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Eyes that turn amber when the light hits them, framed by thick, dark lashes, a plump bottom lip and a straight, narrow nose that catches tiny little flakes of snow as it flutters down from the sky. Yuta reaches out towards the glass, tracing the reflection that stares back at him —an unfamiliar face, but one he recognises somehow—and this time, he tries to remember.
He tries, and tries, soaking in all the lines of this body, and all the dips of skin and keeps them etched into his memory.
But the memories trickle thinner with every breath he takes, until there’s nothing left of it but the lingering wonder. And when Yuta wakes up to his alarm blaring at six in the morning, he forgets, again.
-
The dreams started when was in his last year of middle school. His mother would comfort him with a hug whenever he woke up crying because he was confused and scared and his mind spotted with blank spaces he couldn’t fill no matter how hard he tried to think. ‘it’s okay, Yuta-kun, everyone dreams of strangers.’ she would say, but Yuta knows not everyone dreamt of being in the same stranger’s body, over and over only to forget.
They’re just dreams, his sister would repeat, so he would write them off as stress-induced hallucinations (until he couldn’t anymore).After all, it wasn’t easy juggling soccer practice and the upcoming high school entrance exams and his case wasn’t helped by the uncertainties that continued to grow alongside him.
“They’re just dreams.” He would recite, except he would wake up one day with a word scribbled hastily across his palm, written in a language he had never bothered to know until that moment.
Later, when he knows enough Korean he’ll find out what it’s supposed to say, but the Yuta back then would scrub his hand clean, his eyes wide with newfound awareness.
‘What’s your name?’
-
They’re never consistent, Yuta muses as he pushes a senior against his gym locker, lips pressed clumsily together, his inexperience radiating from his stiff posture and clammy hands.
“You’re preoccupied.” Takeshi, the senior who’d caught his eyes during freshman year for being nearly an entire head taller than him, asks when they part, wiping the drool from his lips with the collar of PE uniform.
“I was thinking about a dream I had this morning.”
“A dream?”
“Yes, about someone. Or about me in someone else’s body, I don’t really remember.” Takeshi chuckles and pulls him closer so he can twirl a lock of Yuta’s hair between two fingers.
“Why are you thinking about that when you’re with me?”
“I don’t know.” He does know.
It’s because something about Takeshi’s dimple strikes a cord buried in his head and all of a sudden there’s music resonating in what used to be a hollow memory. Something jazzy and colourful. He pokes the shallow indent on the corner of Takeshi’s lips and can’t help but think that they should be somewhere further, like in the middle of his cheek.
-
“You’re the best in your team.” His dad tells him after a practice match with a neighbouring school before the prefecturals. He’s been telling Yuta that since he learned how to control the direction of the ball like it’s an extension of his body.
Everyone thinks he’s going to make it to the national team if he works hard enough, if he goes to a good university that can offer a scholarship programme. It’s not too farfetched; he’s hailed as a prodigy, a genius of his generation, and Yuta knows the trajectory of his career was decided the moment he made that one flawless goal in third grade.
“What if I don’t want to be a professional player?” He blurts out without thinking and looks up at his father to see the lines around his mouth deepen into a frown. He doesn’t mean for that to happen.
“What are you talking about? This is your dream.”
Yuta scrubs his face with his towel. Suddenly, his heart feels heavy in his chest and he pushes up the bench to stand. Desperate to put space between him and his father, “You’re right.” He mumbles even though all he wants to say is that ‘No, dad, it’s not. This is yours .’
-
Yuta goes cross-eyed trying to make out the English words written under a picture of a couple lying on ice. It looks like an old movie poster, one Yuta has never seen before. There’s a vintage turntable in the corner of the room and a stack of old vinyl records next to it and Yuta can’t help but wonder if he’s not possessing the body of a forty year old instead of a highschooler.
He looks at the full length mirror next to the dresser and notes that he’s grown taller, his cheeks no longer as full as they’d once been, except it’s hard to be sure when your memories are made up of echoes and splashes of white and grey.
The house is quiet, the silence so consuming that he forgets the persistent uproar in his head.
He’s alone, but he doesn’t feel that way when he pulls his cardigan closer to his body. It smells like cedar and the beginning of spring and Yuta sinks into the tranquility it offers as he takes in all the little details in the otherwise spotless room. He knows he won’t remember any of them but it doesn’t matter, because this isn’t real.
This room exists only in his dreams, and in his dreams it will stay.
-
He doesn’t know what prompts him to but he decides to teach himself Korean during a long break from school and practice. He injures himself during a game, completely shattering his ankle after an opponent’s side tackle hits wrong.
The opposing team gets a penalty and the player banned from participating in any games for the entire year but that’s hardly enough compensation for the agony that shoots through Yuta when he curls into himself in the middle of the field, the pain sending his senses into overdrive. The scrapes all over his hands and face sting from the barest touch of air, the grass doing little to cushion the impact of his fall.
There’s no guarantee that he’ll heal enough to compete again and while this is the perfect opportunity to ease out from under the weight of his family’s expectations, there’s also guilt looming over his head. The universe might have decided for him, but Yuta has still only known the same one-way street leading to the future they’ve set for him.
So he distracts himself from his self-reproach and the pitying looks by printing pages after pages of basic Korean lessons. He learns to read and write in just a day, and manages to reach the basic conjugations before he decides it’s a little too hard for a casual distraction and drops it completely.
He never thought a day would come where he’ll actually be able to use it, but it happens, on a lazy Sunday morning when Yuta wakes up to his cast covered in messy Korean characters.
‘I’m Yuno’ it says, he reads it out loud once, slow and careful. The name already feels familiar on his lips.
There’s another line under it, smaller and harder to make out, ‘What’s yours?’
-
None of the dreams are supposed to stick, but it does anyway, little parts of it, tiny insignificant details that aren’t enough to clue him in on the identity of the boy he only knows as Yuno.
But he knows they’re real; the half-eaten chocolate bars Yuno leaves on his desk that taste like pure, unrefined sugar, the velvety plaid pyjamas he likes to wear and the same soothing melody playing from his desktop speakers.
And also because Yuta’s pretty sure he’s not fluent enough in Korean to be writing full sentences in his notepad in his sleep and he’s convinced that even if he were, he’d have a better handwriting than that.
So Yuta stops calling them dreams, instead referring to them as switches , because that’s the only plausible, albeit illogical, explanation he can come up with.
The discovery distracts him from his own burdens, from the disapproval he foresees coming, once his parents find out about his plans. Yuno’s world is very different from Yuta’s; it’s spirited, buzzing with anticipation. Every day that Yuta wakes up in Yuno’s body is spent trying to understand the unfamiliar place that he begins to see as home.
It’s cold where Yuno lives but it’s filled with reckless idealisations. The memories never carry over to Yuta’s waking moments, but the feeling does, and it stirs a fiery courage he didn’t know existed in him.
-
“So have you decided about university?” Takeshi brings the topic up after the seniors receive their entrance exam results. Yuta doesn’t know how to feel about his closest confidante and the only one who knows about his preferences leaving for good. Takeshi hadn’t kept his plans about moving to Tokyo a secret, so it’s not like Yuta can whine to him about it.
He wonders if Takeshi is secretly hoping he’ll follow him to Tokyo.
“No. I…” He stops mid sentence, rubbing at the phantom ache in his ankle through his pants. It’s been six months and the healing process looks promising, there's a very good chance he can go back to playing, the doctors said. It shouldn’t, but the news dampens Yuta’s mood, “I’m not sure about university.”
“Oh? What about your scholarship for soccer?” He knows Takeshi doesn’t mean any harm by the question, still his shoulders go stiff at the mention of it.
“I don’t wanna do soccer.” It’s the first time he’s admitting the truth out loud, after years of being conditioned that this is the path that he wants. The only path he’s supposed to take. Takeshi seems to take the hint because he hums, reaching between them to squeeze Yuta’s hand. They’re standing too close for a pair of friends, and Yuta’s antsy with unease at the thought of being seen by one of his sister’s friends. They’re walking on the street leading to the noodle shop Momoka and her friends are working part-time at. Kadoma is such a small city after all, too small to contain all of Yuta’s dreams.
“Hey, you’re going to do well Yuta. Whatever you decide to do.” He grins under his scarf. Takeshi doesn’t have to know how warm his cheeks have gotten from such a simple compliment.
He clears his throat and adds a bounce to his steps to liven up the mood, “How about you let me give you a haircut before graduation?”
Takeshi snorts, taking his hand back with a fond look, “No way, last time you cut my bangs too short. I don’t wanna look hideous in my graduation pictures.”
“It can be like a memento. You’ll take a look at those pictures ten years in the future and remember me.”
The older boy smiles, “I don’t need a memento to remember you by Yuta.”
-
After three whole years trying to convince himself that this isn’t what he wants, Yuta picks up a fashion magazine at the convenience store, rifling through the pages next to a bespectacled kid who’s nose-deep in the latest shonen jump issue.
His attention lingers particularly on a page showcasing what’s supposedly trendy hairstyles. He smiles when he catches sight of a round-cheeked model with thick dark hair and sullen eyes. He wonders if those bangs would look right on Yuno, it’s hard to ascertain when his features keep slipping away from Yuta’s grasp.
And so he tries it the next time they switch, grabbing a pair of scissors from the younger boy’s cupboard and carefully clipping the longer strands of hair over his eyes until it’s a perfectly straight line above his eyebrows.
It looks awkward but that’s to be expected, Yuta has cut other people’s hair but never his own. He scoops the mess in the sink and does his best not to leave a trace. He catches his reflection on the mirror again and sighs,
“At least you’re very handsome, even with a terrible haircut.”
He has a feeling that Yuno didn’t quite like it, judging by the jagged handwriting on his palm a few days later, which he forgets to note down before washing the ink away under the tap. He doesn’t have to translate it to get a sense of the other boy’s chagrin.
He only hopes he’s going to be a better hairdresser awake than when he’s asleep.
-
Takeshi’s graduation and their subsequent goodbyes at Shin-Osaka station come to pass like a cold breeze on a chilly morning. Yuta finally acknowledges that there’s something particularly electric about switching places with a boy whose face he can’t remember but whose name is carved into his mind.
In one of it, he remembers finding three tubs of the same flavour of ice cream in Yuno’s fancy-looking freezer, pistachio (Yuta only knows because he tried all of them hoping at least one would turn out to be matcha). In another one he sees a grand piano in the middle of a sprawling living room spruced up with paintings and expensive-looking vases, the marble floor wider than Yuta’s entire family house.
‘Your name?’ Is a question that comes up every time, and it becomes some sort of a game between them. Yuno asks him for his name, and Yuta answers him with another question about himself.
He knows he should be at least a little bit alarmed or panicked because it shouldn’t be normal, exchanging notes and fostering a strange friendship with a boy who may or may not exist, but Yuta is only capable of feeling solace each time the change takes place.
Yuno has been there far longer than he remembers, like a permanent fixture but one that’s a little more out of reach. Yuta may be unable to hold onto the images in his head longer than a few hours but his heart knows the boy with alabaster skin and midnight hair.
Yuta starts paying more attention, noting what he remembers when he wakes up in an old notebook before the memories crumble like sand. He keeps them in an old shoebox under his bed.
It's like a record, a movie reel that he will keep replaying until everything finally begins to fall into place, so Yuta doesn’t have to rack his brain to remember everything that makes Yuno real.
-
Yuta pulls his jacket sleeves over his hands, letting only the tips of his fingers peek from under them while he listens to his friends talk about their latest conquests during lunch break; about an older girl from another school or the underclassman who’d confessed on Valentine’s day.
He listens, but the words don’t register over the thrum of anxiety under his skin. It’s only been a few hours since he’d informed his soccer coach about quitting the team. He feels cold even with sweat rolling down his temple and misses his name being called a few times when they ask him to share how many girls he’s done it with.
The answer is none, because Yuta does a good job of putting up an air of unapproachability wherever he goes, not purposely, but the effect is enduring all the same. The last time he got confessed to was back in middle school. Sana was nice and cute and he would’ve gone out with her, had he not been eyeing his soccer team captain at that time.
“Girls don’t like me.” he says jokingly and laughs off their collective teasing. It briefly eases his mind off his predicament .
None of his friends are privy to what goes on in his head; from his fleeting speculations about the boy he switches with in his dreams to his unbidden desire to be seen beyond the potential soccer career he likely won't pursue and his unparalleled control of his body that may be permanently compromised from his injury.
He leaves it that way, he lets them think everything is splendid, lets the illusion fester, cementing a rickety sense of normalcy that will soon shatter under the weight of his shaky resolve.
-
There’s a tub of matcha ice cream next to his textbooks and the career assessment form he left blank on his desk when Yuta wakes up from his nap. It’s half melted and Yuta recognises it as the one he usually buys from the family-run store across the road from his house but he doesn’t remember getting it, nor does he remember even leaving the house.
He reaches for it and scoops a huge dollop that he stuffs in his mouth, heedless of the sharp pain that shoots up his head. He sniffles, and realises he’s crying. He’s been crying, for hours and hours before he’d fallen asleep, choking on his sobs in his effort to keep them in. It’s not weakness, he reminds himself, after another rattling argument with his father about his refusal to go back to the soccer team, no, these are small victories which he’ll celebrate with tears.
His father doesn’t know he has a pair of pricey shears he bought in secret with his money from last summer’s part time job. He doesn’t know that Yuta sometimes gives his classmates a free haircut at the rooftop during lunch. He doesn’t, because Yuta’s too good at keeping up appearances, too good at hiding.
It doesn’t have to be that way anymore.
He’s terrible at being true to himself, except when he’s in Yuno’s body, the rush of headstrong determination from the younger boy pulsates through their connection and bleeds into Yuta’s own reality.
He will wake up every morning with all the hollowness filled with Yuno’s residual passion, it’s only one of the many parts of him he leaves behind each time, and Yuta embraces all of them, even the unpleasant ones with a kind of optimism he didn’t know he was capable of.
There’s a note behind the assessment paper, which he almost misses when he goes to tuck it between his science textbook’s pages. Yuta doesn’t need to translate it this time.
‘You’ll be okay.’
-
Yuta isn’t alone. He has Yuno, somewhere out there, far away but never too far.
So he takes the plunge, imagining a pair of slightly bigger hands holding his own through the fall.
-
‘You’re getting better cutting hair’ says one of the many notes he finds in Korean next to him in bed. This time the sentence is longer so he painstakingly types it into Google translate one character at a time, grinning from ear to ear when he finally realises what it’s supposed to say.
Yuno has probably seen the mannequin head he practices on. It makes him giddy knowing his clumsy work can still be perceived as good.
It’s still weird, he thinks, this relationship he’s somehow forged with a person he doesn’t really know beyond the intimate details he’s accumulated throughout their intertwining dreams. Still, he holds onto the bond; it keeps him afloat while his world is submerged under the thick and palpable pressure of adulthood.
He now works at the local Family Mart and he earns enough to afford the unpaid days where he helps out at the hairdresser’s. They don’t let him cut hair yet, in fact, he doesn’t do much but watch and clean up after the professionals, but he learns through observation, like he always does.
‘Your composition sounds very good.’ In return, Yuta makes sure to leave a message in Japanese the next time he wakes up as Yuno after snooping around in the boy’s phone and discovering a video of him playing the piano in his living room. There’s so much determination in that lanky body of his that Yuta sometimes forgets he’s supposed to be younger, more inexperienced. Instead he has a presence that feels bigger than what Yuta can ever hope to achieve.
The Japanese characters look alien next to Yuno’s Korean notes in the same way his initial resignation felt out of place in this reality. Yuta’s not completely sure Yuno will be able to understand, but he trusts that the boy is clever enough to figure it out. After all, Yuno has the capacity for zeal, something he observes from rows of music textbooks on his shelves, all with bookmarks on them, and the university application forms in English in his drawers next to his secret stash of chocolate bars.
He listens to Yuno’s composition again one last time, the amateur but tenacious quality of each note reminding him of the gut-wrenching terror he felt when he looked his father in the eye and told him ‘no dad, I’m not going to be a soccer player.’
It’s been years but the disappointment that weighed the corners of his father’s lips down is something he’ll remember for a very long time. But he has an entire world to conquer, and his journey may have started off with disappointments and deceptions, but he knows he has a long, thrilling road ahead of him.
-
Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forevermore
Yuta sways to the gentle tempo, careful not to trip on Yuno’s clumsy feet. it’s always the same song playing every time. In fact, he’s pretty sure the younger boy only ever listens to Frank Sinatra and the thought brings a small smile to his (Yuno’s) face.
It’s amazing, Yuta thinks in the reprieve of Yuno’s bedroom, how someone can be so pure with his devotion, brimming with certainty in the same intensity as Yuta struggles with his indecisions. Yuno is amazing, because he can be what he wants to be without worry, and perhaps it’s a matter of circumstances; it’s obvious Yuno was born into wealth and privilege so he’s given more concessions, more time to step into the role he’s chosen for himself.
Curiously, Yuta doesn’t envy him for it, instead he clings onto an admiration borne out of the unintended dependency. Yuta wants the same rush of fulfilment but on his own terms.
There’s a message waiting for him on the dresser when he wakes up after that particular switch, in English this time, maybe because the other boy has sensed his frustration decoding word after word over the years they’ve been doing this.
“You’re pretty.” He reads it out loud and it startles a laugh out of him because he’s been called a lot of things but never that. Funny, weird, sporty are some of the few he used to hear back in high school. Impatient but a good kisser, Takeshi told him a few times, but pretty is new, and so is the warmth that spreads up to his ears.
The compliment makes him wonder if that means Yuno has noticed the slightest change in the way he styles his long hair, now past his shoulders. Does he stop to look at the mirror when Yuta puts his hair up in a bun or in half ponytails that frame his face? He’s never been bold enough to before, always held back by the image he felt pressured to keep, but now all he can think about is how he wants to show it off, the real Yuta underneath all the pretenses.
His new cartilage piercing throbs in time with the blood rushing to his head and his face feels warm from the thought of Yuno’s sincere admiration, even if the only way he can get it across is through messy notes and the hazy residue of his feelings.
“I wanna meet you.” Yuta says without conscious thought and grips the front of his shirt, imagining it’s Yuno’s warmth he can feel under his hand, Yuno’s heart beating under his ribcage. He pictures Yuno’s face in front of his and realises it’s no longer just an illusion when he feels something else under the paper. It’s a pressed flower, still fragrant and vibrant and very real.
He picks it up and holds it close, and hums a song softly under his breath, a single verse playing on repeat in his head,
In other words, hold my hand
-
“Do we have pistaschio flavour ice cream?” His coworker looks at him strangely, like Yuta’s question is inconceivable. She’s only two years his senior but she’s been working at the store for much longer.
“Since when did you like pistachio?” She asks back and Yuta shrugs because he actually doesn’t but in a brief moment of confusion he thought about buying some. For Yuno.
Something heavy settles in the pit of his stomach at the reminder that he can’t.
“I was just wondering.” He goes back to filling the empty shelf with Pocari Sweat bottles.
“You were also looking at the candy section. I didn’t know you liked sweets.” Yuta puffs his cheeks and hides his dampening mood under a show of petulance.
He hears her laugh from the counter, “You’re lucky, we have some in a small tub at the top shelf of the freezer.”
She gives Yuta the ice cream for free after his shift, saying the manager wouldn’t mind even though he knows she’ll be paying for it herself at the end of the day. “Here, for good luck. Hope you get that job you’ve been eyeing.”
The job is in a salon in Ibaraki, a little further than what Yuta’s used to but it’s a start. He’d been turned down at two other places before this but Yuta strangely doesn’t feel all that terrible about it. It may have something to do with the Korean words scrawled across his arm with his own marker,
‘You look prettier today. Do your best.’
-
In which reality does Yuno exist? The question burns at the tip of his tongue. There’s another pressed flower, one that came from his mother’s small garden, laid gently on top of his notebook, insultingly small and insignificant-looking. There’s no message this time and there’s no need for one, because Yuta wakes up with yearning vibrating in his chest.
Yuno has been there for many years, and yet the only thing Yuta has of him is his name and the whisper of his favourite song playing in his mind. He crawls to the cold floor and lies on his back, facing the ceiling and lifting a hand up to it.
It’s right there, but so far away. Just like everything he shares with Yuno; every moment, every feeling is like a specter of their respective realities.
If he flies to Korea tomorrow, will he find Yuno there? He asks himself and yet the possibilities are too scary to consider. After all, what will he do if Yuno turns out to be a figment of a wild dream that goes on forever?
He tries to remember the younger boy’s face--and surely, he would be a young man now--but he can’t. He hiccups and his eyes begin to fill with tears.
Where do I begin? is the question, and the answer is light years away.
-
¥70,500
2h 0min
KIX - ICN
“That’s a lot of money…”
“What is?” Yuta accidentally closes the window in his panic, having forgotten that he has Takeshi on video call. He looks dashing as a corporate employee, but he still retains the same abrasiveness that Yuta’s familiar with.
“Nothing. I was just looking at flights.”
“Flight to where? I thought you were visiting over summer. Riko really wants to meet you.” Yuta snorts in disbelief. Only Takeshi would be so eager to introduce a high school fling to his current girlfriend.
“Sure, whatever you say.” He pulls up another window and searches for bullet train tickets to Tokyo. Seoul can wait another year.
-
It’s snowing outside Yuno’s window. It piles up on the grounds, reminding Yuta of the pictures he’s seen of Hokkaido. He rubs his face with his hands and feels the slightest hint of stubble on Yuno’s chin. He’s growing up, growing faster than Yuta can keep up with.
One day, Yuno will fall in love and move on and Yuta will be just the foggy memory he will leave behind. He doesn’t know why that possibility weighs heavily over him, but it does and it becomes harder to breathe.
“What do I need to do to meet you?” He grits out, looking at Yuno’s reflection on the window. It’s wispy and faint, incorporeal. Yuta’s touch is met with the cool glass and he remembers that that’s what Yuno is. An impalpable reflection he will never be able to feel. A grey haze that will only slip through his fingers.
That’s where the dream, the switch, cuts off and he wakes up chasing his breath, his hands shaking. He’d fallen asleep on his desk, and on it is a familiar note. There’s urgency in the way the paper was ripped off his notebook and the pen haphazardly discarded on the floor.
‘I will find you—‘ the note says, and he can tell the exact moment when the magic comes undone, the last words trailing into an unintelligible scrawl.
Yuta clutches his chest, his heartbeat falling into an unnatural staccato as it dawns onto him that this, this is what falling in love feels like.
There’s an odd sense of panic that takes hold of him and he scrambles for the pen on the floor, jittery and unable to see past the picture of snowfall and heartbreak. He writes his name in bold letters on his palm, once in kanji and another in English and forces his eyes shut, ‘please’ he mouths.
He doesn’t receive another note again.
-
And then it all comes to a stop; just like that, every little droplet Yuta has collected over the years evaporates into the air, leaving no trace of its existence. He doesn’t stop trying, writing his name on his palm, his arms, on every post-it he owns and sticks it everywhere in his room.
But Yuno stops coming and Yuta stops waking up in the room filled with music and spring.
So Yuta loses him, perhaps forever. He wakes up in the middle of the night a month after the last switch , with tears blotting his pillows but not understanding why. He’s already forgotten all the little bits of Yuno . His love for music, his sweet tooth, and his relentless drive to succeed; all of it dimming into a static, and then it’s all gone.
He forgets the picture he painted of them in his head, lying together somewhere in the starlight, warm in each other’s embrace. There are no more dreams, and no more of the strange boy with supple cheeks and the long fingers that could only belong to a pianist; only eerie darkness that eats away at the night until the sun peaks over the horizon. Yuta cries until his eyes are red and puffy and there’s no doubt his coworkers will notice, but he can’t stop, not when the emptiness doesn’t go away with the memory.
Because he knows this is it for them. This is as far as the fantasy will go, because that’s what it’s always been, a cacophony of gritty images that can’t come together. They’re not puzzle pieces, Yuta realises, they’re reflections on water; easily disturbed by the smallest of ripples, always changing, never clear enough to form the bigger picture.
So Yuta moves on, wiping away the tears and leaving the questions like a dull throb at the back of his mind. He gets ready for work, more determined than ever to see through his choices, unconventional as they may be.
Snow falls gently around him as he boards the morning bus and he watches the little flakes on his jacket melt away with a heavy heart. He knows he’ll forget the feeling too, eventually, and he’ll forget why it hurt so bad in the first place.
And he does forget about the boy whose will breaches the walls between their dreams, his name gone with the rest of him.
-
“When I get back, I'll give you the prettiest haircut you’ve ever gotten.” Yuta tells his mother with his face cradled between her kind hands.
His father isn’t as forward with his affections but he pats Yuta on the back as he pulls away from the comfort of his family’s send-off. His bag is heavy with his mother’s homemade onigiri and the weight of uncertainty. Tears finally spill from his eyes when the plane takes off from his hometown and Osaka becomes smaller in the distance until it’s all but a grid of greys and greens.
The sky is a deep blue, so bright and promising that when Yuta finally lifts his gaze towards it, he doesn’t ever look down on the ground again.
()
The world is a much less cruel place the next time Yuta stands under the flurry of heavy snow, at a crowded bus stop in the heart of Seoul. He’s away from home, away from everything comfortable and familar, but he’s a step closer to everything he’s ever wanted.
Many years later and everything about Seoul still feels new, but it’s the kind of unknown that keeps Yuta on the tips of his toes with his heart running on adrenaline. It’s exhilarating as it is scary, and the less he fumbles with the language, the broader his surroundings seem to become.
Training school was tough, and although he wasn’t not the only foreigner in his class, he was the youngest and most inexperienced. He proved to be more resilient that he once thought, and now, he was thriving in the profession he chose, in a country he never once thought would become home. He remembers a time in his childhood where he had been inexplicably interested in the language but he no longer remembers why.
‘There’s no place for someone who can’t own up to their decisions here’ were his father’s last words when he left for Seoul all those years ago. An unrestrained force of nature that refused to budge from the choice he’s made, a very different person from the one who’d been sure he would live the rest of his life being an extension of his parents’ aspirations.
Yuta made a promise to himself as he slowly built his career from the ground up, and a very simple one at that: no more regrets.
The bus arrives ten minutes late, speeding through the pileup of snow. The wind feels colder and the crowd has only gotten bigger, and Yuta tries not to get pushed as he battles his way to the door. It took time to get used to fighting other passengers on a daily basis but Yuta learns quickly that politeness will not carry you through the public transportation in Seoul, not with the rude teenagers and gruff men who have no second to spare.
He narrowly avoids getting elbowed on the side before he makes it to the card scanner, only to belatedly realise that he’s missing his transport card. He may have dropped it on the curb or when he took his phone out to type in a reply to one of his middle school classmates trying to reconnect, either way, he has a long line of annoyed passengers behind him, badgering him to move aside.
Before he can blurt out an apology, a hand reaches across him and feeds a couple of coins into the machine next to the card scanner. The machine whirrs to life, churning out a one-way ticket, which the stranger hastily tugs loose and hands to Yuta.
“Here. You’re missing your card right?”
Yuta looks up and swallows at the sudden rush of heat to his face. The stranger, a man who looks about his age, dressed in a pristine suit that looks too immaculate to have come off the rack. He doesn’t look like an average office worker.
“Thank you, let me pay you back.” He says earnestly because Yuta doesn’t like being indebted to anyone but the man simply smiles, and it’s brilliant and Yuta feels like he’s been punched in the chest.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The man motions for him to move along so the other passengers can file inside without further delay, and the crowd pushes them to the back of the bus, and into each other’s space. Yuta finds himself breathing in the man’s scent; it’s like morning mildew and early spring, calming and familiar.
The bus swerves rapidly around the corner as the driver tries to make it on time for the next stop and everyone standing up collectively stumbles. A firm grip catches Yuta around the waist and he whips around, locking gazes with the stranger. The man’s thick lashes are dusted in white.
-
Love doesn’t come easy to Yuta. He’s seen it in all forms, all of its good and in all its ugliness. His twenties have been wasted on relationships built on misguided trust. If there’s anything he’s learned, it’s that it’s better to be with someone familiar, someone who shares the same outlook as him.
Jung Jaehyun is the exact opposite of that; he’s the personification of everything Yuta has been taught to avoid. And yet he comes into Yuta’s life like a quiet storm, slowly upturning everything he’s built throughout the years and leaving a permanent mark in his wake.
It takes him half a year to convince himself that Jaehyun’s idealistic approach to relationships isn’t a sham, that his predisposition to overly romantic gestures is as much a part of his whimsical personality as his innate silly nature.
Sometimes Yuta blames it on his boyfriend’s archetypal taste in romantic movies, convinced that they’ve permanently shaped Jaehyun into the sentimental idiot he turned out to be.
So when Jaehyun decided to move back to Seoul after years studying music theory abroad, when his car broke down during a heavy snowfall on his way to a recital a year ago, when he chose to walk to the nearest bus station with his Italian dress shoes and designer coat instead of calling for a cab, when he happens to have spare change in his pocket from the sandwich he got for lunch, Jaehyun calls it fate.
“You’re such a sap.” Yuta would say, and Jaehyun would kiss him senseless in response.
He’s classically handsome, thoughtful and patient; he’s all that Yuta has ever needed but which he refuses to let himself want. Yuta’s not pragmatic by nature, but Jaehyun is too much of everything good that his existence alone carves a bone-deep fear Yuta will never fully shake off.
But something about the younger man softens his resolution, and he finds himself blindly letting Jaehyun take his hand, his inhibitions forgotten. And the younger man proves to him that not all good things are to be feared, at least Jaehyun’s love isn’t.
Accepting Jaehyun’s devotion is more than just enduring his handsome face and cringy pick-up lines, he realises that when he comes home to the apartment he shares with another foreigner trying to make it in Seoul, and finds Jaehyun standing outside with the third bouquet of the week.
He’s looking at him expectantly, like a puppy eager for a reward.
“I’m gonna run out of vases, you know?”
“I’ll buy them with the vase next time.” Yuta shakes his head even as he presses a close-mouthed kiss on Jaehyun’s chapped lips. The latter leans down for more but Yuta pulls him inside the apartment before they accidentally give the neighbours a show.
“Not the point here. Ten will really kick me out if you don’t stop trying to turn our apartment into jumanji.”
“Hey, you know your classics now.” He rolls his eyes even if Jaehyun can’t see him, too busy unwrapping the white lilies on Ten and Yuta’s kitchen table. “Also, if he does kick you out....won’t you consider moving in with me?”
Yuta freezes, slowly turning towards the taller man with slight trepidation. He’s expecting to see a cheeky smile but instead Jaehyun’s brows are pinched in uncertainty. He tries to smile when Yuta approaches with laboured will, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Reaching out to pluck the flowers from Jaehyun’s shaking hands and setting them aside, Yuta now has a clear view of the nervous wreck of a man wearing his boyfriend’s face, “Say something, please...” The taller man prompts and forces out a laugh.
Yuta lets him suffer just a little bit longer, for all the times Yuta felt choked up by the magnitude of his affections for his man. Jaehyun’s smile twitches and Yuta takes that as his cue to cradle his soft cheeks in his hands. His ears are still icy cold from the evening chill and Yuta rubs them softly with his thumb to warm them.
“Okay.”
“Wha-” He pecks Jaehyun on the lips once, twice, then repeats, “Okay, I’ll move in with you.”
-
On their second anniversary, Jaehyun takes him to dinner at the restaurant where he performed for the first time in front of an audience when he was just eleven. It was a song his late grandfather had requested, the same one he sang to Yuta on their third date.
It’s special to him, because his grandfather had been the one to teach him how to play the piano as a young kid. “Back then I was called Yuno.” He recalls animatedly. The name feels strangely familiar but he doesn’t dwell on it.
“Why did you change names?”
“It sounded nicer maybe? And I guess Jae worked much better in the states, easier to pronounce.”
Yuta should’ve expected it but it still catches him off guard when Jaehyun folds the napkin on his lap and sets it on the table while the pianist on duty steps away from the spot light.
“And this one is for you.” He chuckles at the scandalised look on Yuta’s face before he lets go of his hand under the table. He walks towards the standing piano in the middle of the fancy establishment with careful strides.
Yuta watches him with pride, even if he’s hiding behind the planter next to their table. There are times when Jaehyun feels so surreal that Yuta has to hold his breath until his lungs burn and he’s sure he’s not dreaming. This is one of those instances.
Jaehyun sits up straight on the stool and tests the keys like he’s trying to remember how they feel like under the pads of his fingers, despite doing this for a living. Then he presses down on a few in succession and produces the most wondrous of melodies. Yuta is enraptured and it’s as if time has come to a stop between the two of them.
It’s not the first time he’s watched Jaehyun perform in public, his boyfriend has too much ardour for music that he is determined to share with the world. But this time it feels different, because his mind supplies the missing lyrics, and he unconsciously hums to the teasingly familiar melody.
In other words, please be true
Jaehyun meets his eyes from across the room and all of a sudden it smells like cedar, and the beginning of spring.
In other words, I love you
-
“There’s something else in the box.” Jaehyun’s muffled voice filters through the living room. Yuta abandons the magazine he’s been reading on the coffee table and heads over to the huge box he tasked Jaehyun to unpack. It’s a package from his mother, she sends him one every few months, with all the little things she knows he misses from home.
The floor next to the taller man is completely covered in different types of instant ramen and potato snacks and the box is still only half empty. He thinks his mom went a little overboard this time, but then he remembers perhaps they’re meant to take those with them to France. He smiles despite the mess on their kitchen floor; he’ll miss his second home as much as he missed Osaka, but he doesn’t have to go through it alone this time.
It’s pure luck, he thinks, that someone like him would be able to find his place in the world next to a man who would sacrifice everything to be with him, who would brave a move across the ocean so they can pursue their dreams together.
“What is it?” He peeks into the box and sees what Jaehyun is talking about. Amidst the colourful snacks is a frayed black and white shoebox. Yuta remembers it from his school years: it’s where he stashed the rare action figures he got from gashapon machines, and every omikuji he got where his fortune wasn’t rock bottom.
It’s also where he kept a notebook, a diary of sorts. Just the thought of what the sixteen year old him had written in it fills him with shame.
“It’s my little treasure chest.” is his only answer, and it only serves to pique Jaehyun’s interest instead of deterring it because he stands up to full height, purposely towering over Yuta.
“May I see what’s inside?”
“No.” He answers too fast and Jaehyun’s lips curl up in mischief. Yuta hates that devious grin.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not yours.” He holds the shoebox behind him but it doesn’t stop Jaehyun from advancing with intent.
“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours, forgot about it already?” As if to prove a point, Jaehyun raises his left hand where a silver band glints under the pendant lights.
“These were acquired before we got married so technically, these aren’t conjugal proper-” He yelps and makes a run for the bedroom when Jaehyun lunges for the shoebox. Yuta manages to kick it under their bed before Jaehyun tackles him to the carpeted floor and they erupt in laughter.
He feels weightless, no shackles around his feet, no shadows of uncertainty. Just him, and the love of his life, in their apartment of four years brimming with memories.
“Should we get a dog when we move? We’re gonna have so much space in our new apartment.” Yuta asks dreamily, breathlessly, when Jaehyun eases up a little so he’s not crushing the smaller man, his warm gaze never faltering.
“Are we gonna call it baguette? You know, since we’re moving to Paris.” He slaps his husband playfully across the cheek and then pulls him down for a kiss. Yuta concludes that Jaehyun doesn’t need to be a dad because his humour is dry enough as it is.
“How about Rapunzel?” Jaehyun traps him on the floor and ravishes his mouth in lieu of an answer.
Underneath the bed, the shoebox remains forgotten.
-
The sound of hair crunching under his shears sends a wave of satisfaction down his spine, “hold still. Don’t open your eyes yet.” He reminds his husband when his head bobs a little.
There’s a bowl of pistachio ice cream melting on their kitchen counter and the TV is a constant background noise, playing the same movie Jaehyun has forced him to watch at least twenty times. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Yuta has trouble remembering the title, it’s too long and English isn’t his forte, despite Jaehyun’s efforts to teach him. The movie poster looks familiar, like he’s seen it many times over but memory is a tricky thing and Yuta often finds himself falling victim to its treacherous ways.
“I had it on the wall of my childhood room in Seoul, maybe that’s where you saw it.” Jaehyun offers but Yuta has to remind him he’s never been to Jaehyun’s childhood home, it was sold before they even met, after his parents decided to move to Busan.
“Oh right.” He’ll shrug, looking a little confused himself. They have plenty of such moments, but Yuta likes to think that they’ve been in love for so long that it’s perfectly normal to forget that they didn’t have each other from the start.
“How is it looking?” Jaehyun’s honey sweet voice pulls him from his reverie and he looks up at his husband’s serene face.
“Wonderful.”
Yuta has worked for many famous celebrities in Seoul; idols, models and actors, all those beautiful faces and yet nothing will come close to the splendour of Jaehyun’s soft, perfectly balanced features. He puts the shears down after a final snip, crouching in front of Jaehyun to admire his handiwork. The sun beats through the balcony where Rapunzel is having her nap, and it bathes the apartment in the warm afternoon glow.
Jaehyun shifts in the chair, “Are you done?”
“Yes.”
And then Jaehyun is opening his eyes. Eyes that turn amber when the light hits them, framed by thick, dark lashes, a plump bottom lip and a straight, narrow nose that catches snippets of hair as they flutter down like snow.
Yuta reaches out to brush them softly away, his eyes growing wide as everything rushes back, filling in the blanks in his memories. And he remembers all of it, the longing, the belly full of flitting monarchs and the crushing loss.
“Yuta?” Jaehyun grasps his hand oh so gently and it feels as if his heart is about to burst from his chest.
“It’s you.” his husband turns to him in confusion and it’s the same bushy eyebrows and sharp eyes. A chuckle bursts from his lips, and Jaehyun looks like he’s starting to worry that Yuta has finally lost it. Perhaps that’s really the case.
“What is it? What do you mean?” Jaehyun asks but Yuta effectively distracts him with kisses, peppering his soft lips until he’s moaning into a particularly sweet one. Jaehyun deepens the kiss, cradling the back of Yuta’s head tenderly.
Yuta braces himself on Jaehyun’s chest when they finally part and feels the steady thrum of his heartbeat under his splayed palm. It’s his Yuno, his Jaehyun, and he’s real. Warm and solid under his touch.
“I was just thinking about how you’re right all along,” He says and lets Jaehyun pull him to his lap where he then wraps his arms around Yuta’s waist, and patiently waits for him to finish.
“that meeting you was destiny.”
There’s a creeping nostalgia that refuses to settle as Yuta gets off the bus with deliberate slowness. There’s been something missing for as long as Yuta could remember, but there’s no way to put a name to it. It’s there, he hears it whistling like the wind but never fully translating into a song; something lost, something forgotten.
He hears snow crunching under someone’s feet and he turns around to find the man from the bus marching towards him with a troubled look that belies the intensity of his yearning, and just like that, the sickening feeling of absence is gone.
“Hey,” The man says, and his voice is deep, rough from the unforgiving cold but Yuta inexpicably hears a childish tinge underneath it, “Can I have your name?”
It’s a strange request, and even stranger coming from someone he’s only stood next to on a cramped bus for less than ten minutes but it feels fitting somehow, like the culmination of a decade-long story.
They hold each other’s gaze and a spell is casted around them, one he wishes will never break.
The paltry glow from neon signboards illuminate the man’s face and the world becomes witness to the hauntingly beautiful riddle that begins to unravel right at that moment.
“It’s Yuta.”