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Park Sunghoon was the first of many things in Jay’s life.
The first person to acknowledge him at the beginning of a new school year, in a school that he had just enrolled in the summer prior. The first person to ask for his number, so that they could contact each other outside of the school grounds. The first person to feel like a friend.
He also contributed to other, much more different firsts.
The first friend to make Jay feel like he could really be himself, walls down, vulnerability at the tip of his fingertips. The first friend to make him question the fast-paced beating of his heart because it had never happened before. Not with a friend, not with a boy. Not with a pair of eyes that mimicked the dark waters of a river tucked in a cave somewhere far away. The first friend to tell him there were two hearts beating that night, both at the speed of light.
That’s how Sunghoon became his: first crush, first date, first kiss.
“It’s always been just you.” First love.
“You know I love you, right? ” First misunderstanding.
“I’m trying. I am—I do try. Why can’t you see that? ” First fight.
“I would never do that to you again.” First apology.
“ f you just give me an ounce of trust—It’s always just been you. I need you to know that.” First second chance.
Then it became a second, then a third, then a fourth. Then all of a sudden Jay had lost count because he had no fingers left, no other spaces to store what could’ve been his sixths, his sevenths, his eighths.
Just an empty place in his heart to keep one last first: Heartbreak.
He had gathered all his firsts, kept them in a little box, and threw away the key so that he wouldn’t have to scavenge deep inside the pit of his heart to look for them again. Because he knew he would, eventually.
That was just how he came to love. Openly, suffocatingly, and without cease.
☆
Enter: Yang Jungwon. The newly enrolled student at Jay’s dance academy.
Short, a couple of years younger, the curiosity of a child. The moves of someone who was born to be on stage.
And Jay wanted that.
It wasn’t as if he didn’t think he was born to be on stage—in fact, Jay was quite aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and this self-awareness was a trait he was proud of—but Jungwon carried something special, so much so that it left Jay breathless every time he performed.
So he created a plan.
What better way to work on what you lack as a performer than to befriend someone that could teach you how to improve?
Or, something along the lines of that. That was how it sounded in Jay’s head the moment he came up with it, and he thought it was foolproof. The most brilliant idea he had ever thought of in all his eighteen years of living.
Until it didn’t work.
“You want me to what?”
“Teach me.”
“I’m not exactly the tutor type, hyung.” Since when did Jungwon start calling him that? The kid’s confident, Jay was sure.
“That’s okay. I learn fast."
And Jay did learn extremely fast, it was one of the characteristics Jungwon particularly liked about him. He could have never told him, of course, since it would have inflated his already (deservingly) big ego. Any dance that they were assigned, he made sure to master within the following hour—most of the time even less. It was astounding, actually. His ability to absorb the beat and movements as if they were just particles in the air.
Yet, in his eyes, he still lacked something?
“I don’t understand why you’re coming to me for this anyways, hyung, when we are enrolled in a literal academy for dance. Can’t you just make appointments with any of our five instructors?”
“No can do. I want to learn from you.”
“And what exactly do you expect to get out of me, hyung?”
“Anything. Everything. I admire you, Jungwon-ah. There aren’t a lot of students like you.”
“What do you mean, hyung? I’m looking at one of them right now.”
☆
That was how it started.
Kind of.
It was small at first, so quiet that Jay couldn’t have noticed it at first glance.
The way Jungwon’s eyes crinkled every time he spoke—he smiled just as often, a habit that Jay found himself admiring. The way the tone of his voice would shift ever-so-slightly when calling Jay’s name—something that he loved listening to, almost as much as the songs he listened to on the way home. The way Jay started to yearn for the missing feeling in his chest, the one that was left bare and exposed by the first boy he had ever loved.
The first boy he had ever loved.
Ah.
“Hyung,” Jungwon’s voice was stern, like a pair of thick boots planted in the mud.
“Hm?”
It was a Monday afternoon, in the middle of a hot summer. They were out on a walk, some exercise (as Jay referred to it) that would get their heartbeats racing in time for their evening class. Except, Jay’s heart was racing for a completely different reason.
“Have you ever been in love before?”
The conversation was unexpected and it caught Jay off guard. (Funny—he’s never been caught off guard before. This was a first.)
“You’re nosy, aren’t you?” Jay chuckled and stole a glance at the younger boy. He noticed his hair was a little more ruffled than usual, and it was a good change. Cute, he might have even called it.
“Don’t you already know that about me?” Jungwon smiled his usual eye-blinding smile, the kind even the sun would be envious of.
“I suppose so.”
“Well then, have you?”
Jay rolled his eyes. “You’re impatient too.”
“Again, something you already know about me,” he replied, flashing another smile—one that hits the older boy in the chest. Jay decided, then and there, that if he were forced by the gods to choose only one moment to remember, it would be this one.
“And if I have?”
“Hmm,” Jungwon shrugged, “Nothing. Just curious.”
Jay raised an eyebrow. “Curious?”
“Mhmm,” the younger boy said. “You see, I think I kind of like someone too.”
“Do you?”
“Mhmm.”
“Mhmm,” Jay repeated. “I hope he’s nice to you.”
Jungwon simply hummed. “He is.”
Jay didn’t ask any more questions that day. Not that he should have, he later realised, since Jungwon was as obvious as a book with no covers.
Hyung, he would say. Jay hyung. Jongseongie hyung.
“Since when did you start calling me Jongseongie? Usually, it’s babo this or babo that.”
“Hmm. It just started, I guess. I like it.”
Jungwon didn’t register that Jay had also heard what he said right after, a lot more quietly.
“Just like I like you, hyung.”
☆
The number of times Jay has fallen for someone: 1…?
The number of times Jay has ever made a move: 0
The number of times Jungwon has made a move: 8 and counting.
Jay has never been pursued before, so it gives him a little bit of a shock when Jungwon confesses for the first time.
“I like you, hyung.” The first time: after their evening class, in an empty practice room.
“Do you have anyone you like right now, hyung?” The second time: over the phone, Jungwon asked if he was free for a call.
“Let’s watch the stars together, hyung.” The third time: right outside a convenience store, under a dimly lit street light.
“Isn’t the moon so pretty tonight?” The fourth time: in Jay’s backyard, just after they were finished setting up their tent for a night of camping.
He says it back the fifth and final time, under an autumn moon, and Jungwon gives him the same breathtaking smile he would fight the gods for if it meant remembering it forever.
And he doesn’t think that it could be as sweet as the first time, but he’s wrong. All the cards he bet that one school night, the five of hearts that was burned and offered in the name of love were now spread across the table, untouched and unshuffled, waiting to be used again.
“I thought you’d never say it back, hyung,” Jungwon whispers back to him.
The moon is as full as the growing feeling in his chest.
“And why’s that?”
“I don’t know... this isn’t your first.”
“Mhmm,” he hums, the way Jungwon always does, “But maybe this could be my last.”
A laugh. “I think that would be nice.”
Jay spares the boy a glance and reaches for his hand, planting a quick kiss against his skin. “I think it would be nice as well.”
Park Jongseong has had a multitude of firsts.
Within those firsts, there is love, there is heartbreak, and there is Yang Jungwon.
He hopes the last one will stay awhile.