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in the movies, it’s like everyone has their life planned out ahead of them. even when they don’t know what to do, or where they want to go, they have some guiding force slowly stringing them along the right way, showing them what they need to do or where they should go.
lee keonhee, 22 years old, is still aimlessly wandering around.
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it hits him when he’s 19.
that’s when keonhee really gets put into this slump, when he first realizes that he doesn’t care for what he’s getting his degree in, doesn’t care much for whatever he’s learning. the only thing he cares about is eating, sleeping, and singing, and he’s not being graded for any of those things.
when he’s 19, he almost fails half of his classes, barely scraping by because hwanwoong (yeo hwanwoong, also 19 at the time, and more passionate about dance than anyone keonhee’s ever met) makes sure to drag him to the library every weekend, sitting with him and studying with him. he feels like he’s hwanwoong’s rubber ducky more often than not, but it works. he passes his classes, slowly building up his energy so that he can survive the next semester.
it’s once he’s past that year, 20 and still struggling, that he looks back and realizes that he doesn’t remember anything about that first semester, can barely remember the late night studying sessions with hwanwoong if he concentrates hard enough.
he doesn’t. there’s no need to remember the past.
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at 15, it almost feels like there’s something under his skin.
there’s something so sunken about the way keonhee holds himself, something weighing down on him more than his studies.
his mom asks him if he’s okay. dongju (son dongju, 13 at the time, and already prepared to help keonhee even before he decided to become a teacher) says keonhee looks like a shell that’s barely hanging off a skeleton. his classmates send him worried looks, giving him an occasional nod and saying that he can come to them if he needs to.
keonhee tells his mom that he’s okay, flashing a bright smile and quickly changing the conversation by asking what’s for dinner. he gives dongju a roll of the eyes and nudges his shoulder. his classmates learn to ignore whatever’s wrong, treating him like they usually do.
he never tells them what he was thinking, never tells them that he doesn’t even know why himself. he can’t say that, it doesn’t make sense. at some point, he tries to look up the answer, skimming page after page, book after book, trying to find an answer to the itch, find an answer for what feels wrong. he can’t, though, and whatever’s under his skin gets worse.
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at 16, seoho (lee seoho, 18 at the time, president of his school’s unofficial LGBTQ+ club and the best moderator that keonhee’s ever met) asks him for help.
it’s not much, just a simple preparation of decorations in the unofficial club room, but it warms keonhee’s heart. he smiles and agrees, and seoho smiles back, a soft smile that says more gratitude than his words ever could.
dongju comes to help out, too, and together the three of them have everything all set up, prepared for whatever seoho has planned. he doesn't know if there’s a specific reason why seoho sought him out, if there’s a reason why he didn't ask one of the club members, but keonhee doesn’t really care. in the club room, just the three of them messing around while setting up, it feels like the itch lessens, just a little bit, enough for keonhee to be able to breathe easily.
seoho asks the two of them if they want to join the club meeting, just for today, so that they can see the members enjoy their hard work.
they end up becoming permanent members. it’s the best decision of keonhee’s high school years.
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at 21, keonhee runs into seoho again.
it’s not much.
he barely recognizes seoho, his hair a warm orange rather than black, but his smile is exactly the same, the way his eyes crinkle at the edges and his nose scrunches up. it’s breathtaking, to see how familiar seoho still is, to see how much comfort his presence still gives keonhee.
the two of them get dinner together, an easy decision, something that has keonhee excited for the first time in a while, energy buzzing underneath his skin in a way that it hasn’t before. he has more fun than he’s had in a long time, feels his worries go away when seoho launches into a story about his roommate.
they keep in touch, this time, and keonhee’s glad.
from the smile etched onto his face, the curve of his eyes and the scrunch of his nose, keonhee can tell that seoho’s glad, too.
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at 16, before seoho, before everything else, dongju comes out.
he doesn’t try to make it a big deal, but with the way he’s shuffling in his seat, his hands tapping on everything and anything, his teeth sinking into his lips, keonhee can tell that it is. he can tell from the way that dongju will sometimes pause, going still before taking in a breath, and then make eye contact with keonhee before it all starts again.
he wants to reach out, to grab dongju’s hand and tell him that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to be scared of keonhee. that, no matter what, keonhee will always have his back, through thick and thin.
he doesn’t, though. he doesn’t want to accidentally break the moment, to accidentally make dongju seize up for good. so, keonhee doesn’t do that, doesn’t offer his comfort for something that he doesn’t know.
instead, keonhee goes first, telling dongju the story of how his lab partner had to get the whole lab evacuated because he decided to pull the shower handle out of nowhere. it’s a poor attempt to calm him down, but it works. the story’s enough to make dongju laugh, enough to make him relax enough that the tapping stops.
he says it quietly at first, too quiet for keonhee to hear, and dongju almost doesn’t repeat it when keonhee asks him to.
keonhee’s glad that he does.
it’s not a big deal, not to keonhee. dongju’s still his annoying neighbor that might as well be his little brother, being gay isn’t going to change anything. he’s still dongju , so keonhee doesn’t care outside of the fact that he’ll fight anyone who gives dongju a hard time because of it.
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at 18, keonhee’s drowning.
not literally, there’s no water filling his lungs, but it feels like there might as well be.
college applications pile up, glaring at him from the back of his mind no matter what he does, slowly but surely making it impossible to work on anything without feeling guilt on his shoulders. the thing is, he can’t start the apps, either. he doesn’t even know what he wants to do, never mind narrow it down to a certain few places that he’d like to learn in.
people keep giving him tips and tricks, keep telling him that he should just go for what he wants to, study what he loves. they say to look for fields of study that gives a lot of money, fields of study with a lot of jobs. they say don’t do anything that has to do with art because then he’ll be poor. it’s all so constricting, all so contradicting that he doesn’t want to even begin to think about it.
geonhak (kim geonhak, 19 at the time, who decided to volunteer at the nursery down the block from his former high school and keonhee’s high school because of his love for small kids) tells keonhee to ignore everyone. he says that colleges let people change their mind, that there’s no need to finalize anything right now. he tells keonhee that he can help find some colleges that let people go in undecided, and that he doesn’t have to decide right now if he doesn’t want to.
geonhak sits with him one day, sits with him for hours as keonhee finally starts to fill out his college apps.
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at 21, borderline 22 but not quite there, somewhere in the middle of keonhee’s birthday and his rekindled friendship with seoho, is the tickle of a discovery.
he meets hyungu (kang hyungu, also 21, has known dongju’s twin brother for years and yet keonhee has never been introduced to them before) and there’s a spark, so close to starting a fire in keonhee’s mind but isn’t quite there yet.
hyungu’s nice and soft in a way that keonhee can’t even begin to describe, and yet they’re also sarcastic and sharp, smirking a bit when keonhee reacts.
they’re with dongmyeong (son dongmyeong, 19 years old and dongju’s twin, who has to be the most charismatic person that keonhee’s ever met) and their friend yonghoon (jin yonghoon, 25 at the time, who keonhee doesn’t really know except for in passing) when keonhee runs into them, and he can immediately tell that there’s a passing secret amongst them. he can see the way that dongmyeong’s radiating a sort of anxious energy that’s unusual for him, can see the way that yonghoon takes initiative of the conversation, almost hiding hyungu at first.
at some point during the greetings, hyungu rolls their eyes, moving in front of yonghoon and stretching a hand out for keonhee to shake. then, they tell keonhee that they’re nonbinary, and keonhee can hear dongmyeong breathe out a sigh.
keonhee doesn’t know what that means, though, so he asks. dongmyeong and yonghoon give each other a look, not quite as anxious as before but not off the edge of it, either.
hyungu, to their credit, doesn’t look phased. instead, they reach out, moving keonhee to a place where the two of them can sit down before they start talking. dongmyeong and yonghoon don’t follow, and it’s almost relieving. it feels nice to talk to hyungu about this so casually and comfortably, the way the itch under keonhee’s skin doesn’t burn, doesn’t demand his attention. it feels like when he’s with seoho, able to just exist instead of worrying.
it’s almost soothing, the way hyungu looks so casual talking about it. like there’s nothing wrong, like it’s not something that’s boiling under their skin. instead, it’s something to embrace, something that makes their eyes shine with something every time keonhee asks a question.
keonhee doesn’t pick at the itch. he doesn’t think he can, not anymore. he can’t pick at it and hope that it goes away, hope that it stops being there one day. instead, he lets it simmer, let’s it rise up, let’s it bring itself to the forefront of his mind.
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at 17, that’s when the itch starts to worsen.
it’s been there since he was 15, but avoidance is a skill that keonhee’s mastered, and not even the pinprick of the itch at the base of his neck, on the sensitive skin of his ears, across his forearms, everywhere , is enough to let him bring himself to talk about it.
the worst part is, there’s no one to talk to. seoho’s gone, off to college. geonhak’s too busy finishing his senior year, preparing all of his college applications. dongju—he can’t go to dongju . he’s supposed to be older, he’s supposed to have his shit together by now. keonhee’s not supposed to be someone who asks for guidance from dongju, he’s supposed to be the one dongju goes to.
so, he doesn’t talk about it. he lets it eat away at him, lets it take over his skin. it doesn’t matter, not as long as he says it doesn’t, not as long as he acts like it doesn’t.
his mom’s happy that he’s smiling more, and he’s glad. no one else can see the distress that he’s under.
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at 22, keonhee doesn’t know what to do.
he’s not some movie character who has his life all planned out. he’s not some book character who has his entire life written out over pages, planned to the exact moment.
he doesn’t know what he wants to be, doesn’t really know if his major fits him. he doesn’t know what he is, or who he is, but he’s fine. he has time, he can find out later.
for now, he goes to youngjo (kim youngjo, 25 right now, keonhee’s roommate who both terrifies him and relaxes him with his presence) with a request, words that fall softly off of his lips, like if keonhee speaks any louder than the fragile confidence he’s built up would shatter.
“can i try something out?” keonhee asks, voice low and fragile, threatening to break. it sounds nothing like how hyungu does, not yet, there’s no confidence backing the words. “can you use they and them pronouns for me?”
it’s silent, and keonhee worries that they said something wrong, that maybe youngjo shouldn’t have been the first person they went to. they worry that maybe, just maybe , youngjo will tell them that they’re wrong, that they can’t use those pronouns. for a moment, the itch gets stronger, to the point where it feels like it’s burning their skin.
and then, youngjo wraps his arms around keonhee, whispering soothing reassurances into their ear.
at 22, lee keonhee doesn’t know what to do. in fact, they don’t really know anything, but that’s fine. for now, all they need is this comfort, the itch that’s been under their skin for so long fading away. it’s not gone, not really, but it’s an improvement, and it feels like they’ve finally taken a step in the right direction.