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“No way.”
Johnny doesn’t usually decide what kind of morning he’s having until after he’s had his coffee. But today, in particular, within a minute of getting out of bed, he just knows it’s bad.
“Oh my god,” he mumbles, thumbing his left collarbone as he inspects it in his dirty mirror. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
There, on his skin, in jet black letters, reads, ‘wow bulge’.
Johnny rubs over the tattoo, as if that will make it go away. As if it was possible for a permanent tattoo to go away. Predictably, it doesn’t.
Johnny places his hands on either side of of his enamel sink and lets out an audible sigh. He glares at the undershirt hanging from the hook on the bathroom door, thin cotton and very low cut. Then he glares down at the floor, so the Fates know he’s thinking about them.
“Fuck you,” he tells them.
He looks at his tattoo once more. “And fuck you, too.”
“Jeez, who shat in your coffee?” Donghyuck asks as Johnny scowls into his mug.
Johnny grunts.
“Okay, fine, don’t tell me.” Donghyuck tips his plateful of crushed Red Bull cans into the recycle bin. “You’re up early, though.”
Johnny takes a long sip of his coffee. He can deal with his roommate on good mornings. This is not a good morning. “I have an audition.”
“What for? Jock #3 in a buddy cop movie?”
“A Streetcar Named Desire, actually.”
“Oh, a play! How haute couture.”
“That’s… not how you use that term.”
“Is your audition anywhere near uni? Can I get a ride?”
And this is Johnny’s first mistake of the day: he sits up straight. “No, take the —”
‘—Bus, Donghyuck, you still owe me petrol money from our last carpool’ is what Johnny wants to say, but doesn’t finish before he notices his roommate’s eyes widen.
“You’ve got a soulmate tattoo,” Donghyuck breathes.
“Shit.”
Like a Twilight vampire, he’s at Johnny’s side in a second. “Holy shit, you’ve actually got a soulmate tattoo! ‘Wow bulge.’ Wait—”
Johnny buries his head in his hands.
“—Is that real? Move your arm, dude, I wanna see it. Oh my god, that’s… that’s fucking real…” Donghyuck’s laughter grates at his nerves. “…Your soulmate’s first impression of you is ‘wow bulge’!”
“Yep.”
“That tattoo’s fucking real… ‘wow bulge’… that’s really what it says, ‘wow bulge’…”
“I’ve connected those dots already, thanks.”
“Bulge.”
“You’re going to miss the bus.”
Like a Twilight vampire, Donghyuck is gone in a flash, as is his backpack and two of the unopened Red Bull cans off the kitchen counter.
“Johnny Suh?” the director, Tiffany, calls from the third row. “You’re up.”
Johnny takes a deep breath, puts on his best smile, and shrugs his leather jacket off to drape across his seat — and that is when he’s rudely reminded of his soulmate tattoo.
This is how he’s reminded of it: the actor sitting next to him, Dongmin, is wishing him a whispered “good luck” when his eyes dart down to Johnny’s collarbone, and then, in the very next second, lower. And then he’s staring into space.
Oh boy.
Johnny can see Tiffany and her all-female team inspect his collarbone, but from their distance, they surely can’t read it. Can they? Johnny hopes not. He tries not to think about it as he roars “Stella!” over and over again, although the torture of the situation may or may not lend to his performance.
(Also, he’s pretty sure he hears an actress whisper “too Marlon Brando” at some point, even though he deliberately designed his performance to be anti-Marlon Brando. That, too, is torture.)
“We’ll call you,” Tiffany finally says, with an all-too-sweet smile.
“Throat lozenge?” Sunny, the casting director, gestures to an open pack of yellow candies when Johnny gets closer to their table as he makes his way back to his chair. He isn’t sure if it’s a trap or not, so he shakes his head.
“I’ve got my own, thank you.”
Sunny’s eyes stray down to his collarbone, then lower. And she stares off into space. “It was wonderful to meet you!”
“We’ll be in touch,” Tiffany tells his crotch.
He finger guns, a sad attempt at taking the attention off of his nether regions. “Look forward to it!”
“Hey,” Johnny tells Jaehyun when he slips into the dressing room, “Do you have any concealer or… never mind, you’re not my shade. Is Lucas here yet?”
“I don’t need concealer. Why, you got a hickey or something?” Jaehyun swipes through his phone, already shirtless, his cuff links still lying undone on the table in front of him.
“No,” Johnny says carefully. He pulls out his bowtie, buffs and body oil and throws his backpack in the narrow staff cupboard.
Jaehyun looks up, squinting at Johnny’s face. “Oh, shit, yeah, your eyebags are pretty bad.”
“Wait, what?” Johnny presses at his lower eyelid. “They are?”
“Is that not why you wanted the concealer?”
“No. Hang on a sec.” Johnny strips out of his hoodie and pulls the neck of his ratty old crew neck t-shirt down. Jaehyun’s eyes widen, but — thankfully — do not stray lower.
“No.”
Johnny tugs his collar back so his tattoo is hidden again. “Yep.”
“That’s why you’re wearing that ugly ass shirt.”
“Yep.”
“Oh, man. Yeah, no, Lucas called in sick today, so you’re going to have to use Taeyong’s.”
“No, that’s going to be so obvious! They’re going to ask me what it is!”
“And you’re going to have to tell them.”
Johnny presses his head against the table in front of him and groans loudly. Perhaps the anger in his body would vibrate down his body and transfer down from his feet to the earth beneath him, and the Fates would feel it.
“And what is going on in here?” Hyoyeon’s voice trills through the staff room as she walks in with a McDonald’s brown paper bag. “I hope there’s no canoodling going on in my back room.”
“Johnny’s got a soulmate tattoo,” Jaehyun says.
Johnny moans again. “Why’d you have to go and say it?”
“Because it’ll affect your job?” Jaehyun pauses. “Both of your jobs, actually.”
“I hope you have something to cover it up,” Hyoyeon comments.
“I went to Sephora, but the Fenty stand was out of my shade.”
Jaehyun and Hyoyeon nod, murmuring “typical” under their breath.
“Let’s see it, then,” Hyoyeon says.
The door swings open; Taeyong slides in, tote bag in tow. “Oh? Canoodling in the back room?”
“Johnny’s got a soulmate tattoo,” Hyoyeon and Jaehyun say at the same time as Johnny says, “I need your concealer.”
Taeyong stares at them, confused, as if he’s unable to compute three people speaking at the same time. Johnny sighs, pulls his collar down just so —
Hyoyeon gasps. Taeyong, at least, has the decency to cringe.
“Yeah, so I need your concealer—”
“No,” Hyoyeon interrupts. “Leave it out.”
“What?”
“Are you kidding? Heterosexual women will love this. Leave it out.”
“I’m trying not to be objectified further than I am already!”
“Don’t make me laugh, your other job is an underwear catalogue model. Come on, think of the conversation starters!” Hyoyeon wiggles her eyebrows. “Think of the tips.”
Jaehyun and Taeyong both moan, much more wantonly than Johnny did previously. Admittedly, Johnny, too, could be sexually attracted to tips if he was really starved of them. (Not that he ever is. And neither are Jaehyun or Taeyong, for that matter; they’re both just raging tipsexuals.)
“Fine.” Johnny slips out of his polo shirt. “No foundation, then. Thank you, Taeyong.”
“I didn’t do anything, but you’re welcome.”
“Hello!” Yuta bursts through the door, sports bag in tow. “How is everyone — is that a soulmate tattoo? Wow bulge. Wait—”
‘Cheap, But Not Chafey! has offered you a catalogue job again, the text from Junmyeon reads. Johnny looks back at the long-but-not-long-enough list of open auditions on starcasting-dot-com, and scornfully returns to his cracked phone screen. He taps the little camera icon and takes a haphazard photo of his collarbone, and sends it through.
He receives a request for FaceTime immediately.
“Yeah,” Johnny sighs when he answers the call.
“I figured this would warrant a discussion.” The right side of Junmyeon’s face dominates Johnny’s cracked phone screen, angled slightly downwards. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”
“If this was a joke, I would have come up with something funnier.”
“You’re right. Well, the make-up artists on set should be able to cover that up, but I bought your concealer shades when you told me your parents were soulmates, just in case.”
“Really?”
“Winter shade and summer shade. Matched to your neck.”
“I hope the Fates have blessed you with a good day.”
“My wife filed for divorce this morning.”
“Oh. Send Irene my regards and tell her that I’ll miss her cooking.”
“Will do. So will you accept the ‘Cheap, But Not Chafey!’ job?”
“Sure. Why not? I had a decent experience the last time.”
“You know,” Junmyeon tilts his head, but he moves his phone with it so it’s sitting at the exact same angle as before. Johnny wonders, not for the first time, if his arm hurts. “You’ve had enough experience that I could actually get some place more high profile to seriously consider you. Something with anti-chafing technology…”
“I told you, Junmyeon, I don’t want the kind of acting roles that a Calvin Klein underwear model gets. I want it to be absolutely clear that all my current jobs are merely to make bread.”
“Ah yes, because Calvin Klein models do it for the passion.”
“They’re passionate about modelling,” Johnny shrugs. “I’m not.”
“Perhaps. Have you considered that a better portfolio would mean that you wouldn’t need to live with that demonic roommate of yours?”
“I have considered it. I think I can live with him a little longer if it means I won’t be typecast into teen heartthrob.”
“Did you not just audition for the role of Marlon Brando two days ago?”
“I auditioned for Stanley Kowalski, and he’s not a heartthrob! He’s abusive!”
“Well… you could’ve been great in the Glee remake.”
“No.”
“Noted.”
“Did you call me just because you wanted to convince me to be more ambitious?”
“Yes, actually. Sehun managed it and I think you can, too.”
“Sehun’s not a good example. No one takes him seriously as a stand-up comedian anymore.”
“But at least he lives alone!”
“Goodbye, Junmyeon. Good luck with your divorce.”
“Thank you, John. Irene will be happy to hear from you.”
It’s an almost daily occurence at this point — so common that Johnny now calls it the ‘trifecta’: his collarbone, his aardvark, and then off into the ether, always in that order, with a few exceptions from some especially brave clients at the birthdays or pre-wedding parties he’s hired to. (They either never graduate from step two, or they grin back at him in delight, and Johnny has to hold the shudder.)
So yeah, he’s used to it now. He even has trifecta protocols — prevention, in which he makes sure to cover his collarbone wherever possible, and cure, in which, in the case of his tattoo being exposed, he lets himself seethe for exactly two seconds. This has the same effect as putting a band-aid on a bone fracture, but you know, small comforts. Long-term healthcare isn’t exactly an affordable option, and his roommate isn’t much of a sympathetic listener.
Still, when he pulls his robe open when the stylist hands him a bottle of body oil, he can’t help but be disappointed. Why, of all the fates he could have been fated, had the Fates left him with this one? What kind of person was he destined to spend the rest of his life with, if their first impression of Johnny was so vulgar?
Since his two seconds of seething are up, he tugs his robe closed so it hides his ‘wow bulge’ from view, and announces, “I have concealer for that.”
“Yes,” the stylist tells the skin that disappears under his robe. “That would be very useful, yes.”
“Have you even found your soulmate yet?” Sehun asks him on a muggy July night while they’re sitting around the barbecue grill, dressed in the kind of pretty silk button-down that Johnny can’t afford, while Johnny himself is stuck in a brand new polo shirt he got in a pack of three from Kmart. “How long have you had it now—”
“A month.” Johnny adjusts a piece of samgyeopsal that very much does not need adjusting, considering he just put it on the grill a minute ago. “How can I tell, anyway? Most of the people I meet wear shirts, so I can’t exactly see what their soulmate tattoo says.”
“And meanwhile you—”
“—I’m mostly topless when I’m outside the house—“
“—And almost everyone has the same first impression of you—“
“—Because the first thing most people see is—“
“—The tattoo.”
“Exactly,” Johnny sighs. “Kill me.”
Sehun gives him an awful, pitiful smile, the kind you’d give a child who’d come home with a participation award. “Well at least, you know, you do have a nice bulge…”
Johnny groans into his hands. “Nope.”
“…So it’s not wrong…”
“If you have nothing valuable to say then don’t say anything at all.”
“I’m just saying that people aren’t going to be disappointed! Like, objectively. From one great package to another.” Sehun reaches out to punch Johnny’s shoulder, only to be stopped by his glare. “I’m trying to find the silver lining!”
“There is no silver lining. I’m fated to spend the rest of my life with a pervert. I don’t think you can imagine how devastating it is to know that no one will ever love me for my brain.”
“That’s not true! I love you for your brain.”
“That’s because you don’t have one.”
“True.” Sehun stares blankly into the grill for thirteen seconds. (Johnny counted.) “Look, just because the first thing they think about is your bulge, doesn’t mean they’re going to be a pervert! You said it yourself, it’s most people’s first impression of you. Maybe they just see the tattoo first, and, you know…”
“I don’t think that’s how the Fates work. Is it? That sounds like cheating.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sehun shrugs. “You’re the first person I know who’s had a tattoo.”
“That’s not how my parents met.”
“Yeah, but your parents were wearing clothes when they met, I assume.”
Johnny stuck out his bottom lip, this time on purpose. “I guess.”
“Maybe you should google that. ‘First impression of soulmate is tattoo’.”
Johnny sticks his lip out further. “I hate that I have to do research for this. When I envisioned getting my soulmate tattoo, I thought it would be something super romantic like… ‘wow, this guy is smart’, you know?”
“You’re such a sapiosexual.”
“I think it’s the reverse of that. Because I want them to be attracted to me for my mind, but I don’t care how smart they are.” Johnny tilts his head. “Unless…”
“Yeah, this is getting boring.” Sehun reaches for a piece of well overcooked pork. “Either we go back to talking about your bulge, or we can order a round.”
“I couldn’t even afford beef tonight. There’s no way I can afford alcohol.”
“My treat!”
Johnny narrows his eyes. “Really.”
“No. I didn’t bring my wallet.”
“Thought so.”
“So, your penis—”
“We’re continuing this dinner in silence.”
Johnny’s cooked up a few likely scenarios in the months since he’s got his tattoo about how he’s going to meet his soulmate.
First, it has to happen at work. Either a photoshoot or an event, those are the only places he’s ever shirtless. There’s also the small chance that it could be someone Donghyuck brings home… euch. He knows that kid’s taste and he wants nothing to do with it.
If it’s a photoshoot, it’s probably someone on set. Johnny’s been modelling long enough to know almost all the other models, and if he doesn’t, it’s because they’re either 16 or might as well be 16. So it’s definitely a crew member, which Johnny doesn’t really mind, but, well… they don’t earn a lot of money…
Then there’s any event he’s waitering at, for which he has two options: a customer or a chef. The latter is, in Johnny’s opinion, the best possible scenario. Free food trumps everything else.
It does turn out to be an event. But man, he does not expect it to be the singer.
Johnny pauses scrubbing a lipstick print off of his arm with his cowboy hat to give Kun, the singer of the hired band, a small smile. “You finally done?”
Kun barely meets his eyes (like he hasn’t done all night, and which Johnny is trying really hard not to be sad about) when he responds, “Yeah. Just the regular hour and a half.”
“They don’t really pay attention past that point.”
“No. I haven’t done a lot of bachelorette parties but that tends to be the rule for anything.” Kun shakes his hands over the sink, and any attempts Johnny wants to make to continue the conversation are drowned out by the sound of the blow dryer.
(Again, trying really hard not to be sad.)
Kun is halfway to the door when he turns around. “Actually, can I talk to you?”
Johnny straightens up. “Sure.”
“It’s just, uh… maybe it’s best if I show you,” Kun says, unbuttoning his fringed shirt.
“Hey, wait, whoa—”
“I don’t normally do this,” Kun squeaks. (And okay, Johnny is affronted but he’ll look at the six-pack. Only because he didn’t expect it to be there! Not because of anything else.) “Gosh, why is this so hard.”
“I don’t think this is appropriate.”
“It’s only because this shirt is so stiff,” Kun huffs, finally pulling his collar apart to reveal his clavicle.
‘little button nose’ in cursive, stylised handwriting, the lines forming doodles of flowers and bees spreading out around his shoulder and down to his chest.
Okay, yeah.
Johnny had noticed Kun do the trifecta, but his was a little different. A little more pronounced. A little more panicked.
“Yeah, that checks,” Johnny breathes.
Kun hastily buttons his shirt back up. “I, uh,” he clears his throat. “I saw you in a catalogue. For, um, underwear. I only read it because, like… it was in my mail and I needed underwear.”
Johnny purses his lips. He needs to ask the thing. “So your first thought was…”
Kun finally looks Johnny in the eye, but it’s not as romantic as Johnny had earlier imagined it; instead it’s brief and scared, like a deer in headlights. “Oh my god, see, I know it’s weird. But, like, I was looking at the underwear, and I saw the bulge first thing, and—”
“I see.”
“I’m not a pervert! Like, the colour. I was looking at the colour. My eyes just went there. The underwear was red.”
“Sure.”
“Like I know it’s photoshopped and all, but—” Johnny raises an eyebrow. “Not photoshopped! Not photoshopped. I didn’t realise that was my first impression until I saw your tattoo! I don’t normally think about bulges, I promise.”
Johnny holds his hands up. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“But I feel like I have to, because you seem a little upset.” Kun is practically pouting, and oh no, cute, oh no—
Fuck you, Fates, Johnny thinks. Yeah, you heard me. Hope you get laid off your jobs and get stuck with a demon roommate like mine.
“Listen, I’m sure you want to get home, and I still have a few hours left on my shift, so why don’t I just get your number? I can text you.”
Kun blinks. “Oh, sure. Sure, that sounds like a good idea… wait, you still want to meet me after this?”
Johnny offers a tight-lipped smile and fishes his phone out of the pocket of his leather chaps. “You’re my soulmate, right? The Fates won’t let me avoid you even if I tried.”
There’s three knocks on his door before Donghyuck says, “Hey.”
Johnny quickly presses the home button on his phone, as if Donghyuck can see kunxd11’s instagram profile on Johnny’s cracked phone screen from the other side of his bedroom door. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“I made sundubu jjigae. Want some?”
“Oh. Sure? You cooked?”
“Yeah. It’s only good while it’s hot.”
“Oh.” Johnny shoves phone in his pocket. Donghyuck most likely has an ulterior motive here, but time is of the essence. “Alright, I’ll be right out.”
“Make sure your dick’s tucked out of sight when you do!”
Johnny ignores the swipe as he usually does. His roommate just says shit to cause problems, and Johnny’s not about to enable him.
In their makeshift dining room, which is just a tiny plastic table next to the kitchen, Johnny sees that the table is actually set. With cutlery. And their singular placemat. “Are you okay, dude?”
“Hm? Yeah!” Donghyuck isn’t displaying his usual signs of sad or tired, but he did set the table up like he was going to take pictures of it, which is usually not a good omen. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Donghyuck shrugs. “You’ve seemed kind of off lately.”
“Do I?”
Donghyuck brings over a bowl of steaming hot jjigae. “You haven’t sat with your back straight all week.”
Johnny’s body does read like a book. “I’ve just got some things to think about. It’s not that big a deal.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Do you want me to serve myself?” Johnny asks, pointing at the kitchen.
“Oh no, the stuff on the table is for you. I’m out, my— uh, someone has been online on Discord for fifteen minutes already and I’m late.”
“What—?”
“Seeya!” And like a Twilight vampire, Donghyuck is gone.
How nice of him to cook Johnny a meal and leave Johnny alone to eat it.
He definitely wants something.
Just as Johnny pulls up instagram again, he realises that he is, in fact, slouching.
Ugh.
Johnny closes instagram and opens his contacts instead.
“Johnny!”
“Hey, mom.” Donghyuck won’t be able to hear him over the sound of his game, but Johnny keeps his voice down anyway. “How are you?”
“I’m doing good, baby! Or not that good. Your father has taken me golfing and they told me I couldn’t bring my glass of wine with me into the greens.”
“Gosh, that’s rude of them.”
“Isn’t it just! I tried telling them I was a responsible drinker, but they just wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I wonder why that is.”
“I told your appa, ‘What’s the point in hitting balls with sticks if you can’t see where they’re going?’ And he said that your friend Miley Cyrus said that it’s about the climb.”
“Dad has been going through my old albums again, I see.”
“I think he misses you. I’m glad you called! Hold on, appa is coming back, let me — here we go.”
“Johnny! It’s so nice to hear your voice.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, I’ve been busy. Why have you taken mom golfing? You know she hates it.”
“I thought the walking could be good for her heart.”
“Love, the best thing for my heart is you.”
“Oh, honey—”
“Hey, listen, can I ask you something?”
“Of course!”
“Anything?”
Johnny takes a deep breath. “Hypothetically, what does one do if they find their soulmate? Where do you go from there?”
The gasps are exactly what Johnny was expecting, but that doesn’t make him any less exasperated.
“You found your soulmate?”
“You have a tattoo already? You didn’t tell us! What does it say?”
“Uh. Noooo, I don’t have a tattoo yet. I was just wondering.”
“Oh.” Now his dad sounds despondent. Great. “In that case, I’m not sure. We met a few times before we knew we were soulmates.”
“Appa tried to romance me despite the fact that he had a tattoo. He still insists he didn’t make a habit of romancing women ever since he got his tattoo…”
“I keep telling you, darling, I saw your face and it was like the Fates suddenly didn’t matter to me.”
“Oh, keep flattering me and I might actually enjoy this game of golf!”
“Okay, but,” Johnny interrupts, before they can be any worse, “Say the moment you met each other, you somehow knew you were soulmates. You’d never seen each other before that. What would you do?”
“That’s easy. I’d ask your mother out on a date.”
“A date?”
“Of course. What else can you do?”
“You can’t ignore your soulmate. The Fates won’t let it happen.”
“But what if their first impression of you is… weird?”
“I don’t know how that feels.”
“You know what my tattoo says, baby. It says—”
“Yes, I know, you don’t have to tell me again.” Johnny runs his hand through his hair. “So, just plan to catch up?”
“A date, John.”
“Sorry, a date. Okay. Thanks for, uh, indulging my curiosity.”
“Any time, baby. You’d tell us if you get a tattoo, won’t you?”
“Of course! Obviously.”
“Good, because if you didn’t, we’d feel very hurt. We like to think you can share everything with us. It makes us feel like we’ve done a good job raising you.”
“…Yeah… so anyway—”
Johnny stares at the last message he received from the contact Kun Soulmate: ‘save me a table, parking’s a bitch’.
Kun Soulmate owns a car. He’s a car owner. Johnny cannot stop thinking about this, and the potential of him paying for car insurance and servicing. Maybe he can even service the car himself.
Man, it’s kind of hot in this café.
Kun walks in three minutes later in a beige trench coat that looks completely unruffled, which either means he was lying about the driving or he had that coat hanging from his window, the implication of the latter being that his car is big enough to hang a trench coat from unruffled.
Confession: Johnny is a little bit cashsexual. One tends to be if they don’t have a lot of cash themselves.
“So sorry I’m late,” he huffs, shrugging off his coat and placing it on the chair across the table. “I came early because I don’t really know this area, and yet—”
Johnny shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. Totally understandable. The traffic looked bad out there.”
“It was terrible.” A hand, hidden from view, tugs Kun’s button-up down slightly so Johnny can see a sliver of the fern stretching all the way to his sternum. “My car’s a little big for this part of town, too.”
“Uh huh.” Fuck. “Water?”
Johnny pours them both glasses and pretends to read through the drinks menu, even though he knows he’s just going to use his Uniqlo paycheque to buy a boring beer. He tells Kun arbitrary things, like how he caught a tram to the restaurant and no, it’s not far, and the weather’s nice anyway, and the guy sitting next to him had onion breath so apologies if it transferred onto him somehow—
“And what can I get you?” The waitress, thankfully, interrupts Johnny’s very unfortunate onion breath story.
“I’ll have an Asahi,” Johnny says at the same time Kun says, “I’ll just have a pomegranate tea.” He whips his head towards his date.
“Are we day drinking?” Kun asks him.
“You’re a tea drinker?” Johnny gasps.
“Um…”
No. None of this makes any sense. Hey, Fates? Make it make sense.
Johnny purses his lips so his thoughts don’t escape through his lips, and turns to the waitress. “I’ll have a long black.”
“We thought you were fantastic, but it’s just that… we found someone else who was a better fit for the Captain.”
“Right, of course.” Johnny bites back a curse, both because some of the oil from the fries he’s just thrown into oil has splattered onto his bare chest (no air-con, no Donghyuck, no shirt) and also because he’s pretty sure he’s losing yet another audition and is about to enter his second existential crisis of the day.
“But we loved you so much, we were wondering if you were interested in accepting the role of Rolfe? It’s yours if you wanted it.”
“You want me to play the Nazi? Wait, sorry—” Shit, fuck, what the fuck, Johnny, that’s no way to start a new job. “Yes, of course! The Sound of Music is one of my all-time favourites, and I’d be honoured to be a part of this production!”
Even if he’s seen all the white blondies sitting around in those seats that definitely screamed ‘Nazi’ more than he did.
“…Fantastic! We have an ice breaker and read through session on Thursday. I hope that works for you.”
“I’ll be there!” Johnny nearly jumps back from the stove when the fries are a little too loud. “I can’t wait!”
When the niceties are over, Johnny stares at the existential crisis fries that he no longer needs to eat and considers doing the unthinkable: halting the cooking process entirely and refreezing them for another, sadder day. Then, as if being punished for thinking the unthinkable, the front door swings open and in walks Donghyuck — and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he came with company.
“Shit,” Johnny let himself say, hand immediately shooting up to his collarbone, the rest of his body performing gymnastics to try and cover his entire torso. “Hi. Sorry, let me get a shirt. Wait, I can’t leave the stove alone. Fuck.”
“Sorry,” Donghyuck says unapologetically, “Should’ve texted you a heads up.”
“Yeah.” No shit.
“This is my…” Donghyuck points to his companion, a scrawny thing with a tall boy slouch and a branded headband. “This is Yangyang. We know each other.”
“We’re dating,” the boy confirms Johnny’s suspicions. “Is that a soulmate tattoo?”
What? Johnny’s hand is huge, though. “Uh.”
“Yes it is.” Donghyuck grins evilly. “Guess what it says.”
“What does it say?”
“It says ‘wow bulge’.”
“No.” Yangyang does a kind of reverse trifecta — Johnny can see him ascend then return to earth, then stare pointedly at his crotch, and then his now-exposed collarbone. “Dude, I am so sorry.”
Johnny pulls together every bit of sincerity in his body he feels Yangyang deserves — which is all of it — to say, “That’s very polite of you to say. Thank you so much for your concern. It’s been rough.”
“Have you met them yet?”
“Yeah.”
Donghyuck balks. “Wait what? You have?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Johnny raises an eyebrow. “Why should I tell you? We’re not friends.”
He notes Yangyang choking on air with satisfaction. “I think this is revenge for our first date when you tried to tell your cousin you didn’t know who I was and that I was just following you.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Jaemin with my tarot card reading for this week!”
“By the way,” Donghyuck says when he and his date are not even a third of the way through the fries. “Are you going out tonight?”
Johnny frowns. “No. Why?”
“You should find something to get you out of the house, then.”
“Wh— oh, for fuck’s sake.”
Kun is waiting on a bench a few buildings down from the rehearsal studio, as requested, wearing yet another silk top and looking absolutely ravishing — a long way from Johnny’s pilled, oversized cardigan and grubby fingernails.
(He should not have offered to roll joints for his colleagues knowing he had to meet someone later. That was a mistake that the Johnny of lunch-time did not have the foresight to avoid.)
“Hi!” Johnny is breathless after basically pace-lunging his way over to Kun. He doesn’t have to be embarrassed about his haste, because Kun shoots out of his seat like a rocket. “Thanks for coming all the way out here. I know it’s far.”
“Don’t worry about it. Easier for me to get to you than for you to get to me.” Kun holds his arms open as Johnny reaches out to shake his hand. “Oh.”
“Oh!” How mortifying. Johnny quickly adjusts and returns Kun’s hug 1.5-fold (he doesn’t want to actually kill him). “I may be a tiny bit high.”
Johnny feels Kun’s chuckle rumble in his chest. “Me too.”
Perhaps the Fates paired them up for some higher ganja agenda. An aganjenda.
“So,” Johnny shoves his hands into his sweater, “Where to?”
“Are you interested in open mics? I know you’ve been rehearsing all day, but—”
“You’re not expecting me to take part, are you?”
“Goodness, no!” Kun laughs, “There’s this one a friend recommended that I’ve been meaning to check out, but I can do that another day if that’s not your thing. ”
“I don’t mind. Is it close?”
“It’s just a ten minute drive.”
“I could’ve just met you there! You didn’t have to pick me up.”
“And take an extra half-hour to get there by tram?” Kun raises an eyebrow, but there’s no bite to his eyes. “It’s chill, Johnny. Besides, we’re going to see a lot of each other — I’m pretty this won’t be the last time I drive you around.”
Johnny’s fingers feel numb in his pockets. Things are still a little weird between them, and Johnny blames the fact that Kun is a tea drinker. He’s normally great at compartmentalising, but not when it comes to leaf water, apparently.
There’s also the thing Kun said, that Johnny hasn’t been able to get out of his head in the two weeks since: “I don’t know what love is supposed to look like.”
Johnny doesn’t know how to compartmentalise those feelings either.
Like, isn’t he doing a shitty job of showing Kun what love looks like? He’s supposed to be his soulmate, and yeah, sure, it doesn’t have to be romantic, but a lot of the time it is, Johnny has always envisioned it being romantic, and he has seen love and loved love all his life, so isn’t it his responsibility to show it to Kun? What’s he doing, keeping his own soulmate at arm’s length? But also, like, what if Kun just cares about his dick? That’s why all of Johnny’s other relationships haven’t worked. What if Kun is only capable of physical affection instead of that other stuff Johnny craved? Is it Johnny’s destiny to settle down and learn to be happy with that? ‘Cause that’s a shitty fucking destiny and the Fates can shove it right up their—
“Johnny?”
Ah fuck, he’s walked straight past Kun and almost into a lamp post. “Sorry, got lost in my head.” He turns to find his date standing on the driver’s side of a station wagon. “Oh my god, this is—”
“A mom car, I know.” Kun smiles apologetically. “It is literally my mom’s old car.”
“Oh.” Johnny was going to comment on size, but maybe he should keep that thought at bay. There seems to be absolutely nothing resting on any of the seats, no crushed cans in the cup holders, not even an aux cord hanging from the jack. The click of the car unlocking startles him, and he notes, as he slides into shotgun, Kun reaching into the storage compartment between the seats and pulling aforementioned aux cord out. A quick glance before he closes it shut shows mints, fruit jellies, a first-aid kit and a tiny little box just for cables. His car smells faintly of artificial pine scent, and yes, there is, indeed, a little tree hanging from the rear view mirror.
Confession: Johnny is just as cleansexual as he is cashsexual. One would have to be, if they are not inherently clean themselves.
Kun hovers his phone over Johnny’s side of the centre consol. “Did you want to pick the music?”
God, yes. God, he hopes Kun likes Taio Cruz.
Two weeks ago:
“If I may ask,” Kun said, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin, “Did you ever see yourself getting a soulmate?”
Johnny tugged at his ear. This was awfully deep for a first date — but he supposed it was a first soulmate date, so maybe it had to be. “My parents are soulmates, so it was always a possibility. Didn’t you have that?”
Kun’s expression told Johnny that his experience was not universal. “I was raised by a single mother. She adopted me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I just assumed—”
“No, I get it. Most people who have soulmates came from people who have soulmates. I probably did, too.” Kun shrugged. “I just never knew them.”
“You never met your birth parents?”
“Nope. Don’t even want to. They didn’t raise me, so I don’t care, really.” The scowl on Kun’s face made it seem like he cared a lot. “It’s just that, you know, even if I was an accident, they’d already found each other, so why did they have to give me away? They were going to spend the rest of their life together anyway. Anyway, I don’t even care. My mom’s great!”
“Uh huh,” Johnny nodded. “How long ago did you find out your parents were soulmates?”
“When I got my tattoo.”
That wasn’t very long. “Right. Well, I’m glad your mom is cool.”
“She’s amazing.” Kun met Johnny’s eyes briefly; Johnny noticed that Kun didn’t do eye contact very well.. “…Full disclosure, my mom never dated and I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Almost everyone I know doesn’t have a soulmate, and the one person that does has known his soulmate since childhood. Most of my friends haven’t even had long-lasting relationships. I don’t know what love is supposed to look like.” He spared another less-than-a-second’s glance in Johnny’s direction. “I just felt you should know. Whatever our relationship ends up being.”
Johnny’s resounding thought at the time was ‘Oof. Big, big oof’. What he said was: “Thank you for telling me.”
Johnny’s not much of a texter because he sounds like a douchebag over text. Maybe that’s why he texts Kun so much — some subconscious need to appear threatening and push him away. Or maybe the Fates are at it again, pushing him to do things he doesn’t know if he even wants to do. Or forcing him to fuck up on purpose. He’s still got beef with them.
He didn’t realise he was texting Kun that often until Taeyong pointed out how he always walked into work smiling at his phone. That particular time, Kun had sent him a picture of a cat he’d seen on the street.
Or when he was waiting for Junmyeon to call him into his office. Junmyeon had given him an odd look when he looked up and asked, “Didn’t you bring a book today?” Johnny had brought something to read — his script, since that was all he read now — but Kun had, at the time, sent him a picture of his lunch and Johnny was telling him how good his lunch looked.
Today, it’s his dweeb cousin Mark’s turn to catch him out. “So what time is it?”
Johnny jumps, nearly losing his grip on the tram handrail. “Huh? Oh, shit, uh… 9:30. Don’t worry, you’ll be home on time.”
“Bro, I thought you said it was a cardinal sin to check your texts when you’re out with someone.”
“Sorry.” He flicks back to Kun’s last text, a picture of a cup of black coffee with the caption ‘trying ur usual’, and then ‘this is fucking disgusting, how do u drink this???’. Johnny quickly types ‘Coffee after dinner? Is that a good idea?’ before shoving his phone in his pocket, out of sight (but not really out of mind.) “I’m paying attention.”
“Who’re you texting?” Mark’s eyebrows waggle like caterpillars dying from spray pesticide.
Johnny considers lying. He didn’t exactly advertise the fact that he had met Kun, or even that he had a Kun, and Mark was thick enough that he could get away with pretending it was a friend. But then he remembers how, years ago, Mark texted him the morning after his first ever prom asking how to best cover up a hickey, and how honoured he felt that out of all their cousins, little Marky had chosen him.
“My soulmate,” Johnny finally tells him, before quickly adding, “Don’t tell my parents. Or yours.”
Mark’s eyes bulge out of his skull and almost hit his glasses. “Soulmate?”
“Yup.”
“Dude.”
“I know.”
“When did this happen? What’s he like? Tell me everything!”
What’s there to tell? Johnny doesn’t want to give Mark a “he’s nice” even though that’s literally all his smooth brain can think of saying.
His hand itches for his phone. He’ll start with a picture, he decides, and he’ll check if Kun texted back while he does it. The latest iMessage notification reads ‘like u can talk 🧐’; Johnny ignores it, fingers tingling, for finding the only selfie they’d ever taken together. Kun had definitely taken a few solo pictures of Johnny from their date at the comedy club — Johnny had even called him out on it — but when Johnny had asked for them, all he got was this.
“Here. This is him.” He passes his phone to Mark, watching the kid observe the screen inches away from his face.
“Why aren’t you smiling?”
“Hm?”
“You’re not smiling here. It’s, like, a grimace. What is that?”
Johnny peers into his phone. “I’m smiling! My lips are curved up, see?”
“I’m pretty sure this is a grimace.”
“Says the guy who spelt ‘accident-prone’ as ‘accident porn’ in the tenth grade.”
Mark groans. “Do you have to always bring that up?”
“In the tenth grade. Like, you’d definitely watched porn by then.”
“Out of curiosity!” Mark whines. “Hey, come on, stop changing the subject!”
He needs to stall for time. Mark is quick when it counts, if not quick at counting. The only option Johnny can see is telling truth, so… “I’m not sure about him.”
“What do you mean?”
Ugh. “It’s like… the Fates assign soulmates to serve a purpose, right? They’re supposed to meet some need or flaw or, like, complete you.” Ugh. “I don’t really know how mine does that.”
“Oh.”
“Mom and Dad always said things just made sense for them, but they don’t make sense for me.”
“Well, it kinda seems like he makes you happy judging from how you were looking at your texts earlier.”
Johnny blinks. “How was I looking at my texts earlier?”
“Like a teenage girl, dude. Your ears were, like, blushing.”
“That’s so fucking embarrassing.”
“Maybe things will click for you if you smile at him in person like you smile at his texts, instead of pretending to be cool.”
“Shit, Mark. You might be onto something.”
“Wait, really? That was a joke…”
“Wanna hear a real joke? When you tried to flirt with the waiter from dinner by giving him the blue steel.”
“Hey!”
When Johnny wakes up on a Sunday morning to find that Donghyuck isn’t home — probably having smashed avocado toast for brunch with one of his many friend groups — he opens a Google Chrome tab on his phone and types in: ‘what if your soulmate isn’t right for you’.
The results aren’t very satisfying. A bunch of magazine articles saying ‘give them a chance’, a top Quora answer saying ‘the Fates would never do that to you’ (Johnny gives that one a thumbs down), and some Reddit stories by people who didn’t like their soulmate at first but eventually warmed up to them, suggesting that there comes a point when something clicks.
Johnny would like things to click now.
Johnny only knows three people who have soulmates: his parents, and his coworker-slash-friend Taeyong. Taeyong counts as a friend, right? They once caught up outside of work willingly; Johnny is pretty sure that’s friendship.
So he calls Taeyong.
“Why have you called me before noon?” Taeyong groans into Johnny’s ear. “Some of us work nights.”
“Don’t be dramatic, I was working with you.”
“Yeah, but you don’t sleep.” Johnny can hear Taeyong’s bones crack. “What’s up? I hope this is good.”
“How did you feel when you met your soulmate?”
There’s dead silence for a few seconds. Then shuffling, a faint “I’ll be back, baby” and whining and “I’m just taking a call, I’ll be back”, and even more shuffling that Johnny hopes is Taeyong leaving the bed and not him making out with someone. There are some wet noises; Johnny doesn’t like it.
“Okay,” Taeyong says after a whole minute, the sound of wind and cars in the background. “How much detail do you want?”
“Um. Ew.”
“No, not like that! I mean how deep into my psyche do you want to go?”
“Uh.”
“Not that deep, cool. I met my soulmate when I heard him loudly insult the pink drink in the Starbucks line.”
“Your soulmate is so valid for that.”
“He’s not. Especially when his own Starbucks order is a caramel frappuccino with three Stevias.”
“I didn’t expect his taste in coffee to be good if he was standing in line at Starbucks, anyway.”
“Shut up. So he insulted the pink drink, and then the barista called out my order for a pink drink and I glared right at him as I picked it up. So if you want to know how I felt, it was mostly annoyed.”
“If that’s how you first met, then why does your tattoo say ‘he shouldn’t be sitting there’?”
“Apparently he’d seen me before that, sitting on the priority seats of the tram.”
“Damn. Then how did you figure out you were soulmates?”
“We kept bumping into each other. Put two and two together.”
“…And then what happened?”
“Eh? Then we got together.”
“Even though you kept fighting?”
“It wasn’t easy. Nothing about Doyoung made sense at first.”
“Uh huh.”
“But then we just tried to understand each other and everything worked out. We’re actually pretty similar in a lot of ways. We still argue, but I don’t think we’ll ever stop arguing.”
“But… is that it? Is it just a good relationship?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why do you think the Fates chose you two to be soulmates?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Maybe he’s good for me? I couldn’t tell you why, though. Doyoung could probably tell you, since I’m sure he’s thought about it, and he’s way better at words than I am. I’ve just been taking it a day at a time.”
“…Right.”
“Maybe the Fates wanted me to stop gaming?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Is this about your soulmate? Are you having problems?”
“I wouldn’t call them problems. I just feel like something’s off.”
“Like you don’t understand how he’s the one?”
“Yeah! He’s really nice, but all we do is just text and meet up sometimes, and I don’t know how it’s different to a regular relationship. I don’t see why the Fates thought we were made for each other.”
“Well, maybe do what I do and don’t question it. Just go with the flow. You’re good at that!”
“I guess…”
“Do you have any other questions about my personal life?”
“Jeez, Taeyong, when you put it like that—”
Taeyong chuckles, a little silly. “I’m just sleepy. We can talk about this when I’m more awake. At work if you’re comfortable. Or maybe I could sleepover at yours after a shift and we can talk about boys.”
“Is our relationship at that point yet? Sleepovers?”
“How else do people get close? Only takes one sleepover to become best friends!”
“Fine.” Johnny’s lip tugs upwards. A sleepover with Taeyong would actually be fun, considering how fucked their sleep schedules are. “How does next weekend sound?”
“Oh no, not next weekend. Doyoung’s taking me to the beach on Saturday and I’m pretty sure I’m going to spend all of Sunday sunburnt. That’s why I had to give away my shift. Thanks for covering me, by the way!”
“No problem. The weekend after that?”
“That’s so far away. What about a weekday? I can come over after a restaurant shift.”
“I wake up early for rehearsals, remember?”
“Oh yeah, you have a real job now. When do your rehearsals finish?”
“It changes every day, but usually around 6pm.”
“Dammit, I’m at my other work by then. Put the weekend after next down as a tentative and we’ll revisit it next week.”
“Gotcha.”
Johnny’s about to hang up when Taeyong’s voice going “And Johnny?” catches his attention. He puts it back to his ear.
“Yeah?”
“I think it would save you a lot of trouble if you tried to make things work with your soulmate situation instead of finding all the flaws.”
Johnny’s body reacts the same way it always does to an unexpected callout — a gag of the throat and a stabby feeling in the gut. “Fuck you, Yoda.”
“You’re welcome, Luke-y! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and nap before my soulmate wakes me up for some early morning dry humping.”
“15 bucks and no seats?” Kun whispers, definitely not in a way that Johnny’s meant to hear. He laughs anyway, like a fool, and Kun jumps.
“Oh god,” he breathes, “I mean, the open air does have a charm to it.”
Go with the flow, Johnny reminds himself. Go with the flow. “It’d be a hundred if you wanted seats.”
“No. Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“I feel like I should demand more money for my shows.”
This is okay. This is fine.
Going out to see one of Johnny’s favourite Shakespeare plays is a little intimate for someone he feels he barely knows — even more so considering Johnny knows most of the cast and crew, who don’t know he’s here but no doubt will at some point, and will know immediately that he’s on a date.
But Kun deserves a chance, right?
“Drinks?” Johnny asks, once Kun looks comfortable enough on their picnic blanket.
“Oh yes, I was eyeing the moscato they were selling at the booze truck.”
“Are we day drinking?”
Kun blinks, startled. “Oh! I thought… okay. Um—”
“I’m just messing with you,” Johnny grins. He tries not to think about how the alcohol here is almost as expensive as the tickets. “A moscato coming right up.”
He can feel eyes on him as he carries a plastic cup of moscato and another of “whatever the cheapest wine you have is” over the one-minute walk from the truck to the seating area. He doesn’t need to look to know it’s Jungwoo in the lighting booth, and he definitely doesn’t need to look to know that Jungwoo is probably about to text everyone backstage that Johnny’s here. It’s probably best not to look, anyway, because that would just poke the bear.
He keeps his eyes on Kun instead, handing one of the glasses over and letting Kun pry the other from his hands so he can sit down easier. Kun’s opened a pack of chips by pulling it apart, both edges pulled apart neatly without a single tear.
Johnny adds “opening packets good” to his list of things that he’s sexually attracted to.
“So,” Kun says, “Tell me more about this play we’re watching.”
“You don’t remember the name, do you?”
“No.” Kun smiles apologetically. “All the Shakespeare I know is Hamlet from English class, and my teacher was kind of shit. Sorry.”
“Shakespeare is kind of shit in English class, anyway. You have to see it to actually enjoy it.”
“He does write plays, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, we’re watching a good one today. Twelfth Night is one of his best.”
“Will I find it funny if I don’t understand what they’re saying?”
“Have you seen She’s The Man?”
“Yes! Love that movie.”
“Based on this.”
“Really?” Johnny nods. “Well, I’m looking forward to this, then.”
Johnny holds his cup out for Kun to tap together. “I’m sure it won’t disappoint.”
The sky is darkening by the time the show is over. Ushering them out of the park as soon as possible might look bad, but Johnny needed to get as far away from anyone involved in the creation of that play as fast as possible.
Kun’s hand is in his pocket, toying with his keys, so Johnny juts in: “Dessert?”
Kun smiles, relieved, and pulls his hand out of his pocket. “I’d love to.”
That’s how they find themselves over a bowl of green tea and chocolate bingsu, big enough to serve as a second dinner.
“I don’t get how Olivia and the twin brother are so happy to get together,” Kun tells him, digging into the dessert like he hasn’t had his first dinner. “They don’t even know each other.”
“Shakespeare doesn’t exactly have a reputation for writing healthy relationships.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t a tragedy.” Kun rolls his eyes. “Shut up, I know that he has different kinds of plays. I remember some things from school.”
Johnny’s lips curl upwards involuntarily. “Impressive.”
“Stop it.” Kun picks a piece of chocolate fudge onto his spoon and shoves it into his mouth.
“People get together for less.” Especially when the Fates get involved, Johnny didn’t say out loud. That probably wouldn’t propel their relationship in the right direction.
Kun swallows more than he probably should. “But why would Olivia settle for less when Viola was right there?”
Fuck. “God, I know right?”
“It’s Viola that actually wrote the letters—”
“—And Viola is even hotter dressed as herself.”
“Oh my god. Exactly. I don’t even remember the other one’s name.”
“Sebastian.”
“Ugh. Way nicer to scream ‘Viola’ during sex.”
Johnny chokes on his water. He tries to make sure most of it falls back into his glass and not on the dessert. Kun is watching in horror and god, fuck, this is so not suave or sexy or romantic —
“Are you okay? Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Do you want water. No, wait, that’s what you choked on, Jesus —”
“I’m fine,” Johnny croaks out as soon as he can. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”
Kun’s eyes are wide, palms glued to the table as if he’s about to push himself up and run. Nice one, Johnny.
“I shouldn’t have laughed mid-drink.”
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t have—”
“You’re fine! Really.”
Kun still looks tense. Johnny mentally searches through his emotional support dictionary for what he should do next; he sees Kun’s hands on the table, still taut, and covers one of them with his own.
It feels like the polite thing to do.
Kun bits his lip. “Full disclosure,” he starts, and Johnny resists every temptation to pull his hand back to his chest and cower under the table, “I feel like I screw up at least once every time we meet.”
Oh.
Crisis averted.
But also: oh no.
“What do you mean? There’s nothing to screw up.”
“I still feel like I haven’t done anything to salvage your terrible first impression of me. You don’t exactly like me yet.”
Oh no.
“I’m a dick,” Johnny sighs.
“What? No you’re not.”
“I am. I promise.” He retreats back to his side of the table, but not before giving Kun’s hand a slight squeeze. “I had a feeling you’d think I wouldn’t like you. I do! But it’s just… hard. But it’s all in my head. You did nothing wrong.”
Kun raises an eyebrow. He still looks ambivalent, but he isn’t sad yet, so Johnny takes it as a win.
It Is Time To Be Honest.
“My parents are disgustingly in love with each other,” Johnny explains. “They have been my whole life. It’s not like they didn’t have disagreements or anything, but they somehow dealt with them.” He shakes his head. “The Fates made things so easy for them.”
“So they gave you some pretty high expectations,” Kun guesses.
“Yeah,” Johnny breathes. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. “Really high expectations. They had their meet-cute before they knew they were soulmates. Everything made sense for them. And when I envisioned getting my own soulmate growing up, I kind of expected the same. I don’t know, it’s stupid—”
“It’s not stupid. I don’t really get it, but I don’t think it’s stupid.”
“No, but there’s more, and it’s…” Johnny runs a hand through his hair. “It’s dumb.”
“Try me.”
“It’s really dumb. I kind of have these issues with how I look. Like, I’m hot. I’m not bragging, it’s just true.” The grimace on Kun’s face tells him that he’s definitely bragging. “Shit, no, I don’t mean it like that. I just mean, I’ve been judged by my looks my whole life. Not a lot of people — especially people I’ve dated — take the time to get to know me. And once they — uh.” How does Johnny politely say, in a public place, that his dick is the biggest cockblock between himself and meaningful relationships? “People make a lot of assumptions about me based on my… body… and… body parts…”
“…Riiiiiight.”
“You get what I’m saying.”
“I do.”
“So whenever I imagined meeting my soulmate, I kind of imagined their tattoo would be… not about my body.”
Kun bites his lip again. Johnny would offer him chapstick if it wasn’t so important to stay in the moment. “You must have been disappointed, then.”
Johnny doesn’t want to say yes, because that would be hurtful. Plus, he’s pretty sure Kun already knows. He doesn’t need to hear it.
Kun closes his eyes, clasps his hands together.
“I don’t know how to convince you of this,” he says, “But my first impression of you was kind of nothing. I only noticed you because the underwear you were modelling had a big bestseller graphic next to it. And my bandmates, their brains are in the gutter and I guess it’s infectious because I barely even registered thinking that. Like, it was probably a joke.” Kun purses his lips. “Then I saw the price price above your head and looked away immediately. Honestly, I don’t even know how I recognised your face because I’d thought of you for a total of five seconds before we met.”
Huh.
“Do you think of me now?” Johnny asks.
Kun clears his throat. “You know I take sneaky photos of you when we meet up. And I re-read your texts all the time. You text like you speak, so I try to hear your voice say them out loud.”
Oh god oh boy oh fuck. “I take screenshots of instagram stories with your face on them.”
Kun smiles, a little bit timid, a little bit coy. “You could just take a picture yourself, you know? It’d probably be better.”
And now Johnny’s fingers feel numb. Is this it, then? That click? That spark? Or is it just your run-of-the-mill rush of oxytocin? Kun hasn’t even done anything, god.
“For the record, I do think you’re really smart. I know we don’t know each other well, but you come across that much, at least.”
Oh. There it is.
The click.
“Do you have plans tomorrow morning?”
Kun binks. “Um. No. Why?”
“Do you want to come to mine?” Kun’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, so Johnny scrambles to add, “My roommate’s home so we’d just watch TV, or something dumb like that. Talk. I don’t know. I have Netflix? We can watch… Bridgerton. Or Black Books. Whichever you prefer.”
Kun smiles easy. Johnny can finally breathe. “Black Books. I’d like that.”
Johnny finds many benefits to bringing Kun home.
One: upon seeing the half-year-old cum stain that had yellowed and solidified on Johnny’s bedroom carpet, Kun admits that his clean car was a front, and he’d had his seats dry-cleaned right before their second date so that Johnny wouldn’t see the two-year-old cum stain that Kun apparently once put a car seat, avec child, on top of. Johnny adds ‘disastersexual’ to his long list of labels. Makes sense that like would attract like.
(“Do you at least know whose cum you put the car seat on—”
“Nope. Definitely not mine, though.”
“Oh my god.”)
Two: Kun enables Johnny’s probably very bad decision to cut the cum stain off his carpet with scissors.
Three: Turns out that Kun knows the dialogue of Black Books off by heart. It’s kind of impressive and kind of adorable. Johnny doesn’t know whether he wants to be Kun or take Kun on another date.
Four: kissing. Not a lot of it, but enough for now.
“He’s so handsome, sweetie,” Johnny’s mom whispers to him when Kun has taken a short bathroom break. “I’m so happy for you, the Fates must take a special liking to you. Say, you never showed us your tattoo!”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary—”
“Nonsense! It’s your soulmate tattoo, it’s important! Let me see.”
“Mom, you can’t just unbutton my shirt—”
“It’s only family here! This is very small writing, let me put my glasses on… oh. Oh, I see. That’s nice, dear.”
“What does it say, honey?”
“I don’t think it’s important, love.”
💞