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“Are we there yet?”
Jisung is this close to letting go of the steering wheel and wiping off the smarmy smirk that’s definitely on Minho’s face, even if that would mean they’d go careening off the edge of the highway. Instead, he barely gives Minho a glance; just looks at him long enough to see the sun glinting off his necklace. The shining silver nearly blinds him, so he whips his eyes back to the road quickly.
He sighs, releasing all that pent-up annoyance, and nods to where his phone is resting underneath the stereo. “Why don’t you ask the Google Navigation Lady, I’m sure she’d be happy to give you that information,” he says sweetly, but anyone in the car can tell that Jisung’s being sarcastic. Luckily, Minho knows how to take a joke because Jisung can practically feel him rolling his eyes in the passenger seat next to him as he reaches for Jisung’s phone.
“Google Navigation Lady says fifteen minutes, if you take the fastest route,” Minho relays.
Jisung stretches his fingers around the steering wheel. “Well then, we’re fifteen minutes away, my dear,” he says, glancing over at Minho again to smirk at him. Minho crosses his arms and slumps down in his seat, and Jisung just laughs as he looks back at the road.
A few minutes later, Minho drops the ‘I’m-mad-at-my-boyfriend’ charade and asks, “What’s the point of booking a beachside hotel if we’re just gonna drive to another beach anyway?”
“Because, my dear Minho,” Jisung begins as he yanks the car around a particularly tight curve, “the hotel beach has pointy rocks and crappy waves. The beach we’re going to has neither of those things, trust me.” He glances over at Minho once again to flash him a comforting smile, which Minho returns. Turning back to the road, Jisung goes over his mental checklist for today one last time before they arrive at the beach.
- cooler with drinks and food check
- sunscreen, towels, and extra water check
Since this day of vacation was Jisung’s suggestion, he was the one tasked with preparing for it. That meant getting up hours before they needed to leave the hotel, making lunches for the both of them, packing the beach essentials, and loading everything into the car.
By the time Minho rolled out of bed and into the kitchen at ten, Jisung had been up for two hours and was cradling a cup of coffee in his hands as he tried not to faceplant into his cereal bowl. It’s a known fact that Jisung’s not a morning person, but seeing Minho all rejuvenated from the extra sleep gave Jisung all the energy needed to keep himself awake for the rest of the day.
- wetsuit and booties (rentals) x2 check
- surfboard (rental) x2 check
On their way to the beach, they stopped at a surfing rental store for the proper equipment. The second Jisung stepped inside the store, he smiled. Even though he’d only gone a foot inside, there was already sand in his flip-flops and the stark smell of the sea air wafted through the store like it was stuck to the surfboards.
“You really love it, don’t you.” Jisung opened his eyes – they were closed ? – and turns to Minho, who’s looking at him with a rather fond expression, kind of like the one he wears when he watches his cats play together.
Jisung takes another look around the store at all the boards and wetsuits and other surfing necessities. He breathes in the smell of the ocean again, and feels a tiny smile creep up his face. “Yeah,” he answers, looking Minho in the eye. “I really do.”
~
Jisung fell in love with the water when he was five years old.
His parents always recite the story of his first swimming lesson at the community pool during family gatherings, so much so that they’ve had to come up with new ways to tell the story. Even though there are many versions by now, they all follow the same narrative.
The moment Jisung’s mom walked him over to the beginner’s area and lowered him into the pool, Jisung’s head disappeared under the water. She waited near the edge for Jisung’s head to bob up like pool floatie, but nothing broke the water’s surface. She called the instructor over and asked for her to look for Jisung in the pool.
“It’s his first lesson and he’s not a very big kid; he can’t have gone far,” Jisung’s mom said, trying to keep her rambling to a minimum, even if she was getting more and more stressed the longer her son was missing.
“What’s your child’s name, ma’am?” the instructor asked calmly.
And that was when a voice piped up from the middle of the shallow area: “My name is Jisung!”
Both the instructor and Jisung’s mom followed the voice and saw Jisung clinging onto a kickboard – how he got ahold of it, no one knows – and was doing little flutter kicks to keep himself afloat. He was moving around with the kickboard in a small circle by the time the instructor reached him and dragged him back to the side of the pool by the kickboard.
“Ma’am,” the instructor said as she fished the kickboard out of Jisung’s reach and sent him over to the corner with the rest of the beginner class. “Your son is a natural. He’s got good instinct when it comes to the water, I think.” Then, she waded over to the beginners to start their lesson, leaving Jisung’s mom with that comment.
Jisung lived up to that instructor’s praise years after he received it. Once he got the hang of each specific stroke, he joined the swim team when he was seven years old. When he went to meets, he often came home with a ribbon or a medal. He may not have been the fastest in his age group, but he always had a strong start and perfect flip turns, something that gave him an advantage over his competition.
Jisung was about to turn eight years old when his parents turned on the TV to watch the Summer Olympics. Jisung didn’t really care much for wrestling, or football, or even track cycling, but the one sport he’d always be in the room to watch was swimming. His eyes tracked the fastest swimmer’s strokes relentlessly like he was the one analyzing them, not the sports commentators on the television.
“Someday, I wanna go to the Olympics,” Jisung told his mom when she tucked him into bed that night.
Jisung’s mom just smiled and brushed Jisung’s hair off his forehead. “I think you can do anything you set your mind to,” she replied before turning off the light on his bedside table. As Jisung laid on his back, trying to fall asleep as he stared at the ceiling, he smiled to himself.
But Jisung’s Olympic dream became just that, a dream, when his dad took him surfing when he was nine.
Jisung complained a lot when they first got there, about the saltwater being too different from the chlorinated pool water he was used to, and the fact that the wetsuit his dad rented was being entirely too troublesome for him to bother. Once he set foot in the ocean, however, he was glad he spent the extra ten minutes tugging the neoprene over his skin because the water was definitely not heated.
But all the little things Jisung harped on about crashed on the beach with the waves, because when he stood up on the board for the first time – his dad holding his hand in the shallows, of course – he felt alive.
Jisung used to think the water was some kind of unstoppable, unmalleable force. The nature documentaries he watched religiously as a toddler reinforced that narrative. Rivers eroded landscapes and waterfalls roared like lions and he wanted to know that he wasn’t completely at the mercy of the water. So, he swam. He cut through the water like a knife as he completed lap after lap, getting stronger so that he could hold his own against the primal force of the tides.
Standing on top of the water, though; it hit different. Instead of fighting the water on its own turf, battling for dominance in a field that didn’t belong to him, Jisung stood on a plane above the water, finally besting it by outmaneuvering it, besting it by using the power of the waves to travel, by using the water to defy gravity itself.
When he bested the water, Jisung became its ally, its friend.
Surfing meant feeling the water to wait for the right wave, paddling to catch up to the sheer force of the water, leaning into it to ride it out to the shore.
Jisung fell in love with the water again when he was nine years old and standing on a surfboard, and he’s stayed in love ever since.
~
The trek from the parking lot to the beach doesn’t take too long, thankfully, but Jisung’s arms still hurt a little when he drops his surfboard onto the sand and sets the bags he’s carrying down near it. “I was not prepared for that arm workout,” he groans, turning to Minho.
Minho grunts as he puts his board near Jisung’s and slides the camp chair bags off his shoulder. “Yeah, me neither.” He rolls his shoulders back and something pops, audible enough for Jisung to hear. He widens his eyes at Minho, who just shrugs. “Happens all the time.”
Jisung squints his eyes suspiciously at Minho. “Whatever you say, babe,” he concedes, then starts pulling the camp chairs out of their bags so they have something to sit on besides sand. Minho helps him by taking unfolding the chairs and setting them up in a mini semicircle to stake out their spot. He even moves the surfboards around to maximize the amount of space they’re taking up.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jisung glimpses a surfer in the deepwater catch a wave and ride it for a good ten seconds before falling off. Something tugs at his chest as he watches, but he can’t put his finger on what the something is. All he knows is that it’s going to be good to ride a wave with a board under his feet again.
He spots another surfer turning into a wave so cleanly it almost looks easy, and a thought occurs to him. “I’ll have you know – ” he turns to Minho, who looks up from rummaging through the cooler with their food. “I’m not that great a surfer,” Jisung admits. He looks away from Minho and out towards the surf. It’s been years since he’s been to the ocean, much less touched a board, so he knows he’s a bit out of practice.
“Yeah, well, I’m not a surfer at all, so you’ve already got a head start on me there,” Minho says, and Jisung looks back at him. There’s a trace of a grin on Minho’s lips, and he’s about to lean in to kiss it away when Minho turns around to root through one of the bags Jisung packed. He straightens up with a bottle of sunscreen in his hand. “Want me to do your face?”
“Sure,” Jisung nods and pushes his bangs off his forehead. He scrunches up his nose when he feels the cold cream being smeared all over his cheeks. “Is’ cold,” he whines. Minho giggles and rubs some sunscreen onto Jisung’s nose, smoothing out his nose scrunch with his finger.
“It’s a necessary evil,” Minho says, his eyes smiling along with his lips. He squeezes a bit more sunscreen onto his fingers and rubs some onto Jisung’s ears, which is something Jisung always forgets to do. “’Cause I know that I don’t want you complaining to me for the next four days about your peeling and painful skin like you always do when you get sunburned.” He makes eye contact with Jisung, giving him one of his sarcastic grins as he steps back and starts applying sunscreen to his own face.
Jisung just smiles. “Ah, you know me so well,” he says, not wasting his opportunity to pinch Minho’s cheek as he hops over one of their bags. Minho looks at him, scandalized, with sunscreen only half-rubbed into his skin, and Jisung laughs. He rummages through the bag with their wetsuits and pulls his out, tossing Minho’s on one of the folding camp chairs. “You gonna be okay putting that on by yourself?”
“Psh,” Minho scoffs, swatting a hand at Jisung as he tosses the sunscreen back in its bag. “Of course I’m gonna be okay. I’m not good at everything for nothing, you know.” He flops down in the camp chair and brushes the sand off his feet before sticking them in the leg holes. Jisung watches him struggle to get it on for all of thirty seconds before Minho feels his stare and narrows his eyes at him. Jisung puts his hands up in surrender and busies himself with putting on his own wetsuit.
Even though it’s been a while since he’s surfed, the painstaking routine of tugging the neoprene over his arms and legs is still ingrained in his muscle memory, so he manages to get his wetsuit on in just under five minutes. He glances over at Minho, who’s grappling with the arms of the suit. Minho feels the weight of Jisung’s stare once again, and this time he gives Jisung the puppy-dog eyes instead of glaring. Jisung sighs and helps Minho pull the material over his arms with a small smile on his face.
Once Jisung pulls the zipper up, Minho lets out a huge sigh and slumps his shoulders. “That,” he says, “was way more difficult than it should have to be.”
Jisung barks a laugh and pulls Minho into a hug, hooking his chin over Minho’s shoulder. “I know, right?” he says, then presses a kiss right below Minho’s jaw. “From here on out though, things are only gonna get better, just you wait.” He smiles and hugs Minho a bit tighter, resting his head on Minho’s shoulder. Minho sneaks a kiss onto Jisung’s temple, prompting a giggle from Jisung.
He unwraps his arms from Minho’s waist and reaches around in their bags for their booties. “Here, put these on,” he says, flopping back down into his camp chair. “Then, we can get in the water.” Minho nods and starts yanking the booties onto his feet. Jisung hops out of his chair first and trots over to their surfboards, picking up the one he rented.
Minho’s not far behind; he picks up his own board and fixes Jisung with a wide grin. “Ready to go?” His eyes are glimmering with something, probably from nerves about his first time surfing, but something else too. He doesn’t get a long enough glance at the glimmer to find out what it is because Minho turns his head away and looks out towards the ocean. Something inside Jisung really, really .
Jisung tears his eyes away from Minho’s profile and follows his gaze. He spots the large waves way out in the water, obscuring the ocean behind it, and the surfers scattered like dots in the rolling waves as they build up and crash, then repeat. A smile spreads over his face. It’s good to be back, he thinks.
“I’m always ready,” he replies, and leads Minho out into the water.
~
Jisung wants to fall in love with Minho.
He knows he’s in love with the way he laughs, his messy hair in the morning, and the cat hairs he finds in the most random of places. On a lampshade, for example.
But Jisung wants to fall in love with Minho the way he fell in love with the water when he learned how to swim: wholeheartedly and headfirst. He wants it to happen in one singular moment, preferably with fireworks, but he’ll accept a scented candle if he can’t have the fireworks.
So far, that moment hasn’t happened yet. But Jisung will wait. He’ll wait as long as he needs to. For now, the feeling in his chest when Minho smiles at him will have to do.
~
They wade out until the waves lap at the backs of their knees, and Jisung drops his board onto the water’s surface. It hits with a satisfying smack, and he smiles as he places his hands on the middle of the board to guide it over the waves. He glances behind him and sees Minho copying him, placing his hands on his board like Jisung did. When Minho catches him staring, he grins cockily and raises an eyebrow confidently, as if to say, Look at me, look what I can do. His bravado is cut short by a wave that catches him by surprise and his board slips out of his hands. A look of astonishment takes over Minho’s face as he scrambles after it. Jisung has to look away from his absolutely – adorable – mess of a boyfriend to get himself to stop laughing.
“I think we should stop here,” he says once Minho maneuvers his board back to where Jisung’s standing. A wave crashes into Jisung’s thigh, and he moves his board over the crest of the wave with a push to the back end of the board. He sees Minho analyzing his movement, and by the time the next wave comes just seconds later, Minho doesn’t lose control of his board when the wave hits.
Jisung smiles at how fast Minho picks up the little details, like pushing the board over the waves. Something flutters in his chest, not the usual butterflies that break out of their chrysalises when Minho flashes a crescent-eyed grin at him. Instead, this something feels a little bit more like the feeling he gets when he watches his younger sister compete in meets, knowing that he’s the one who showed her how to kick all the way across the pool with a kickboard when she was first learning how to swim. It’s like that feeling, only a lot more intense. He feels it press against his ribcage when he breathes as he watches Minho push his board over another wave, but he doesn’t know what to call it.
He shakes himself out of his emotional contemplation. “So,” he says, and Minho whips his head around to face him. Jisung finds himself grinning easily at the eager look on Minho’s face. He’s so ready to learn, isn’t he. “Everything’s gonna happen pretty fast, so I think it might be easier if you watch me catch a wave than if I explain it all to you as you’re trying to catch one yourself.”
He raises an eyebrow for confirmation, and Minho nods in response. “Go right ahead,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the ocean. “I wanna see the pro do it before I totally embarrass myself.”
“Aw, don’t be nervous,” Jisung says. He pats Minho’s hand where it’s resting on his board and looks Minho in the eye. “From what I’ve seen so far, you’re gonna do great.” He smiles and lightly squeezes Minho’s hand. He can barely feel his own fingers after submerging them in the freezing ocean, and Minho’s hand is a beacon of warmth beneath his palm.
As Jisung retracts his hand, Minho smiles. “Thanks, Jisungie,” he says. “It really means a lot.”
“Well, you mean a lot to me,” Jisung says. It’s out of his mouth before he can put on the filter that sifts through the cheesy affections and pick-up lines his brain thinks up. He smiles apologetically, but Minho just laughs, and Jisung thinks maybe he doesn’t have to filter out his cheesy-ness for Minho. And he likes it like that; what better way to show love and affection than professing it in such an utterly cheesy way?
“I’m gonna go… surf now,” Jisung says, nodding to the waves. Minho nods, still smiling, and Jisung wades further out into the water. He stops once the waves crash against his ribcage, and he looks out at the larger waves so far out that his feet wouldn’t be able to touch the sand. A speck of a surfer paddles to catch one of those huge waves and manages to ride it out before losing their balance. He spots a smile on their face as they fall off the side of the board and splash into the ocean.
Someday, Jisung thinks, looking longingly at those waves. He turns his head to find Minho, who’s now leaning his whole torso on his board like it’s an oversized pool floatie where he left him in the shallow water. Minho catches him looking and waves, squinting his eyes in the sun as he smiles. Jisung waves back with a grin. I’ll be okay without those waves for today.
He turns back to the oncoming waves and pushes his board up over one rolling towards him. Then, one catches his eye; not the next one, but the one after that. It looks promising, still picking up speed and height as it races towards the shore.
Jisung pushes up over the first wave and orients his board to face the beach. He glances back and feels the pull of the wave around his legs, then pushes himself onto the board, laying flat on his stomach. He paddles for all of three seconds before the wave catches up to him, then he stops slicing his arms through the water.
He pushes himself to his knees and brings his feet out from underneath him, and slowly stands up, holding his arms out like he’s walking a tightrope. Once he knows he’s not going to fall, he tilts his head back and closes his eyes, basking in the sun’s rays as he rides the wave.
He’s not sure how far the wave takes him, but that’s the beauty of it. Time slows down when Jisung’s feet touch the surfboard. The ten seconds it takes for him to ride the wave until it breaks and fizzles out turn into minutes, minutes of pure bliss where all that exists is Jisung and the board beneath his feet and the water beneath the board. Those elongated seconds are all it takes to make Jisung feel like he’s alive again.
When he starts to lose his balance, Jisung’s eyes fly open and he hops off his board before he falls off with flailing arms. The water goes up to his shins, rising and falling as more waves crash around him. He reaches for his board and yanks on the cord to pull it towards him and tucks it under his arm as he wades back out into the ocean.
Back to Minho.
~
He already knows he’s in love with his smile, the way his voice sounds when he stays up way too late at night, and the cat hairs he finds in the most random of places, like in the microwave.
But Jisung wants to fall in love with Minho the way he fell in love with the water when he surfed: naturally and everlasting. He wants to fall in love with Minho knowing that what they have is going to last a long time, just like Jisung’s love for the sea.
Jisung thinks he’s close to being in love, but he’s not quite done falling yet. So Jisung will wait. He’ll wait as long as he needs to. For now, Minho’s loving words whispered quietly as they fall asleep together will have to do.
~
“So?” Jisung asks once he reaches Minho, who’s still floating in the shallow water. He flops down onto his board and uses his whole torso to push it over the waves. It’s a nice break for his legs and arms. “Learn anything?”
Minho gives him a sarcastic glance and bumps into Jisung’s board with his own before splitting into a small grin. “Yeah, I guess so,” he says, accompanying his words with a shrug.
“Really?” Jisung asks. He bumps into Minho’s board in retaliation. “Then, tell me, .”
Minho rolls his eyes at him and attempts to bump their boards together again. He’s trying to play it off cool, but Jisung knows that the red tinge on the tips of his ears isn’t a sunburn, so he smiles in satisfaction.
“From my rigorous studies,” Minho starts after clearing his throat. He props himself up on his board with his elbows. “You had to turn the board around before the wave to get ready, and then you got on your stomach and paddled, to gain speed, right? Then, you pushed up – ” Minho demonstrates the technique “ – and got on your knees, I think. After that, it was pretty much finding your balance as you stood up.”
He looks up at Jisung expectantly like he’s waiting for a correction or a critique. Jisung’s eyes soften just from looking at Minho’s wide eyes and slightly furrowed eyebrows. He wants to tell Minho that he went above and beyond with his analysis of surfing technique, but Minho interjects before Jisung can get a word out. “I’m missing something, aren’t I.”
Jisung tilts his head and tries to think: was there anything crucial that Minho left out of his explanation? All the steps are there, from the paddling to the pushing up, and Jisung can’t figure out what’s missing –
A large wave crashes near them and nearly sends Jisung flying off his board with the way it was facing. He snorts saltwater out of his nose and tries to rid the taste of it from the back of his throat. That wave was way bigger than the others that rolled their way to where Jisung and Minho were floating in the shallow water. Probably would’ve been a good wave to surf, Jisung thinks as another wave, smaller this time, crashes a few feet away.
And that’s when he realizes what Minho was missing.
“You forgot the wave,” Jisung blurts, startling Minho. He raises an eyebrow, and Jisung sighs as he gears up for an explanation. “You have to find the right wave before you even think about turning your board around.”
Minho’s mouth forms an ‘o’ shape and he nods in understanding. “How do you know which wave to turn around for?”
Jisung looks out at the ocean, towards the big waves in the deep water and the dots of people waiting in the water. The water rises around his ribcage as another wave rolls by. “This is gonna sound so cheesy, but,” he says, turning back to Minho. He’s looking at him expectantly, just like before. Jisung’s chest pounds. “You just have to feel it. After you do it for a while, you’ll know which waves to pick.”
“Oh.” Minho says it so simply, but Jisung knows he’s not being mean. In fact, he’d bet the sandwich he packed in the cooler that Minho’s having an internal epiphany about knowing which waves to surf just from a feeling. He gets like that sometimes, a little too immersed in his head, so Jisung reaches out and taps the back of Minho’s hand where it’s resting on his board.
Minho jolts out of his thoughts and smiles at Jisung sheepishly. He opens his mouth to speak, but hesitates. Eventually, he says, “Will you... help me find the right one?”
Something in his chest pangs, and Jisung finds himself smiling. He steers his board to the waves and beckons to Minho. “Come on, then.”
They wade out a bit farther, until the water reaches Jisung’s belly button. He stops and holds onto his board, surveying the incoming waves. He feels Minho standing next to him more than he sees him, but he’s fine with that. Minho’s presence is comforting, kind of like the smell of the saltwater, and constant, like the push and pull of the waves.
He’s like my own little ocean, Jisung thinks, a smile pulling at his lips as he makes that connection. He remembers during exam season of his senior year of college, around the time he and Minho first got together, how Minho was always willing to go on a hot cocoa run for Jisung, how he always listened to Jisung’s worries about failing, how he texted Jisung every night, ‘you should go to bed’ and then, ‘sweet dreams.’ Not only was Minho’s presence constant back then; h
Jisung’s eyes flit over to Minho for a second. He’s looking out at the waves like Jisung, probably trying to get a feel for the water, trying to put Jisung’s teaching to the test. That smile that was pulling at his lips earlier finally makes an appearance.
“Jisungie, how ‘bout this one?” Minho asks. Jisung directs his gaze back to the ocean. The next wave isn’t too big, but it has potential; slowly rolling, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to fizzle out before it reaches them.
“Looks good, Min,” he confirms. “Time to get ready.” Minho turns his board around quickly and keeps his gaze trained on the wave. “Alright, hop on. I’ll give you a push.” Jisung rests a hand on Minho’s board as he lies down on his stomach. “Now, paddle, let’s go.”
Jisung gives Minho one last push and watches as he picks up speed as the wave rushes by Jisung, then moments later, meets the tail end of Minho’s board. Jisung’s breath hitches in his throat in anticipation.
To Minho’s credit, the wave doesn’t unset him and leave him behind. He rides the wave for a few seconds on his stomach, testing the waters before Jisung sees him push up onto his knees. A few moments later, Minho jumps from his knees to his feet and stands up, sticking his arms straight out to his sides for balance.
It’s a ‘blink and you miss it’ moment, the moment Minho’s standing on his board before falling. But Jisung doesn’t blink. He doesn’t miss it. That warm fluttering in his chest returns as Jisung watches Minho stand and smile and fall into the water.
He knows what that feeling is now. It’s pride.
Jisung can’t help the smile that tears his face in two.
I’m in love, he realizes, just as Minho’s head resurfaces above the water.
~
Winter has never been one of Jisung’s favorite seasons. During winter, whenever he left the pool after swim team practice, the cold air whipped through his damp hair and goosebumps raised on his skin. More often than not, Jisung ended up with colds during the winter. His mom always blamed it on his two-minute walk from the pool to the bus stop in the freezing weather, even if there was a flu going around at school.
Jisung met Minho in winter.
He’d been studying for his rapidly approaching midterms at the city library because the campus library closed after eleven p.m. He thought he’d finally have some peace and quiet to perfect one of his literary essays, but he was sorely mistaken.
Someone sat down across from him, and Jisung narrowed his eyes over the lid of his laptop. The stranger was nursing two cups of coffee from one of the chain stores just down the street. It was a little odd, two coffees at midnight, but then again, Jisung was studying – scratch that – not making much progress at midnight, so who was he to judge.
Then, the stranger slid one cup across the table, making eye contact only long enough to say, “You look like you need it right about now.”
“Oh, uh,” Jisung said, pulling the cup closer to him. It warmed the palm of his hand, and that surprised him. The stranger must have just bought it a few minutes ago. “Thank you…?”
“Oh, sorry,” the stranger said, averting his eyes downward as if that would hide the pink tinge coating his cheeks. He looked up after a moment and said, “I’m Minho.”
“Thank you, Minho,” he said. A smile pulled at his lips. “I’m Jisung.”
“Hi, Jisung.” Minho smiled at him, and somehow, that warmed Jisung more than the coffee did.
Minho didn’t leave until almost one in the morning. He just sat across the table from Jisung for an hour. The glow of his phone lit up his face while Jisung typed out sentences and squinted at his online sources. It was nice, having someone sitting with him, keeping him company, even though Jisung didn’t say a word to Minho after they introduced themselves.
Once Minho was gone, Jisung took that as his cue to pack up for the night. After slinging his backpack over his shoulder, Jisung waved to the nightshift librarian as he left. He braced himself as he pushed open the front door, but the cold wind still caught him by surprise.
The wind howled, making Jisung shiver, but a voice still carried in it. He looked to his right and spotted Minho, cupping his hand to the bottom of his phone as he spoke.
Jisung only caught a snippet of the conversation – “Cute guy… coffee… his number? No…” – and that was all Jisung needed to hear. Once Minho hung up and leaned against the building as he let out a sigh, Jisung approached him and asked for his number.
They went out on a date the very next night.
It was on their second date Minho learned that Jisung didn’t drink coffee.
Jisung still caught a cold that winter, but even so, he felt just a little bit warmer. It could’ve just been the fuzzy blanket his sister got him for Christmas, but it also could’ve been the fact that he and Minho were cuddling under said blanket as they watched animated movies into the night.
The thing about Minho was, even though Jisung had been in relationships before, he was the first person Jisung ever felt he could see himself falling in love with. He didn’t know how long it would take for him to fall, just that he would hit that rock bottom eventually.
~
After scarfing down the lunches Jisung packed – “Really innovative flavor with the mustard,” Minho comments – they end up surfing for a few more hours. Minho falls more than he stands, but when he does manage to plant his feet on the board, Jisung is reminded of his epiphany. Once, they manage to catch the same wave, and Minho smiles over at Jisung as they ride it out to the shore. That alone has Jisung’s heart pounding and thumping and bursting out of his ribcage.
Eventually, Jisung’s fingers start turning a bit purple. Minho practically has to drag him out of the surf and plop him in a camp chair. “You probably wouldn’t care if you died of hypothermia as long as you were surfing, would you,” Minho chastises. He rips one of Jisung’s booties off his feet and nearly does a backward somersault in the sand.
“Probably not,” Jisung agrees. Minho just shakes his head as Jisung grins widely.
Tying the surfboards to the top of the car is a group effort. Jisung nearly gets hit in the face with one of the tie-down straps, and Minho just laughs, the giggle Jisung loves – loves – so much, and he can’t find it in him to be annoyed.
After about an hour of driving, Jisung’s realization that he is very much in love with Minho pushes its way to the forefront of his mind. He can’t not think about it anymore.
This is it. He glances over at Minho from the driver’s seat. He’s lying back on the headrest, lips slightly parted, but his breathing tells Jisung that he’s not quite asleep yet. The car takes a turn around a curve and Minho’s head lolls to the side. He scrunches his eyebrows together as he moves his head back, annoyed that the turn inconvenienced his resting position.
I’m at rock bottom now.
“Jisung?”
His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “Yeah, baby?”
He sees Minho smile softly out of the corner of his eye. “I had fun today,” he says and turns his head. Jisung watches Minho’s eyes open the slightest bit before he has to look back to the road. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you for today,” Jisung counters, smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Minho very well could turn this into a battle of who is more thankful, but he must be tired because he just laughs instead. Jisung’s wiped out too; he forgot how much work it is to surf. His arms and thighs are sore from pushing up to standing so much.
He glances over at Minho again. The setting sun filtering through the window paints Minho in a lovely orange-gold light. His eyelashes cast tiny shadows over his cheeks and his silver necklace is reflecting the sunlight again. He can’t believe Minho still wears that thing; it’s cheap as fuck – Jisung was near-broke when he bought it – but every time Jisung brings it up, Minho shoots him down, claims it has ‘sentimental value’ and he’s keeping it.
Now or never, right? Jisung exhales and flexes his fingers a few times on the steering wheel. His heart is pounding.
“You know, I realized something today, Min,” he says. He keeps his eyes on the road, but he feels Minho’s gaze on him all the same.
“Yeah, Sungie?” Minho’s voice is breathy. Jisung’s heart pounds faster.
“I…” he pauses. Just say it. “I’m in love. With you,” he adds after a beat. Minho’s quiet, and Jisung swears his heart is connected to the speakers, he can hear it pounding so loudly.
“Are you serious right now, Jisung?” Minho asks. His voice is small.
Jisung turns off the highway and starts driving down a wide city road with lots of restaurants. He can’t answer until they’re stopped behind a red light. “Yeah. Yeah, of course I’m serious.” With the car stopped, he can properly look Minho in the eyes.
They stay like that for a while, and Jisung is so glad that the red lights take forever in this part of town.
Finally, Minho speaks, and it sounds like his voice is breaking. “I – I love you, Sungie. I’m in love with you too.” A tear rolls down his cheek like a miniature waterfall, and Jisung breaks into a grin.
“That’s great, Min,” he says, leaning closer to Minho. “That’s so, so great.”
Their lips meet for only seconds before the car behind them honks, but it’s long enough for Jisung to feel alive. He surfed today and he’s in love and he’s so alive. The car honks again, longer this time, and Jisung scrambles back to his seat so he can drive properly. Minho giggles for a good three blocks while Jisung’s cheeks heat to the temperature of the sun.
Jisung thinks falling in love is like the waves he fell in love with when he was a kid. The waves build up and up and roll closer and closer to the shore until they crash and break and all of a sudden, the wave is just water again.
Falling in love is like the waves when they break. There’s a single moment where you crash and burn and realize the person standing in front of you means more than the stars in the sky. But after that moment passes, you’re still in love. That feeling just bubbles under the surface of your skin, waiting to reappear when that person gives you another reason to love them like a new wave forming.
Jisung hopes he loves Minho and all his waves until their ocean dries up.