Chapter Text
In seventh grade, San went through a phase where he described feelings with nouns. He mostly did it to feel special, so people would think his mind was unique, but it also just made sense. Some days he felt like leaves on the sidewalk in late autumn - a little busy, a little distracted, a lot sinking into something familiar. Other days he felt like ice cubes in an empty glass - mostly pensive but the slightest bit cheeky. The good friend that he was, Yunho took his half baked metaphors in stride, even though no one in the world associates the same emotions with a given image, a fact San realized a year later.
“Hey, San.”
“Hey. How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Mmm. Blue watercolors.”
“I see.”
Now, four years later, even with all the old habits Yunho makes fun of San for, he never brings up the nouns. San figures he should be thankful. He can only take so much cringing before his face freezes into a permanent expression of regret.
“It’s just so dumb! I’m writing a whole four page paper about there’s not enough information for me to form an argument because no one cares enough to have done any research on the topic.”
“Sipsipsip.”
“Kindly fuck off, Yunho.”
“That’s the tea, sis.”
But despite the years of growth and maturity, his inability to explain emotions like a normal human being clung to him like fuzz from a shedding sweater. So he wrote. He spun images out of text, 1000 word clips of life, and he hoped desperately to be able to make someone feel that exact feeling that had been hanging on the back of his heart. Maybe, he thought, if he could just be good enough, he could make people understand.
In eighth grade he crafted a piece about two friends who drift apart over a friendship of six years. It wasn’t autobiographical, San liked to joke that Yunho couldn’t get rid of him even if he tried, but it radiated a detached kind of longing, that feeling that life moves on and there’s nothing you can do about it, but maybe that’s alright. At least, to San it did. He never worked up the courage to find out what it made anyone else feel, but it won a national writing award so he figured it must have made them feel something.
Three years later he sewed a story out of mixed up patches of dialogue and near obsessive description. It told the story of coworkers with too much history who become friends on the train home. It reeked of confusion, apathy, and being on the edge of tears because everything is always just okay. At least, to San it did. At the request of an underclassman, he submitted it for the juniors’ edition of the Hamilton High Literary Magazine. Sitting with her in an empty classroom, cutting his work down to fit neatly on two pages, he didn’t even think to ask what the story made her feel. He only cared that his baby came out with all its fingers and toes. Two month later, though, she reported that her friends all told her his piece was their favorite, so he concluded that he must have done something right.
San feels happiness too, when Yunho barges into his room and crowds him into the corner of his twin sized bed, when he puts his headphones on and his favorite song on loop and dances around an empty house. But he never tries to write happiness. It’s too explosive, too expansive, too hard to capture in one place. Besides, no one needs help understanding his happiness. No one needs him to explain the feeling of lightness. At least, that’s how San feels. Instead, he bottles the twisted and tangled wisps of pain and yearning that float around his chest and hammers them until they’re solid and he can in a story. It doesn’t always make him feel better, but it makes him feel accomplished. Maybe, San thinks, if he just hammers long enough then someone will finally understand. And the process makes him hurt just a little bit more, but he feels special. And he feels understood.
“Then maybe the question is what do you want to do with your writing. Like, what’s the point?”
“I dunno it’s like. I’m not writing stories, really. I’m writing feelings.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but that sounds really rehearsed.”
“It is! Ms. Golden asked me the same thing when we were freshmen and I was just like uhhhh so I had to come up with an answer in case anyone asks me again. Now stop being a meanie and give me some gummy bears!”
“Not until you finish your college apps.”
“Yunhoooooo.”
“No.”
“Stop eating all the yellow ones!”
Surprisingly, relief comes in the form of a round faced boy in a tailored wool overcoat. A transfer student one year younger than San and Yunho, Jongho Choi introduces himself by standing in front of the sign ups for acapella auditions for a solid fifteen minutes before putting his name in the 4:30 slot. San is immediately enamoured. In fact, he’s so intrigued that he puts his name in the time slot for 4:15, even though singing in the shower is just about the full extent of his experience. After a little bullying, San convinces Yunho to sign up for the slot at 4:45. It’s their senior year, he whines. They’re supposed to try something new. Yunho grumbles that he wanted to try out for cheerleading but relents.
When San walks out of the music room that Friday, more than a little embarrassed about his unfamiliarity with his voice but satisfied with his rendition of Youth, it’s only 4:23. He peers up and down the hall, but there’s not a Jongho in sight. He decides to wedge himself between the music stand with the “High Notes Auditions” sign on it and a row of lockers. It’s not weird that he’s hiding outside the music room. He’s just waiting for Yunho. Not weird at all.
When Jongho appears five minutes later, San is folding a crane out of the paper he found in his pocket, so he doesn’t notice the younger until he’s standing over him, head tilted in curiosity.
“You okay?”
San starts. “Huh? Yeah”-he smiles sheepishly-“I’m waiting for a friend.”
Jongho nods, then plops down on the floor next to him. His eyes are trained on the ceiling, mouth slightly parted like he’s trying hard to remember something. His eyes really are very round, San notes. It makes him look younger than he is. His broad figure and fashion choices ruin the illusion, though. And he smells faintly fruity, kind of like that perfect coconut popsicle he’d had in fifth grade but never been able to remember the brand of. And as comforting as the smell is, it only makes San more confused about the kind of person Jongho is.
“Jongho?”
The boy tears his eyes away from the ceiling to blink at San like he’s surprised San is still there, then scrunches his eyebrows together. “Sorry,” he says, “Remind me what your name was?”
San chuckles. “I’m San,” he says. Then, pointing towards the sign up sheet taped next to the sign announcing auditions-“We haven’t met. I read your name on the schedule.”
Jongho lets out a quiet ‘ah.’ He spreads his hands out on his knees - strong hands, San notes.
“You’re trying out for High Notes?” San asks. The answer is obvious, but he’s never been good at small talk.
Jongho nods affirmative, then-”Is High Notes some kind of drug pun?”
San laughs, loud and high pitched. The sound rings and echoes down the empty hallway. “That’s a very good question,” he replies, giggling. Jongho still has a perfectly straight face, which only makes San laugh more.
Before San can collect himself, Jongho glances down at his watch, then hurriedly pushes himself up. “Shit, I have to go in.”
San takes a deep breath, tries to contain his laughter into a too wide smile. “Good luck!” he calls after him, but Jongho is already heading into the music room. From what he can hear through the door, though, Jongho won’t need it.
San, Yunho, and Jongho all get a callback, then are invited to join the group, but Yunho declines because he secretly did try out for cheerleading and passed with flying colors (San pouts for a week about Yunho ditching him for hot girls, but in reality he’s insanely proud and knows Yunho is too busy long distance pining for one of the graduated seniors to be hitting on his teammates). Unfortunately, this leaves San alone as the only one in the group who doesn’t even know what vocal technique is. Luckily, Jongho’s patience is endless.
“See, you shouldn’t be lifting your shoulders like that. Breathe more from your stomach.”
San tries again, but stops half way through, wincing at how panicked he sounds.
“You don’t have to breathe so low,” Jongho says, smiling reassuringly. “Your lungs aren’t actually in your stomach. Just take a deep breath and try to expand from here.” He places a hand over the base of San’s ribs. San’s throat constricts a little at the touch. He’s not sure he’s going to be able to sing like this.
“You have such nice fingernails,” he says instead, taking Jongho’s hand into his. Even if he’s stalling, it’s true.
“I keep them short for guitar,” Jongho says shyly.
San gapes. “You play guitar?” He pulls Jongho’s hand to his chest. “Will you play something for me? Please?”
Jongho gives him the tiniest of closed lip smiles, but San knows it’s genuine because the smile in his eyes is ten times the size. “Maybe at my house sometime.”
San pumps a triumphant fist in the air. “Hell yeah.”
Jongho takes his hand back, then punches San lightly in the shoulder. “Alright, Mario. Let’s get you some breath control first, yeah?” Jongho may not laugh often, but San can hear the laughter in his words.
That night, San tries, for the first time, to write contentment. In his mind, quiet scenes surrounded by snowfall unfold like blooming flowers. A girl and a boy, friends since their first memories, stop at a convenience store on the way home from school. Wrapped in colorful scarves and clashing jackets, they choose their drinks, then walk the rest of the way home, contemplating books they’ve just read, the possibility of a championship win for their soccer team, how they’ve known each other so long that just the sound of each other’s footsteps feels grounding. Neither of them say a word.
“Okay, but back to your nails, how are they so nice? Usually people who cut their nails short get really stubby nails.”
“I file them sometimes?”
“Wouldn’t that just make them shorter?”
It’s a Saturday afternoon in November when San peers over the edge of his bed to where Yunho is lying on the floor asks, “What perfume do you think Jongho uses.”
Yunho scrunches his nose. “I dunno. He probably just uses old spice like the rest of us.”
“He smells too good for old spice!”
“Not all of us spend all day sniffing Jongho.”
San throws a pillow at him for that. It misses him by a mile, sailing cleanly over him and the rest of the room to land near the door. “I don’t sniff him, I’m just sensitive to smells.”
“Sure, Jan. Sipsip.”
“Shut it!”
Whatever it is that makes Jongho smell the way he does, the scent quickly becomes ingrained in San’s mind as the smell of comfort. Home is a cold tropical perfume and his writing becomes fixated on smells. Suddenly the smoke can be a symbol of warmth and his characters are constantly surrounded by the scents of old friends and ex lovers because they wore popular brands of deodorant.
San never encounters anyone who smells like Jongho.
And that’s the thing about Jongho. San has never met anyone so hard to give a type. He’s seventeen years old but carries himself like he’s lived for twenty-eight. He’s licenced to drive a motorcycle but babies everyone he’s close with, dresses like a CEO so rich he could buy San’s life out from under him but always seems to have time in his day to help the people who ask for it. And he’s bad at math, so bad at math.
“Why are you so good at multiplication but so bad at algebra,” San complains.
“I don’t know,” Jongho says, throwing his hands into the air. “I didn’t ask for x to stand in front of the numb-” He’s cut off by the shush of a passing librarian. “In front of the numbers,” he finishes in a whisper.
“You’re so cute,” San coos. He reaches out to pinch Jongho’s cheeks, but hesitates before he can touch his face. As much as San enjoys skinship, it’s not really something he and Jongho do. He’s never seen Jongho hug anyone and Jongho’s never initiated physical affection, and he doesn’t want to pass any boundaries without asking. But San’s never been good at asking.
Jongho slams his head onto the table, forehead rubbing against the quadratic formula. “I swear I learned this last year,” he groans. “Why can’t I figure it out.”
“You’ll get it,” San reassures him. “But you should probably get someone else to help you. I’m not so great at math either.”
And Jongho does. He recruits a pretty senior in AP calculus named Yeosang. San only talks to Yeosang once, but he thinks he’s pretty nice, if a little ridiculous.
“Hey, Yunho. Do you know Yeosang?”
“Not really, no. Why?”
“It’s not important. I was just wondering.”
“He’s the one tutoring Jongho, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I think Hongjoong was friends with him. I can ask if you want.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Just focus on trying to flirt. That’s probably enough.”
“Wow, rude?”
High Notes’ first performance is at an end of term event, a combined recital with the school’s bands and choirs and orchestras. They sing a couple plucky songs that make San feel like he’s in an 80’s boy band and one haunting ballad where Jongho belts high notes, the only sign of effort being the crinkle in the bridge of his nose. Yeosang is in the crowd, so after the show he meets Jongho at the door to backstage with a rose. San floats awkwardly in the doorway until he spots Yunho and latches to his side. Yunho praises their steady harmonies while San rubs his face in Yunho’s sweater. It’s fluffy and smells faintly of Tide laundry detergent - a very Yunho smell.
“Is that Yeosang?” Yunho asks, when he notices that San isn’t listening to his compliments. San nods. He’s probably getting stage makeup all over Yunho’s sweater, but he can’t bring himself to care. A little foundation won’t hurt, but the sinking feeling in his stomach does.
Yunho brings a hand to the back of San’s head and presses a soft kiss into his hair. He doesn’t say anything else. San is grateful to have Yunho as his best friend.