and fall, he said, "I missed you a lot." The English took longer than he would have liked to make its way out. This cursed language: it forced him to be short and quick. All the nuance was lost.
"Okay," Johnny said. His voice sounded small. He curled around Doyoung with his eyes closed; he didn't seem like he wanted to say anything else. When his breathing evened out, Doyoung turned the lights out with his free hand and lost himself to sleep, Johnny's oppressive heavy warmth a weight on his side.
--
Despite the awkwardness of that first night, the next few days proceeded like a dream. The weather was miraculous, and Johnny's friend Ten, whatever grudge Doyoung might have held towards him for usurping Doyoung's place in Johnny's heart, had impeccable taste. They ate and drank to their hearts' content and acted, in sum, as the most touristic voyeuristic viewers they could possibly be, and as he had always felt when he was with Johnny, Doyoung had no shame for it. The anonymity of being halfway across the world from anyone who would care about what he was doing had gone to his head.
As with all good things, the high had to come to an end. In this case, it was after they'd gone to a bar Ten had recommended and done a beer sampling. It was a humid night, and in the subway Doyoung could feel that his back was slick with sweat, his face red from the heat and from his inability to handle alcohol. Johnny was getting touchy in the way he remembered; they stood close to each other on the train, Johnny hanging on to a railing and Doyoung hanging on to the pole and almost onto Johnny too. A couple of times he couldn't hold his balance. He fell into Johnny's broad chest and immediately stumbled back, apologising. None of this would have been particularly terrible except for Doyoung's cursed brain, which couldn't stop spinning out memories of the times they'd gone out drinking in Seoul and then begged off early and gone back to their shared room to kiss. It was stupid, he decided, to wonder if Johnny was thinking about it too. It felt stupid except for how Johnny was looking at him. He was being so clingy that Doyoung wanted to scream about it.
When they stumbled out from the subway stop and down the sidewalk, back into the little studio apartment they were staying, the first thing Doyoung did was strip his shirt off and stumble towards the bathroom. Without bothering to grab any clothes, he took a bracing cool shower and stepped out refreshed, a towel wrapped around his waist, wet hair plastered to his forehead and dripping rivulets down his neck. "Can you toss me boxers?" he asked in Korean without thinking.
"A shirt too?" Johnny said in English. He looked up from where he'd been fiddling with his camera and his eyes went wide. For a moment his fingers froze; then he tore his gaze away and scrabbled around in Doyoung's suitcase before tossing him a pair of sleep shorts that definitely were not boxers. Doyoung didn't say anything. He slid the shorts on under the towel and then unraveled it from around his waist, using it to dry off his neck and chest and scrub his hair a bit. All the while he was watching Johnny, who was conspicuously not watching him, instead flicking furiously through the photos he'd taken that day.
"Did they turn out well?" Doyoung asked: still in Korean. "Which ones are you looking at?"
"They're really good," Johnny said. "These are the ones from the Vessel earlier today." He hadn't brought the camera to the bar. It took Doyoung a moment to parse his mix of English and Korean.
"You got good shots of the view?" This he asked in English. He felt very scattered. Why had he spoken to Johnny in Korean in the first place?
"I got good shots of you," Johnny said, looking up and winking. He seemed to have been unable to resist the pun, which was about par for the course. His dark eyes stayed intent on Doyoung's face, and Doyoung, who had felt cool and sobered up from the shower, flushed under Johnny's gaze. He was aware, suddenly, of his scrawny body, his pale chest, his disproportionate calves that Johnny used to gently tease him about.
"Shirt?" he said, nodding at the suitcase.
Johnny shrugged. "Don't think you need one. It'll be hot tonight. I'll probably go shirtless too." Doyoung stared at him blankly and Johnny shrugged and smirked. There wasn't much else he could say to that response, he supposed.
He strode across the room to the bed, leaving the towel hanging on its rack, aware suddenly that Johnny hadn't handed him any underwear. Johnny shifted over, taking the space by the wall as he had these past few days. He'd changed while Doyoung was in the shower; he was wearing that loose tank top from the first day and black boxer briefs. Doyoung didn't know why this was bothering him so much. They'd shared a bed platonically for almost four days now; why was he feeling so apprehensive? When he sat down on the bed, Johnny moved over, but not so much that he actually had enough space to stretch out.
"Let me show you the photos," he said, and he sounded so eager Doyoung didn't have the heart to reject him. In fact, his traitorous heart was pounding wildly, unaware of its reality. He blinked, a little dizzy; maybe he had drank more than he'd thought, and maybe the shower had done nothing at all for him. Johnny's proximity was very distracting. Nonetheless, he looked into the camera screen and watched Johnny flip through his photos.
He'd thought Johnny was joking, but apparently he'd been serious. Not all of the photos featured Doyoung, but a lot of them did, and most of those he hadn't posed for. They were nearly all candids, shots where he was in the background looking serious and pinched or in the foreground smiling like he hadn't seen himself smile in years. He hadn't realised, either, that he and Johnny were wearing a couple's outfit when they'd gone out, and that their denim made them look like they were a matched pair.
He didn't say anything, and when he looked away from the screen it was to meet Johnny's questioning gaze. "What do you think?" he said, voice low.
"What am I supposed to think?" Doyoung countered. He felt sick and dizzy. It was probably the most direct he'd been since he'd arrived in the US.
"I don't know," Johnny replied, still in the same low voice. His hair flipped down, covering his face, when he continued, "You have to know what the pictures mean, right?"
For a moment his throat locked, and even though he opened his mouth nothing came out. Then: "What are you talking about?"
"Are you serious?" Johnny's jaw dropped in disbelief. He said it in English, a sign of how shocked he must have been. In Korean, he added, "Doyoung-ah, there is no way you can be this..." He struggled for words, and then said one in English Doyoung wasn't familiar with. He must have seen Doyoung's lack of comprehension, because he added, "You can't be confused."
"Confused about what?" Doyoung refused to have this conversation in English.
"About..." Johnny traced the bedspread for a moment. Then he looked up; without breaking eye contact, he set the camera aside on the bedstand next to Doyoung, brushing against Doyoung's bare arm and shoulder. The light touch made him shudder. "About how I feel," Johnny said. Doyoung had never seen him so serious nor so determined, but the bigger part of him was distracted by what had just been said.
"How you feel?" he repeated, eyes bugging out of his head. "How do you feel?"
"If you ask me like that, it hurts my feelings." It should have been a humourous statement, but Johnny was far from laughter. "I tried really hard to give you space because you told me you're not gay and you said we should stay friends. But..." Johnny's gaze darted to the side and then up to him again. His hands were twisting and untwisting his tank top. "I don't think I can stay friends like this. Sharing a bed, being this close to you..."
Doyoung thought he was going to throw up. "You can't stay friends?" he repeated, his mouth numb. "What about me?"
"What do you mean, what about you?"
"What was I supposed to think? These past few months, when you were here in the States, and I was by myself in Seoul? And I kept seeing you with your friends? And you were so bad about responding to my messages and we never talked? I wanted to cancel this." His eyelashes were wet at the end of it. Almost to himself, he added, "I shouldn't have come."
Johnny looked dazed at the outburst: maybe it was because Doyoung was speaking so furiously, maybe because he wasn't used to having to understand so much Korean so quickly, maybe because he hadn't considered it. Then his entire face changed, became soft. "Doyoung-ah," he said. He laid a hand on Doyoung's wrist, ignoring how Doyoung stiffened at the touch. "Do you know what I mean when I say I can't be friends?"
Was he trying to be cruel? That didn't seem like Johnny, but anything was possible now. Doyoung twisted his mouth and didn't answer.
"I missed you too much," Johnny said. His hand was still on Doyoung's arm. The span of his fingers could probably have encircled Doyoung's wrist twice over. Johnny was strong, but he never used that strength for harm. What was he saying now? "I can't be friends with you because I..." The words seemed to fail him. Instead he picked Doyoung's hand up and turned it over. Closing his eyes, he pressed his lips to Doyoung's palm and then tucked Doyoung's fingers over into it, protecting the kiss. He looked at Doyoung like Doyoung was supposed to understand what that meant. The yellow light from the lamp illuminated the fall of his hair, turning it strange and golden.
"I don't understand," Doyoung said. He still felt dizzy, although now the dizziness was less of a panic response and more of a sort of post-adrenaline rush reaction, a slowing down of his body after a heightened emotional state.
"I wanted to be with you," Johnny said simply. "I still want that. I wasn't going to tell you until later, but I got a job in Seoul. I start in August."
"You what?" Like an idiot, he felt that all of his statements were really just italicised questions, ones that had no real answer or purpose. He was so lost he could only repeat what Johnny was saying for confirmation.
"Doyoung-ah." Johnny was smiling now, eyes crinkling at the corners. He looked so happy Doyoung couldn't handle it. "I'm coming back to Seoul."
"Hyung," Doyoung said. He couldn't have spoken English if his life depended on it. His hands were shaking. He didn't say anything else, just turned and kissed the smile off Johnny's face with fervour.
--
Later, cuddled up to Johnny's chest, Johnny's hands stroking the soft skin of his back, Doyoung said, "You're not just coming to Seoul because of me, right, hyung?"
"Can you even speak English anymore, or did I shock it out of you?" Johnny asked in curiosity. Doyoung made a face at him, and Johnny grinned. "No, I'm not. I did an internship a while ago, before I went to Seoul, with a company that has a Seoul headquarters, so since I'm Korean they thought it'd be cool to send me there. I mean, they would have said no if I'd really insisted, but I thought it'd be nice."
"It will be nice," Doyoung insisted. It wasn't as forceful as it could have been; he was sleepy, and Johnny was soft. Johnny, whose hands had trailed up his back and into his hair, tugged lightly, and Doyoung's entire body shuddered.
Johnny grinned. "I forgot you liked that."
Doyoung made a face at him again. "I should tell my mom," he said, interrupted in the middle by a yawn.
"Huh?"
"I think... she knows. She said something that makes me think she knows."
"So... you'll..."
"I'll just introduce you as my hyung from America. But my special hyung. I think she'll know what I mean." His eyelids were growing heavier.
"That's... a really big step."
"I'm making you stick around," Doyoung said. And then in English: "You can't lose me."
It took Johnny a moment to place the reference, but then he smiled so big all his teeth were showing and his body shook with that low laugh Doyoung took so much comfort in. "Yeah, I guess that's true," he said, also in English. "I can't get rid of you."