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It’s dark, and crowded, and loud, and all Harin can think about are the sugar cookies he baked last night, sitting in a Tupperware container in his tiny kitchen. They’re probably lonely without him, waiting for him to return home to lovingly caress them with his mouth – he’s drunk. And hungry. He should go home.
Spinning dramatically on his heel, he’s beginning to march out when in the corner of his eye he sees a shock of golden hair. Brassy, like it’s been recently bleached – he knows this because of the time Hyungu sent him on a mission to track down purple shampoo to fix his terrible home-dye job.
No. Shut up, brain-Hyungu. Focus. Brassy golden hair. It’s attached to a little guy. Even drunk Harin knows it’s rude to stare but little man is kind of pretty, he thinks, that whole innocent big-eyed deer shebang that makes his heart beat a little faster in his broad, manly chest.
No, no, focus again. Hair. Attached to little pretty man with big eyes and an even bigger frown.
Frown?
Harin steps a little closer, back into the throng of dancing people. He’s tall enough to see over most of them, and he spots golden-haired-little-pretty-man again, and yep. He’s still frowning. Not just a frown, Harin can see now, his eyes are too wide. Teeth clenched. He looks terrified.
Harin pushes through the crowd faster than he thought was possible, or maybe he’s just drunk, because suddenly boom little gold man is right in front of him.
He makes eye contact.
It takes Harin a moment to process; there’s some guy pressed against the little man’s back, hands on his hips, mouth against his ear. Gold boy seems to be trying to push him away, or pull out of his grasp, but it’s too crowded, or he’s hesitating, or something’s wrong–
And Harin’s angry. And drunk.
“Hey,” he says, as loud as he can. No one seems to notice.
“Hey,” he says again, louder, and shoves his arm between the two. He pulls the little man tightly against his side.
“The fuck are you doing to my boyfriend.”
The offending guy looks furious. Harin may be drunk but he’s not too stupid, and he isn’t sure if he can take the other guy in a fistfight, so he slaps on a smile, salutes him, and quickly weaves back through the crowd.
It’s not until they reach the much emptier corner of the bar that the little dude, still tucked into Harin’s arms, speaks up.
“I could’ve taken care of it myself.”
Harin lets go of him. “What?”
Pretty boy crosses his arms. “I don’t need to be… saved, or something.”
“Oh.” Harin doesn’t know what to say. “Sorry?”
The guy heaves a deep sigh. “No, no. I’m sorry.” He sits down on a barstool. “Thanks for stepping in. That was annoying. I should’ve just gone home with Giwook.”
Harin still doesn’t know what to say, which is incredibly off-brand for himself, so he just mirrors the other and pulls out a stool to perch on.
“I’m Dongmyeong,” the guy says, holding out a hand to shake.
“Harin.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Harin-ssi. Is it a habit of yours to swoop in all superhero-style to save people from harassment?”
Harin’s a little busy following the curve of Dongmyeong’s mouth with his eyes. It’s charming the way the corners of his lips turn up a little. And the orangey gold of his maybe recently-bleached hair looks good on him. A lot better than Hyungu, at least. Hyungu had looked like a clown.
“…no,” Harin manages to say.
“Are you usually a man of so few words?” Dongmyeong asks, eyebrows raised.
“No!” Harin, for some reason, feels a burning need for the little guy to get the right idea about him. He wants to be known. “I have lots of. Words. Words, am I right! Got em.”
“Huh?”
“I need another drink.”
“Drunk words don’t count!” Dongmyeong says, with the tiniest hint of laughter in his voice, and fuck, Harin can feel his heart plummet into his gut.
“I promise my words are real,” he responds solemnly, holding up a pinkie. Dongmyeong stares at it for a few seconds before taking it.
“I don’t think you need another drink.”
“I’ll buy you one too.”
“No, it’s alright.” Dongmyeong waves the bartender over and asks for. Something. Harin doesn’t catch what; he’s distracted again by the way the strobe lights glint off Dongmyeong’s hair, making it twinkle. Twinkle! That’s a good song.
“Hey,” Dongmyeong says, tapping Harin’s arm.
“Girl’s Generation,” Harin blurts out.
“What? Drink this.” Dongmyeong hands him a cup of cold, clear liquid. Harin takes a sip. It’s annoyingly icy, the kind of piercing cold that makes his teeth throb.
“Ugh. This is gross,” he says, putting it back down on the bar.
“It’s. It’s water.”
“You have pretty eyes,” Harin says, all coherent thought spilling out of his ears. “They sparkle. Like your hair, all gold and reflecting light. Well, your eyes aren’t gold, that would be a little scary, but probably still pretty.”
“What?”
Harin’s senses catch up to his mouth. “God. Sorry. I’m not making any sense. I didn’t mean it.”
Dongmyeong scrunches his nose. “So you don’t think I’m pretty?”
“No! Yes! I don’t know! I mean, yes. You’re pretty. But I don’t want to be weird.”
“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” Dongmyeong takes a sip of the water. “Thanks, I guess. Is that why you pulled the boyfriend card back there? Because I’m pretty?”
“No,” Harin says, scratching his head. “It was just the first thing that came to mind. I’m just dumb.”
Dongmyeong pushes the cup of water back towards Harin and motions for him to drink. “You’re not dumb. You’re just drunk.”
“How would you know I’m not dumb? You don’t know me.” An innocuous enough statement, but it hurts Harin a bit to say.
“I could begin to know you now.”
Harin looks at Dongmyeong. Dongmyeong’s looking back at him, all pretty lips and big eyes and golden hair, thrown together like a character out of a storybook. Maybe he did have a reason for using the boyfriend line.
“Him. Right there.”
Someone grabs his elbow. Harin flinches and pulls away.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. This gentleman notified us that you were harassing him,” says a security guard, standing in front of the guy that was forcing himself onto Dongmyeong earlier.
Bile rises from Harin’s throat. “No. Fuck, no. We are not doing this.”
Dongmyeong reaches out to put a hand on Harin’s knee.
“Sir,” the guard says, sounding tired, “we don’t want any trouble, but our establishment doesn’t tolerate that sort of behavior.”
“That sort of behavior?” Harin seethes. “Did you know he was the one that was being inappropriate!”
Dongmyeong squeezes Harin’s knee. “Maybe we should just go,” he says, voice quiet.
“We don’t want any trouble,” the guard repeats.
Harin shoves his stool back, stands up. “I don’t care about your shitty establishment. I care that this bitch–” he points his finger at the guy cowardly still behind the guard, “–was touching my boyfriend without consent. And he has the audacity to report me?”
“Do you see what I mean, sir?” simpers the coward. “He’s very aggressive.”
Harin has had enough. He pushes forward, fist raised, vaguely hearing Dongmyeong’s voice telling him to stop, the guard yelling, but he can’t make everything out because of the buzzing in his ears, and he’s about to swing–
–when someone grabs his arm from the side, snaking a lanky arm around his waist and holding him back.
Dongmyeong.
A cup smacks Harin in the chest. Cold, cold liquid seeps into his shirt, dripping downwards.
“Out!” The guard shouts into Harin’s face. “If you don’t leave this instant I’m calling the police!” He turns to Dongmyeong. “Sorry, sir.”
“I think you owe an apology to my boyfriend, actually,” Dongmyeong says.
“Excuse me?”
Dongmyeong narrows his eyes. “That man over there was harassing me and all my boyfriend did was remove me from the situation, and you’re blaming him for all this trouble? That seems unfair.”
“Sir, I’m only acting by the rules. And your… boyfriend has violated those rules, and he will be removed from the premises if he does not leave on his own accord.”
“You can’t kick us out, we’re leaving on our own terms.” Dongmyeong threads his fingers with Harin’s. “Come on, babe, let’s go. This place is shitty anyways. The water tastes weird.”
Harin silently lets Dongmyeong pull him outside. The cold hits him like a physical impact, striking once by the wind, twice by the dampness of his shirt.
“Here.” Dongmyeong stops at the corner of the street and wraps his puffy jacket around Harin’s shoulders.
“Wait.” Harin finds his words, quickly sobering up from the cold. “It’s freezing. You need your jacket.”
“You’re right, it is freezing,” Dongmyeong says, “and you’ll get sick if you’re outside in a wet shirt. Why don’t you have a jacket anyways?”
“Didn’t think I’d need one,” Harin says, shivering. “But. Aren’t you cold?”
“Yep. But don’t you dare give it back.”
“…sorry.”
“Well, next time maybe don’t go around picking fights with people. Crazy how far a conversation can get you. I thought you said you had lots of words.”
“I do, usually,” Harin says. He pulls the jacket tighter onto his body, trying to shield his stomach from the wind.
“Let’s step in here,” Dongmyeong says, guiding Harin into a tiny convenience store. “I’m assuming you didn’t drive?”
Harin nods.
“I’ll call you a cab.” Dongmyeong waves a hello to the cashier before fishing around his pocket for his phone. “You’ll have to give me your address, though, and–”
“I’m just losing them, around you.”
Dongmyeong looks up from his phone. “What?”
Harin feels… shy, of all things, under Dongmyeong’s piercingly bright gaze, eyes a bit teary from the cold, nose and cheeks rosy. “My- my words.” His words, ironically, catch in his throat.
“You’re losing… your words?”
“Yeah.” Harin takes a deep breath. “I’m not usually like this, I promise. Although I guess it doesn’t really matter, since we probably won’t see each other again. I mean, you probably wouldn’t want to.”
Dongmyeong drops his arm to his side. “Maybe not like this, huddling drunkenly in a convenience store, but. I might want to see you again.”
Harin blinks.
“Let’s just get you the cab,” Dongmyeong says, pulling up his phone again, voice suddenly matter-of-fact.
“How are you getting home?”
“I live like five minutes from here. I’ll just walk.”
“Let me walk you home.”
Still looking at his phone, Dongmyeong rolls his eyes. “You can stop pretending you’re my boyfriend now, no one’s here.”
“This isn’t about being a boyfriend, it’s just courtesy!” Harin flaps his hands around. “The world out there is dangerous!”
Dongmyeong glances at him, the tiniest smile gracing his lips. “And what. What can you do to make it less dangerous? Are you going to punch everything into order?”
Harin shrugs. “I can try.”
“You have a bit of a hero complex, don’t you.”
Harin stutters.
“Don’t worry, it’s a little endearing, actually.” Dongmyeong laughs, a short, sweet kind of laugh. “But think about it. I call you the cab, you get your ass in there and give me back my jacket, I walk home. Warmest plan of action.”
“Or,” Harin says, rolling the syllable around on his tongue, “you take your jacket back, I walk you home, and then take a cab from there.”
“That’s a dumb idea.”
“I said I was dumb earlier.”
“Point taken.”
Harin looks around. They’re standing in the sugary snack aisle, right by the rows and rows of cookies. Cookies?
“Or! Why don’t you come over?”
Dongmyeong cocks an eyebrow at him. “You’re moving very fast.”
Harin’s face burns. “No no no I meant I have cookies at home! Really! I baked cookies last night and they’re sitting in a tub at home I can show you a picture! Let me get out my phone–”
Dongmyeong grabs his shoulder. “Calm down, my guy, I believe you. I’m sure the cookies are great.”
“Okay.” Harin deflates. “But really, if you want to come over, you can take my bed, and I have purple shampoo from when Hyungu left it there–”
“Next time. I’ll have cookies and use your friend’s shampoo next time.” Dongmyeong waves his phone in the air. “I’ve already ordered you a ride.”
“This isn’t who I am,” Harin says. He’s suddenly overcome with it, this odd feeling that he needs to prove himself. And he’s not lying, he has been off today. Dongmyeong makes him feel jittery and confused, like caffeine that’s wormed its way into his system much faster than expected.
Dongmyeong watches him, face unreadable. “What do you want me to say to that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hm.” Dongmyeong bites his lip. “Maybe it’s nice, you know? To develop a self outside of what you expect. A little wacky. Unfamiliar.” His phone vibrates. “Your ride’s outside.”
Back in the cold, Dongmyeong moves in closer, and as Harin braces himself for a hug the smaller simply pulls his jacket off his shoulders.
“For all it’s worth,” he says, putting his jacket on, “you have a hero complex, and you stumble on your words, and you seem to like picking fights on impulse. But I think you’re pretty fun.”
“Oh.”
“Thanks for tonight,” Dongmyeong says as Harin gets in the car. “I’ll be thinking about it for a while. You owe me cookies.”
Dongmyeong’s voice, timbre rich and honey-sweet, rolls around Harin’s head the whole way home. He’s positively spinning with it when he steps into his apartment, into his bathroom to shower before he passes out.
As he pulls off his sticky shirt, something flutters to the ground.
A note. A phone number.
A scribbled heart.
How silly, Harin thinks, as he folds it up and carefully stashes it in the corner of his sink for safekeeping. Next to it is his toothbrush, a yellowy orange color, and he can’t help but conjure up images of Dongmyeong again, as if it’s been ages since he’s seen him. A smile finds its way onto his face.
He uses Hyungu’s shampoo.