Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You are a past life
You leave the pain in your eyes for me to find
I made a mess of July
Stuck in the sun, I soak and then I dry

— July, HUNNY

Lee Minho firmly believes that nothing in the world is original.

One time in third grade, he had come up with the brilliant idea to build an eco-friendly helicopter made out of plastic bottles and straws to deliver mail instead of using trucks. The helicopter was powered by dried grass and mud, to add to the effect that it was conserving the lucrative fossil fuels that he had learned about the week prior. Except, as it turned out, the girl sitting three tables away had already proposed that very idea to their teacher, who laughed and patted the girl’s head with pride, exclaiming, “How innovative! And so young, too!”

He held a grudge against the girl for the rest of the school year. In hindsight, she had done nothing wrong, but he felt as though he was cheated from becoming the next Albert Einstein.

Then in his last year of high school, his math teacher had decided to tangent during the lecture about the history of Calculus: how it was discovered independently by two different mathematicians, but the purpose that it served and the end result were both the same. At the time, Minho could barely grasp the concept of an integral or the steps to take the derivative of anything but a polynomial function. He had no idea how someone could invent these mind-blowing things.

He still reflects on that specific piece of information occasionally, thinking how absurd it must have been when these mathematicians felt as though they had made an incredible breakthrough in the field only to realize that someone else was doing the same thing all along. Even more astounding, they hadn’t invented anything, but simply discovered what already existed, making it privy to the rest of the world upon revelation. But he’d digress.

It is early in the morning in New York City. Even though he’s succumbed to following Jisung’s schedule, it is certainly on the earlier side of things. Jisung was a late sleeper and an even later riser, but he never knew just how severe Jisung’s circadian rhythm was. Jisung proudly declared himself a night owl any moment he had the chance to, but Minho believes that if Jisung was to go to sleep at four or five in the morning, then he was no different than the morning larks of the general population.

Today was out of the ordinary. Jisung had woken up at 8 a.m. to his alarm blaring Knock Knock by Twice. Minho had stirred awake as well, even before Jisung heard his own alarm. But instead of watching the younger hit snooze—which was how these things usually played out—Jisung immediately sprung out of bed with a grin on his face, yelling about how they were to not waste any time while on vacation because they had plenty of time to waste once they were back home.

Jisung proceeded to drag him to Central Park, with his fingers wrapped around Minho’s wrist. They walked past the morning rush, which was slightly worse than the normal rush of people. Granted, the city was cleverly dubbed ‘The City That Never Sleeps,’ exactly like the personality of a special somebody. He wonders if that is part of the reason Jisung had chosen this place as their first destination, but he didn’t have any more time to ponder the idea before they reached the entrance of Central Park, with the lush green spanning acres past the gate, so sharply contrasting the industrialized architecture of the rest of the city.

The park reminds him of Songdo Central Park, right outside of Seoul, which he had visited with Jisung a couple years ago. That was not a surprise, he supposes, with the park in Incheon inspired from the parks of New York. Even the namesake paid homage to New York, and he scoffs at how unoriginal the city planners were with that one. But again, as no one thing in the world is original or unique, he can’t fault anyone at all. It is just part of the human condition.

Jisung is currently walking—no, now he’s skipping—down the pavement gleefully, with Minho in tow close behind. People generally do not skip past the tender age of twelve, but it is something that Jisung has recently gotten into after reading an article in a fitness newsletter. He had forwarded said article to Minho, outlining how skipping was less tiring than running, more efficient than walking, but still contained the benefits of each. It made Minho seriously consider for a solid three minutes on whether or not he should start skipping as well. But after the fourth minute of contemplation, he was struck with a sense of secondhand embarrassment at the horrific image of himself skipping to work while bystanders watched with amused concern.

Even if Minho can’t stand the idea of skipping in public, he has to admit that when Jisung does it, it is adorable. The black platform Dr. Martens that Jisung is wearing paired with his overflowing energy is an odd but welcome sight, and he has a bubbly feeling watching Jisung enjoy himself.

“Hey, Lee Minho!” Jisung shouts. He’s prancing backwards now, and his eyes barely open from how wide he’s smiling. “Get over here, old man.”

“Who are you calling old man?” Minho grouses. A couple of the pedestrians turn their heads towards him, but he pays them no mind, with eyes only for the man in front of him. He jogs towards Jisung, who is still sashaying in reverse. Farther ahead is a couple standing by the benches, blind to the world around them, and a vision of a crash flashes before his eyes. Picking up the pace, Minho begins to run, his shoes slapping the sidewalk, catching up with the oblivious man child and jerking Jisung back with a tight grip before Minho’s omen can materialize.

“You’re almost t—” Jisung suddenly notices the couple behind him, immediately turning around and apologizing profusely. He even offers a quick bow, which leaves the couple looking slightly confused, but they mirror the gesture and drift away, leaving an apologetic Jisung and a panting Minho sitting on the bench by themselves.

“Watch where you're going,” Minho snaps once he’s able to catch his breath. He is bent out of shape from even running ten feet, and the July heat doesn’t help, but all he hopes is that Jisung doesn’t take note of how unfit he is.

“Sorry hyung, I didn’t notice.” Jisung replies, swinging his legs up and down like a child caught stealing candy. It’s cute. “Luckily you saved me, right?”

Minho hums and legitimately takes in their surroundings for the first time this morning. The only words he has to describe it are green and greener. Living in a megalopolis his entire life, the last time he saw this many plants might have been ten years ago, when he had moved to his grandparents’ house in Daegu during summer vacation. Ironically enough, he’s in another megalopolis now, the home of gray skyscrapers and black-top roads, but every city has their gems.

This park happens to be one of them.

From the corner of his eyes, he catches Jisung doing the same thing, except Jisung is extremely blatant with his gawking. He turns his head from side to side, eyes sparkling in awe at the grand archway of elm trees above them. The verdant leaves coupled with the lusciousness of the grass makes the viridescent world look endless.

Jisung suddenly rises up onto his feet, reaching an arm out to Minho, who looks at it with concealed skepticism.

“So I won’t run into anyone again,” Jisung explains abashedly, so Minho grabs onto his hand, intertwining their fingers together as Jisung leads the way once again. This time, they both move along at a leisurely pace.

“Sometimes I think you just want an excuse to hold my hand,” Minho smirks at Jisung. The younger glares, eyes narrowed in a challenge. Jisung simultaneously attempts to free his hand from Minho’s grip. He succeeds in doing so and picks up his pace so that he is now several feet in front of Minho, but Minho is quicker in catching up this time. He speedwalks towards Jisung and takes a hold of two of his fingers.

But now, Jisung doesn’t put up much of a fight, eagerly allowing for Minho to revert back to their original position. “Chasing after me, huh?” Jisung smiles smugly. “Does that make me Cinderella?”

“Only if I’m the evil stepmother,” Minho says nonchalantly. Jisung rolls his eyes in response.

This is the second day of their vacation together. Minho looks skyward again at the crowns of the trees, broad and imposing, standing tall for decades upon decades. He already knows the next eight days will be memories in his life he will want to relive forever.

…

When the airplane landed, the first thing out of Jisung’s mouth was, “Can we go get something to eat?”

Minho ruffled his hair, leaving Jisung pouting in the stiff airplane seat that denied comfort from everybody.

“Not now, Sungie,” Minho had responded, because he knew that ‘something to eat’ was not just a quick snack at one of the fast-food chains scattered around the airport. Rather, Jisung would have wanted to check off something in his mental list of stops. The clock on his phone read 10:49 p.m., and while not particularly late in the grand scheme of things, they had been on a plane for more than half a day’s worth of time. Minho was certain that he would be out like a light once his head hit the pillow. Even though one of his natural talents was the ability to fall asleep anytime, that didn’t translate into falling asleep anywhere. Cars made for a decent nap, and sometimes buses too, but never airplanes.

Jisung was the same, and although Minho had caught him attempting to doze off multiple times on his shoulder, he didn’t think that Jisung achieved any substantial rest either.

“We will tomorrow,” Minho whispered as a promise, tracing circles into Jisung’s thigh. At that moment, the rest of the passengers around them had erupted into chaos wrestling with the overhead bins trying to retrieve their carry-on luggage.

Last night seems like ages ago now, but they’ve finally arrived at the quaint restaurant specializing in Chinese cuisine that Jisung had been screeching about nonstop when they were still home. Something about ‘the experience’ is what Jisung had coined it as, and Minho promptly rolled his eyes. But they’re here, and he doesn’t really have any complaints because his own anticipation was increasing as a result of Jisung’s excitement. Then again, he never does have any complaints when he’s with Jisung and goes along with Jisung’s antics; they were more of a front than anything of substance.

This restaurant was one of those places tucked away in a corner of the city and advertised as a local treasure, something that tourists would never find unless they dug deep. It doesn’t shock Minho that Jisung’s found a place like this. After all, this was the same person who has been planning this trip since he was sixteen and has had an unhealthy obsession with travel bloggers since he was twenty-one.

Jisung yanks on the door. His first attempt is feeble when the door gets caught on the hinge. On the second attempt, it swings wide open, and they both step into the restaurant. The place is lit up with yellow fluorescent lights, and the brightness makes Minho’s eyes hurt. Then he catches sight of Jisung’s smile, which was so much brighter.

After slapping his credit card in Jisung’s palm, he wanders off to find an empty table while trusting Jisung’s judgment on what to order. The wallpaper is slightly faded at the edges, the colors washed out with time, and the cushions on the chairs have seen better days. Typical of a hole-in-the-wall eatery, there are only about three tables in total, with a wooden platform nailed into the wall serving as another eating location, but he chooses the one farthest away from the door and waits.

He’s been to his fair share of places like this back in Seoul, becoming friendly enough with the restaurant owners that they would greet him by name and ask him how he was doing whenever he visited. Yet somehow, it feels more home-like here, with the cherry-stained wood tables and chairs, worn down tile flooring and overhead lights. He almost prefers it, even if he is in a foreign country where he doesn’t speak the language.

Jisung eventually joins Minho at the table, balancing plastic bowls in both of his hands, paper wrapped chopsticks balanced on top of the bowls. The bowl itself contains hand-pulled noodles, covered in fragrant red sauce that smells like a mixture of roasted meat and peppercorns. He’s left speechless staring at the food, his stomach growling and mouth watering, and now he understands.

“Looks good, right?” Jisung supplies for him.

“Yeah, it does,” Minho nods. Jisung places the bowl in front of him, motioning for him to dig in. So he does, taking a hold of the chopsticks and sliding the paper off. He makes a clean break between them, but still struggles for a little while to get the feeling right in his hands, the airy wood sliding around in his fingers, until he finally has what he deems as an adequate bite and begins to eat.

They sit in silence, both digging into their respective meals. Minho’s too distracted to make conversation, and he supposes that Jisung is too, with his cheeks full of food. Not that he minds, this was their usual routine when eating out, just living comfortably in each other’s presence.

“Here, hyung,” Jisung says eventually, chopsticks in his hand as he digs into his food for a bite. Jisung then shoves the chopsticks inside of Minho’s mouth, taking another bite for himself right afterwards. Minho has to admit that the food is delicious, not incredibly different from his own order, but still different nonetheless. Milder, because Jisung was never one for spicy food, and maybe a greater aftertaste of scallion, if nothing else.

“It’s good,” he exclaims, once he swallows his exceptionally large bite.

“It is,” Jisung agrees. He proceeds to repeat the same motion, picking up more from his bowl to feed to Minho.

Minho eagerly takes it from him, closing his mouth around the utensil and biting down on whatever Jisung has given him. Except this time, an unpleasant and pungent taste fills his mouth, one that would be delectable only in a small dose. He scrunches his entire face, suppressing the urge to spit it out. But instead, he forces himself to chew through and swallow the abnormally large chunk of ginger that Jisung has just fed him, before cleansing his palette with a gulp of ice water and sensing relief.

“I actually hate you—” he starts to say, but he’s cut off by the sound of Jisung’s laughter.

“No, you don’t,” Jisung says, his lips lifted up with a grin of amusement.

“Yes, I do,” he retorts, wiping away at his lips with a napkin. “You don’t deserve my love.”

“I knew it!” Jisung shrieks. “So you do love me.”

“It’s a hypothetical.”

“That’s not what hypothetical means.”

“Well, you still don’t deserve my love,” Minho clicks his tongue but it’s feigned in annoyance. “Doesn’t matter whether you already had it or not.”

Jisung sticks out his tongue, stained red from chili peppers.

…

Minho stupidly trusts Jisung for a plethora of things. He wouldn’t trust Jisung to take care of his apartment in check should he leave for an extended length of time—not a personal attack on Jisung, he just doesn’t trust people easily—but somehow, he just knows that he would trust Jisung with his life.

This time around, he trusts Jisung because he’s the only one with adequate English comprehension between the two. But Jisung was never blessed with a sense of direction, and following their visit to the restaurant, he leads them somewhere that looks right. Yet after ten minutes on the subway, Minho comes to the gut-wrenching realization that they’ve been going in the direction opposite of their hotel this entire time.

“Jisung,” Minho grits his teeth and pokes him on the side.

“Yeah?” Jisung looks up innocently from his phone with curious eyes, softening Minho’s frustration slightly.

“We’re lost,” he exhales, in the calmest manner possible. They don’t need to freak out in a foreign country. “We need to get off at the next stop.”

“No?” Jisung furrows his brows. “I double checked.” He quickly opens the maps app on his phone. Minho watches as Jisung’s eyes widen and his mouth pouts into an ‘o’ shape as their avatar on the map moves further and further from where they need to be.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath. “I could’ve sworn it was right.”

“We’re fine,” Minho reassures him. “We’ll be fine. We’ll get off at the next stop and find out where we need to go.”

Jisung visibly gulps and nods, gripping onto Minho’s shoulder so hard that his knuckles turn white. Minho pries Jisung’s hand off and holds it instead, squeezing tightly so that it will calm Jisung down.

He had an instinctual feeling beforehand that the two of them riding the subway was not going to work out exactly as planned. Jisung had rationalized it by pointing out that they always rode the subway when they were home, so how different could it be?

Frankly, Jisung had been correct. There weren’t many different ways a subway station could operate, but Minho was the one who usually acted as their resident navigator on trips. New York was out of the picture for him. All he could do was assist Jisung in any manner possible. And if Jisung wanted the experience of a “native New Yorker,” then he’ll let him indulge in that.

So here they are.

A little lost.

But that’s okay.

The subway starts to play an automated voice over the intercom, which Minho recognizes as the signal for the next stop. He clutches Jisung’s hand firmly and leads him out of the doors and up a flight of stairs so that they’re in a more peaceful area.

“I’m sorry, hyung. I didn’t mean for us to get lost,” Jisung mumbles, his eyes trained on the ground. His heart clenches; he doesn’t want Jisung to have to apologize. As if Minho could even be mad at him for one second when he had the expression of a kicked puppy.

“Let’s just figure this out, okay?” Minho assures him. He takes his phone out of his pocket and types in the hotel’s address. It’s only a thirty minute walk, an hour at most. They’ll be fine. No need to overreact.

He glances over the route one more time before showing it to Jisung, who bobs his head guiltily and follows Minho out of the station.

It’s a little after 10 p.m., which means that the sun had just set less than an hour ago. The artificial lights coming from the storefronts create their own daylight, and they begin to stroll in tandem with each other down the sidewalk. There are crowds of people on the street that pass them by, the voices of strangers harmonizing with the blaring car horns. It provides some background noise, and it makes Minho feel as if it’s too early to go back and wind down. But he has been awake since 8 a.m., and they still have two days left in New York to do whatever they want. That’s more than enough time.

“It’s getting late,” Minho yawns, the alertness he had from their subway scare wearing down, the exhaustion beginning to creep onto his otherwise conscious body.

“Soon,” Jisung responds.” Soon we’ll be able to sleep.” He cracks a small smile, one that conveys that he relates to how Minho feels, but they have to endure this walk before they can sink under the covers.

It’s all just another part of the experience, Minho thinks. Once again with Jisung’s whole ‘experience’ shtick, doing as much as they can in the short period of time that they have.

Minho thinks that it’s worn off on him too—the idea of an experience—and will gladly go along with whatever that entails.

Jisung slows down his pace and points impishly towards a billboard on the side of a building. It displays a male model staring sensually at the camera, biting his lip and stroking his chin in an exaggerated manner.

“That could be you, hyung,” he jokes. “I bet you would look sexy doing that.” Jisung does his own rendition on the pose, setting his chin between two fingers and attempting to cross his legs in a sitting position before losing his balance. He clutches onto Minho for support and throws in a wink or two while doing so. He looks absolutely ridiculous for attempting to hold this position in the middle of a crowded street while looking nothing like the man in the picture.

“How do I look?”

Minho chortles at the visual. “I think you should be the model instead.”

“You think?” Jisung wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I got street scouted by an idol agency once when I was fifteen.”

“Uh huh,” he giggles. They have been friends since Jisung was eleven and Minho thirteen, and Jisung had certifiably boasted about anything possible during his teenage years. “So how come I’ve never heard about that?”

“You just don’t listen to me, I guess,” Jisung tells him. He points to another flashing billboard that rotates between pictures of a famous idol group Minho’s forgotten the name of. “Look, that,” he begins to say, “that could’ve been me.”

“Could you imagine doing their choreography?” Minho bursts into loud guffaws when he imagines Jisung dancing. “You can’t just do what you do at the club on a stage.”

“I’m sure I could learn,” Jisung scowls, his jaw jutted forward in a pout. “And I used to write lyrics too, come on.” He lays on the whine in his voice thick. “Maybe in another life I could be.”

“Maybe in another life,” Minho agrees noncommittally.

There’s a forty-five minute time period from the subway station back to the hotel. By the time they reach their room, the tiredness has fully settled in through his body. He kicks off his shoes, sending them flying somewhere across the carpet that tomorrow’s Minho will worry about, and peels the socks off of his feet. Jisung is the first to flop onto his bed, tucking his legs into his chest and turning into a tight ball, with only half the comforter covering his body. Minho follows suit. Belatedly, he realizes that he should go freshen up before falling asleep, but his body is like lead, and he can’t find the will to heave himself off of the mattress for that.

Maybe later, but for now, he turns to face Jisung lying on the other bed. He looks impossibly tiny, and if Minho didn’t pay enough attention, he would’ve believed that Jisung had shut down in slumber already. But he does notice the glossy sliver of his eyes, nearly closed but not quite.

“Today was good, hyung,” Jisung mutters. There’s a continuous whirring of sirens from outside of their window. His voice is faint and barely audible above the noise, but Minho can still hear it. “We were finally able to make this dream come true.”

“That’s what happens when we’re adults with stable jobs,” he chuckles, finding the strength to roll over his mattress to sit on Jisung’s. Minho cards his fingers through his hair. “Go to sleep, Sung.”

“Yeah,” Jisung offers him a soft smile. “Good night, Min,” he says, dropping the honorifics all together. And then: “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Good night. We’ll do whatever you want tomorrow,” Minho eventually mumbles before making his way back to his own bed. He doesn’t know if he heard, the sound of Jisung's breathing already calm and steady.

…

Minho would go to the edge of the world as long as it was with Jisung.

He wouldn’t admit that to anyone; admitting it to himself, even if just in thought, was already a feat in itself.

But the more he considers the thought, the more it solidifies into a fact.

Jisung loves to travel. When they were both younger, Jisung would visit Malaysia every summer for two weeks, bringing back souvenirs and snacks to share. Minho would listen to Jisung animatedly retell stories of almost getting devoured by a crocodile or of trying foods that they couldn’t find back home.

And by now, they had been all over South Korea, taking most of the trips during their college years and applying to study and exchange programs in the same cities during breaks. Those were the days of gathering up spare change just to spend a weekend in the town over. But the ultimate goal had always been New York City, because Jisung’s favorite show as a teenager was set there. Minho agreed without any consideration. After that, it had been years of planning, saving up, and on Jisung’s end, numerous magazine collages and vision boards.

We were finally able to make this dream come true. That’s what Jisung had said right before he fell asleep. It seemed like such a faraway dream when they had been in high school, and it still felt like one even just a year ago. And even as Minho breathes in air from the city he’s been chasing after with Jisung for almost a decade now, he’s slightly shaken with how unreal it all is.

As the old saying goes: If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too? Minho thinks briefly about that, but does not doubt any more.

He really would go to the edge of the world—or anywhere, really—as long as it was with Jisung.

…

Their one day of waking up early does not carry over into the next day.

Jisung’s alarms go off in succession. The first one is at 8 a.m. like before, a loud rendition of Knock Knock vibrating through the room. The second alarm is at 8:30, when Likey blows through the speakers at full volume. At 9:00, the chorus of Yes or Yes plays at what Minho believes to be the loudest possible setting.

Lastly at 9:30, there is no Twice song. Instead, the default alarm tone starts blaring and Minho wants to drive his fist into the wall, and maybe into the unwitting owner of the phone too.

“Jisung, for fuck’s sake,” Minho groans into his pillow. “Turn that off.”

Jisung mumbles back an apology and then something else that Minho can’t quite understand. Minho’s brain is too fogged up to comprehend anything, and he falls back into a deep slumber.

When he actually wakes up, it’s to the sunrays streaming in through the window and into his eyes. He attempts to block it out with a blanket, and then his pillow. He gives up, blinking open his eyes in a daze. The first thing he sees is Jisung, already dressed and sitting in the loveseat while wearing an oversized button up and joggers. At first, he mistakes this for being a dream because Jisung is actually awake before Minho even has the chance to brush his teeth. Maybe he’s losing his charm; the all-nighters he had been pulling at the office before this trip were catching up to him. Or maybe, he greatly underestimated Jisung’s ability to not stay in bed all day. There was probably something in the vacation water.

When he blinks, Jisung comes into his line of focus. His hair is still damp—presumably from the shower—and strands of soft hair are falling in front of his eyes. It might be one of Minho’s favorite sides of Jisung to see, as odd as it may sound. Perhaps it just feels safe and domestic, and he smiles to himself slightly.

“You’re awake.”

“Nice observation,” Jisung scoffs. “You’re not.”

“Be quiet. I deserve to sleep.” He yawns as he looks up at the ceiling.

“And that you do, but you can sleep at home.”

“Oh, shut up.” He rubs his eyes, taking his time before peeling off the covers. “What are we doing today?”

“I wanted to go to the Empire State Building,” Jisung glances up at him. “How do you feel about that?”

“Isn’t that a bad idea?” He raises an eyebrow as he takes in the words. He has always had a troubling fear of heights. It’s something that he’s never been able to completely grow out of. He can handle, perhaps even enjoy, things like roller coasters and amusement park drop towers. That’s not the case when it comes to tall buildings, however backwards that may be, with nothing but a flimsy metal railing between him and the edge. Jisung was the same way, clutching onto his dear life whenever he was lifted above ground.

“Why would that be a bad idea?”

“Because, heights?” He provides. Jisung stares at him blankly before bursting into a hearty laugh heartily, clutching at his stomach while his gasps fill the room.

“Why are you laughing?” Minho frowns. Jisung has always known that he could barely stand on anything thirty feet above ground. “What’s so funny?”

“I’m sorry,” Jisung says, wiping away at the tears. “It’s just,” he snickers again before composing himself for a second time. “I meant like, go to the building. We don't have to go inside at all.”

“Oh.” He’s dumbfounded.

“I did look though. If you want to go onto the observation deck, it’s not out in the open. There’s glass panes surrounding the floor,” Jisung declares, leaping over to his bed and showing him a picture that he’s saved onto his phone. “See, you’ll be safe.”

“Oh.” He says again. Of course Jisung made sure that it was somewhere that would make Minho feel a little more secure.

“So,” Jisung looks up at him with sparkling eyes. “What do you think?”

No, Minho wants to say. He would rather swim with sharks than get on top of that building. He knows that this is Jisung’s way of buttering him up, to get him to do something he normally wouldn’t even ponder. But the truth is that he’s utterly powerless to all prospects when it comes to Jisung.

“Well…” He looks to Jisung on the side of him, whose eyes are twinkling in anticipation, and tries not to let his nerves show. “Aren’t you supposed to be afraid of heights?”

“You exchange the fear for experience,” he says. Then there’s more laughter, Jisung’s shoulders shaking up and down before returning his attention to Minho. “Or at least, I think that’s how it works.”

“That’s definitely not how it works,” he ruffles Jisung’s hair, causing him to frown. “But okay,” he answers after a moment’s contemplation. “If I die, it’s on you.”

…

Before making their way to the Empire State Building, they make a pit stop at a diner for lunch. For the height of lunch hour, there is a surprising lack of people inside, except the several regulars filtering in and out, but he’s not complaining. He and Jisung would both rather not deal with an influx of people if they don't have to. Sitting in a booth closest to the window, they idly wait for their orders. There’s not much deviation from the usual street hubbub, just the usual passersby, cars, and taxis.

“These decorations are certainly...” Minho spins around the American Flag in the vase in front of him between his thumb and forefinger after the waitress leaves with their orders. There are glittery red and blue streamers pouring out from the sides. “They’re certainly patriotic.”

“It’s July 4th, hyung. American Independence Day,” Jisung chooses that moment to shoot Minho an easygoing smile. “It’s supposed to be patriotic.”

“Hmm,” Minho replies, gingerly setting the centerpiece back in the middle of the table. “Good for them.”

“Good for them,” Jisung echoes. Then, he stares off into space for a moment before looking right at Minho and— “Do you wanna watch the fireworks tonight?”

He shifts on his side of the booth and adds, “They’ll be pretty.”

Minho likes fireworks. Even if he hasn’t purposely been to a fireworks show since he was in middle school, he would not be opposed at all to seeing one now.

“Or not, I guess,” Jisung’s voice cuts through his thoughts. “It’s okay if you... don’t want to. We could always do something else?”

“No, let’s go,” Minho says, taking a sip of his water. “It sounds fun.”

The smile he gets in response is so blinding that Minho has to physically avert his eyes.

Eventually the food comes, and Jisung grins at the waitress as a thanks. The waitress flushes a bright pink, stuttering something before leaving to wait at another table. Jisung doesn’t seem to take note of it, but Minho notices. Jisung always has had the capability to make anyone like him at the drop of a hat. He’s cheerful and a self-proclaimed “moodmaker.” Even when Jisung had pissed off someone or something, it was hard for anyone to be resentful for too long.

“Hyung, here.” Jisung holds out some food with his hand. Minho can’t say anything before he’s met with a mouthful of potato chips. Once he’s done chewing, Jisung offers him another bite that he can’t refuse.

“That waitress likes you,” Minho finally says once Jisung is done with shoving food into his mouth. And it doesn't even come as a shock to Minho that someone could fall half in love with Jisung in a place like this, a poorly lit and run-down diner that smells like oil grease, potato wedges and dill pickles.

“No she doesn’t,” Jisung stammers, almost losing his grip on his sandwich. “If anything, she was looking at you. You’re handsome, hyung, don’t sell yourself short!”

Minho takes a chip and shoves it into Jisung’s mouth, preventing him from saying anything else. Then he drops his head back down, clumsily spreading the potato chips into his sandwich before he looks back up. He’s fast enough to catch the look in Jisung’s eyes, but it quickly morphs into something like exasperation.

“Why can’t you ever be serious? I’m trying to give you a compliment!” Jisung pouts.

“I am being serious,” Minho says, but he can’t help the grin that’s steadily spreading across his face. He finds himself still locking eyes with Jisung, who mirrors Minho’s smile with a familiar one of his own.

“But see, I mean like that, hyung,” Jisung beams. “I love your smile.”

…

Perhaps he’s made a mistake by letting Jisung sweet talk his way into Minho riding up to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building.

And by mistake, he means a horrible, terrible, awful blunder that the knots in his stomach are doing a great job reminding him of.

He wipes his clammy palms on his pants, which accomplishes next to nothing, and curses under his breath. They’re still only on the elevator. Jisung is rubbing his back and holding his moist hands while Minho’s teeth chatter. It doesn’t have any effect calming down the unpleasant roiling in the pit of his stomach, but Jisung’s presence calms enough of his nerves so at least he maintains consciousness.

“We can leave,” Jisung volunteers once the elevator stops on the 83nd floor. There’s a wrinkle between Jisung’s brows that Minho wishes would go away, but he can hardly worry about Jisung’s concealed disappointment over the uncontrollable shaking of his hands. “If you’re not comfortable, let’s just go back down.”

“No,” he murmurs into the shell of Jisung’s ear, lips quivering. “You paid so much money for us to go. I’ll... be fine.”

“It doesn’t matter how much I paid,” Jisung retorts. Jisung’s obvious concern for him causes guilt to join the fear churning in his stomach. He should not have to pass up adventures just because Minho is too afraid for them. “You know that your comfort comes first.”

“I’m serious,” he grumbles, quelling the urge to vomit. “I told you it’ll be fine. I’m a grown adult.” And I don’t want to hold you back.

Once the elevator dings, announcing their arrival on their designated floor, Jisung wraps his arms around his shoulders, guiding him off slowly, one foot at a time, which is slightly awkward since he’s a smidge taller than Jisung. Taking several deep breaths, he leans against a pillar and feels his chest expand and contract, before nudging out of Jisung’s hold.

He’s an imposter as he tiptoes towards the edge of the room—a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a twist on the classic trope. The observation deck reminds him of something straight out of a dystopian novel: clean, empty, and modern. He still can register the slight jitteriness seizing his body and freezing his hands, but steps forward and forces his hands to rest against one of the window frames. Icy to the touch, it grounds him slightly. Then he settles, relaxing his shoulders, and he’s not as much on edge as he was before.

Jisung arrives next to him shortly thereafter, peering out the windows with glee. He pushes down on the glass, the realization that he shouldn’t have done that instantly dawning upon him. Frantically, he rubs his sleeve back and forth on the window, only succeeding in smudging it. Amused, Minho takes Jisung’s hand before he can exacerbate the blotches on the glass.

“Do you feel okay?”

Minho bites his lip, the pressure clearing his head. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Both of his feet are firmly planted on the floor while Jisung’s hand is in his, swinging their arms slightly back and forth. He takes a deep breath, the sinking feeling dissipating from the pit of his stomach.

He looks out at the view, akin to a Seoul diorama he saw in a museum on a field trip once. The model had been around twice the size of his dinner table. Built with miniature legos, it depicted every building he’s ever seen in the city, plus the ones he’d missed. How striking it is to feel like he could merely slip his hand through the glass and rearrange the buildings however he wanted, or move the cars to a different street and send them driving off into the distance.

“Have you ever seen one of those miniature Lego replicas of Seoul?” he asks Jisung, because if he asks a question, it takes his mind off of the fact that they are still very high off the ground. He squeezes Jisung’s hand, his stomach doing a slight flip while doing so.

But he’s not as jittery as he thought he would be, now that he’s actually able to take in the sight. Maybe owing it to overexposure, they’ve been here for longer than he would typically last, especially on a surface this high… not because he likes the way Jisung’s fingers slot into his, tying him back onto the earth without any fear.

“Yeah, we all went on the museum tour in middle school,” Jisung returns. “It looks just like that, right?”

“Yep,” he says thoughtfully. It truly does. He takes another look at the city: the buildings are in a variety of beige tones; while Seoul undoubtedly has some key differences from New York, the energy is all too similar. The city that never sleeps is starting to feel like his second home.

And that’s strange, because he certainly shouldn’t feel at home in a place he’s been in for less than a week. But he eyes the buildings, all in different shades and hues, watches as people scurry down the crosswalk, and he feels so achingly alive. It’s a profound sense of being that he’s unsure of how to put into words. When he looks to the side, he meets Jisung’s eyes that have a familiar mirth glimmering in them. With Jisung pressed next to his side, he closes his eyes, the afterimage of the skyline printed in the darkness behind his eyelids. He feels at home, though he would feel at home even if the city silhouette was entirely different. Even if Seoul and New York City had nothing in common, he would still feel at home. This he knows with a startling certainty.

The reason why he truly feels at home squeezes his hand once, like the jump of a heartbeat.

…

As dusk approaches, they take a taxi to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to see the fireworks. Jisung hands him an Airpod and queues up his lofi music. It’s tranquil and repetitive (but in a good way), and nearly cancels out how busy the streets always are. There’s barely any time to wind down, but then Jisung’s leaning against him and he forgets the direction his train of thought was even going.

Fourteen minutes in the taxi tick by as Minho alternates between sneaking glances at Jisung and the street view out the window, colors blurring into a washed out rainbow. As they close the cab doors and exit, a throng of people is already starting to form. They stay behind the herd clustered at the riverside, and nobody spares them a second glance. In their own bubble, they are secluded from the rest of the world where their footsteps lie.

“When do they start?” Minho asks. The breeze whips their hair in all directions and the cold evening air brushes past him. He huddles closer to Jisung for body heat while reprimanding himself for not bringing a jacket. Even though it is unpredictably chilly for the middle of summer, he nonetheless has his regrets.

“Should be about now,” Jisung mutters, tapping away at his phone. He slips it into his pocket and looks up at the blank sky lying in wait. Then, as per usual, Jisung slips his hand with Minho’s—interlocking their fingers gradually—and rests his head against his shoulder, Jisung’s hair ticklish and warm against his neck.

Minho looks down, but Jisung isn’t even glancing up at him. But before he can say anything, the pitch black canvas of the sky is illuminated rapidly, a burst of red and orange slicing through the night. The fireworks explode, one by one at first, and then crowd the frame rapidly—crimson, white, then royal blue. Minho watches in awe as the colors fade out, replaced by a surge of glittering gold and sparkling green. As the fireworks streak down the sky, afterglow tailing them, he briefly closes his eyes in respite, echoes of the brilliant pinpoints of light still flashing. He opens them again, drinking in the painting across the heavens, because it’s one thing to see pictures of fireworks plastered on the internet, but it’s another thing to see a real fireworks show because—

It’s stunning.

The crowd begins to ooh and ahh at every new burst of color, as more and more shades rain down in the sky, and Minho suddenly understands why Jisung was so adamant that they watch it. He’s transfixed at the sight, at how many different shapes and hues there are, at how the river casts back the light, at the hush that befalls the entire crowd, all of them united in awe at the breathtaking display before them. He turns again to look at Jisung, with the whole display of rainbow flames blazing in the reflection of his irises and it’s beautiful.

How beautiful it is, for people to crave so desperately the warmth and thrill of light, that they would seek to recreate it in all the colors nature has to offer and more, then to share it with their friends in the hopes of spreading joy to everyone. How beautiful it is, that people are so devastatingly unoriginal that they all share the same sentiment in the striking beauty of hundreds and thousands of lights brightening up the dark of night—

He doesn’t think he’ll ever see anything more beautiful than this.

And Jisung curves his lips into a smile, pushing his cheekbones to the sky with a smile so dazzlingly illuminated—so stunningly big and radiant and heart-shaped—and looks up at him with fresh, round eyes. Minho is helplessly captivated, storing the image inside of his mind for future reference.

Jisung pinches Minho’s wrist in that moment, causing him to flinch back from the pain. He winces, massaging the area before frowning daggers at Jisung, who looks mischievously delighted.

“Sorry, hyung,” Jisung says, his eyes folding into gentle crescents, “you were staring.”

...

When Minho opens his eyes on their last morning in New York, the sky is dreary and gray. Jisung’s bed is strangely empty and there is a glaring lack of bubbly pop music serving as an alarm. There aren’t any footsteps coming from the bathroom, so he digs around the blankets for his phone. His screen shows several notifications, unopened messages from Jisung sent ten minutes ago, saying that he was going to get breakfast for them at the coffee shop down the street.

He lets out a breath and shoves the comforter off his body. His phone lights up right when he gets out of bed, the screen displaying Jisung’s contact photo. He reaches across the mattress where he had left it and hits the accept call button.

He can make out some indistinct chattering in the background. “Hyung, please come get me,” Jisung says, unnervingly calm.

That immediately spikes Minho’s heart rate. “Where are you? What happened?”

“I...” Jisung starts. The pause stretching into a long silence does nothing to slow Minho’s rapid heartbeat. “I’ll explain more later, but I’m at the café right down the street. We pass by it every day, the one with the coffee cup logo. And,” Jisung chuckles nervously, “I can’t walk, so... please hurry.”

Minho doesn’t think twice before swiping the room key off of the table, slipping his shoes on haphazardly and running out the front door. The elevators suddenly are too slow, so he opts to take the stairs, slamming the doors open and racing down like a madman. Once he’s out of the hotel’s entrance, he sprints towards the intersection and down the crosswalk, nearly knocking into people at every step.

He arrives at the coffee shop in a record time of six minutes, breathless and huffing for oxygen. Jisung is sitting on the other side of the window, scrolling through his phone as if it was just another ordinary day. Like he didn't practically give Minho a heart attack. Like he didn’t just call Minho to tell him he couldn’t walk.

Minho inhales and exhales, feeling like a bull facing down a matador, before stepping inside and making a beeline towards Jisung.

“What the hell, Han Jisung,” he barks at the younger. “You can’t just say something like that!”

Jisung uses the table adjacent to him as leverage, pressing up onto his left foot while his right foot is kept suspended in the air. Minho shuffles closer, taking Jisung’s left arm and wrapping it around his neck so that he’s stable and able to stand up.

“I think I twisted my ankle,” Jisung grins sheepishly. “I tripped on something and I tried walking back, but it just hurts... a lot.”

Minho sighs and motions for Jisung to get on his back. The boy jumps on, only using one foot as the boost, and Minho has to shift him around so that Jisung’s anchored there—no chance he’ll fall this time.

Grunting with effort, Minho takes a begrudging step forward, nearly falling forward with the added deadweight. Jisung barely makes a noise, only holding on tighter. True to the stereotype, the native New Yorkers don’t stare, nor do they help hold open the door for him and his baggage. Kicking the door open with one foot, Minho eases out of the coffeeshop backwards before exiting back out onto the street. He is by no means a champion weightlifter, but the adrenaline in him allows him to staunchly make it, without tripping, back to the hotel.

The lack of automatic doors at the hotel make Minho have a brief image of unleashing hell on the management, before he regains his focus and once again boots it open with his left foot, no easy feat thanks to the heavy weight of the gilded door. Finally making it indoors, he takes a breather as the cold sweat rolls down the sides of his face.

“Are you okay?”

Jisung nods imperceptibly, a small noise of affirmation along with it, so Minho pushes through the final leg of this excruciating journey and carries Jisung all the way back to their room, this time thankful for the slowness of the elevator so he can catch his breath again. Facing a heavy door for the third time now, Minho once again envisions screaming at supersonic levels at whoever designed the buildings in this godforsaken city before punting it open with the last of his strength, and at long last, they’ve made it to room plate safe and intact. Then, he gently places Jisung on his bed. He notices that Jisung is wearing sneakers today instead of his usual platform boots—just his luck.

Jisung stirs, and reaches down to untie the laces and toes off his shoes, showing his injured ankle in all its glory. It’s only slightly swollen, and if there was any bruising, it wouldn’t have set in this early. Minho swipes a towel from the bathroom and wipes off the embarrassing amount of sweat off his face, before snatching a couple pillows from his bed and stacking them on top of one another to make a makeshift platform for Jisung to rest his ankle on. He takes out his phone, using the translation app to make a call to the front desk for an ice pack, before flopping down next to Jisung on the bed, finally able to rest.

“I twisted my ankle and I didn’t even get breakfast after all of that,” Jisung jokes. “Life despises me.”

“You just twisted it. It’s okay,” he says as encouragement. He’s experienced a million and one ankle twists and sprains throughout his lifetime—because of his time in dance during college and from just being a clumsy individual on occasion—so he knows that it’s not a big deal, because he will definitely heal fast. In fact, Jisung will probably be close to healed by tomorrow.

But something in him rears its ugly head and screams regardless. About how he should’ve woken up earlier, about how he should have retrieved breakfast for them instead. How he should’ve accompanied Jisung instead of letting him go alone. He blames himself, because maybe this wouldn’t have happened if just one slightly different decision had altered the future. Then maybe something as insignificant as a twisted ankle wouldn’t be dampening their last day in New York.

“But I ruined the trip,” Jisung whines. “It’s our last day here.”

His voice sounds so remorseful to Minho. He doesn’t even know how he can get it through to Jisung that it’s not his fault.

“I don’t mind. Do you still want breakfast?” Minho asks Jisung, who’s currently nuzzled in his side, half-hoping he’ll say no, because suddenly all Minho wants to do is take a very long nap

“Please, Min, thank you,” he responds, and his eyelids flutter shut.

He should’ve expected that. Minho pulls the fluffy comforter over Jisung’s waist and caresses his cheekbone slightly. Without thinking too deeply, he presses his lips on Jisung’s forehead before hauling himself off of the mattress.

“You’re kind, Min,” Jisung says, sounding exhausted and delirious. “You really are.”

It’s the last thing Minho hears before slipping out into the hallway.

…

The first thing Minho does when he’s out of earshot is call the most responsible person he knows. He isn’t even aware of what time it is back in Seoul, but he’s itching to talk to someone before he spontaneously combusts.

The phone rings once, twice, thrice; when he’s almost positive that he’s about to be sent to voicemail, a groggy voice greets him from his speaker.

“Hyung,” Changbin whines, the sheets are ruffling behind him, “it’s past midnight here.”

“When did you ever go to sleep at a reasonable time?” Minho quips, walking down the same street he had just hauled Jisung down.

“Fair point,” Changbin acquiesces. “But what’s up? How’s New York with Jisung?”

To be fair, he doesn’t even know the answer to that question. So that’s exactly what he says.

“I don’t know.” He runs a hand through his hair, his fingers a makeshift comb. His hair is tangled and knotty, but it doesn't even bother him, not now.

“Why? Trouble in para—”

“I don’t know what to do,” he blurts, voice coming out frantic, cracking and fraying at the seams. He doesn’t like to be vulnerable, especially not in public, but there's no way to control the tears forming in his eyes.

He has to admit that the vacation has been going great so far. Everything was blissful—it was his and Jisung’s escape from the real world—but Jisung’s ankle injury broke that illusion.

He crosses yet another intersection. He’s lost count of how many it’s been and can only hope that he’ll be able to eventually make it back to the hotel.

“Woah, woah,” Changbin says. “Let me go to another room. Seungmin’s sleeping right now.”

“You and your perfect little marriage,” Minho sighs. “How about you have some sympathy for the rest of us?”

“Don’t be like that, Minho.” His light tone sounds borderline threatening. “You wanna talk about what’s going on?”

“Jisung twisted his ankle, and I don’t know what to do.” It’s the simplest explanation he has to offer, that one sentence encapsulating everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours.

“Well, did you try the RICE method? You know, Rest, Ice, Compression, Eleva—”

“Yes, I know what RICE fucking stands for,” he snaps at Changbin, and he knows the attitude he’s giving him is unjustified, but he can’t stop himself.

“Okay.” A beat. Minho can tell he is trying not to say outright, “Why are you being such a bitch?” Instead, Changbin says, “Then what do you want me to say?”

Minho feels the soreness in his muscles from earlier beginning to settle in. “I’m just stressed out, sorry.”

Changbin clicks his tongue. Minho’s sure that if he was there to see Changbin, he would be shaking his head at him too.

“You know what you have to do, hyung. And you're gonna be fine. Jisung’s ankle will be fine, so stop stressing yourself out like this. It’s not healthy,” Changbin’s voice is authoritative, but he pauses to giggle before carrying on. “He can take care of himself too, he’s a big boy. An adult. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“So just enjoy the rest of the trip, and make me jealous about it when you come back,” Changbin continues. “I better see some good pictures.”

…

He returns to their room thirty minutes later, with two bagels and two iced coffees. It’s a suspiciously long period of time to end up with food so mundane, but Jisung probably won’t ask any questions.

“Hey,” Jisung looks up from his notebook when he sees Minho enter. “What’d you get?”

“Bagels.” He holds up the paper bag. “And coffee.”

“Yum.” Jisung opens his mouth with glee. Minho tears off a piece of the bagel and hand feeds it to Jisung, who grins in delight. “Thanks, hyung. Love you.”

Minho chokes on his spit and runs over to retrieve the coffees. He takes a generous sip, the liquid pushing down the lump in his throat. On the other side of him, Jisung’s notebook is sitting face up, with scribbles and doodles drawn all over it. The ink on the pages still looks wet, the black lines glistening over ruled paper.

“What’re you writing?” He inquires. Jisung glances down at the notebook and lifts it to cover his face.

“Got hit with some inspiration,” he says behind the cover. “Wanna hear?”

“Of course I do.” He adjusts his position so that he’s sitting in the center of the bed with his legs crossed, careful not to disturb Jisung’s ankle.

“Okay, you might want to sit down for this one,” Jisung warns him. Minho points towards his lap, indicating that he’s clearly in compliance with Jisung’s ground rules.

“I might sweep you off your feet with this. It’s my best yet, titled ‘Empire State of Mind.’”

“I didn’t know I was friends with Alicia Keys,” he teases. Pokes at the side of Jisung’s calf just because he can.

“Well you learn something new everyday.” Jisung turns back to his notebook. “Okay, it goes like this. New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do. Now you're in New Yo—”

Minho shoves another piece of bagel—everything flavored with cream cheese—into Jisung’s gaping mouth. Jisung side eyes Minho before savoring the food. Minho offers another piece, but Jisung declines, pushing away his hand. He slaps the notebook shut and lies down flat on his back.

“What were you actually writing?” Minho asks once he polishes off the remainder of his food.

“It’s still something in the works, but you’ll be the first one to see it,” Jisung throws a sleazy wink worthy of a playboy in his direction.

“Well, I can’t wait.”

The ice in the coffee has melted by now.

They’re quiet, but it’s not the type of silence that Minho enjoys. There’s still something left unsaid between them, and the tenseness of the air only increases as a result. He waits and waits for his brain to provide something to say, but the possible words scramble and get tangled on the tip of his tongue. The cool tones from the city fusing with the warm light from the lamps make everything more somber than it actually is.

Jisung is the one who breaks the silence first. “I’m sorry, hyung. I didn’t want to spend our last day like this. I ruined this, didn’t I?” It’s spoken more like a fact than a question.

Minho sighs and brushes Jisung’s bangs out of his face. He’s wearing an expression of pure guilt, and it causes Minho’s heart to painfully twist.

“I told you already that it's okay.” If he said it enough, he could definitely convince himself.

He continues to run his fingers through Jisung’s hair, black and miraculously silky even after consecutive dye jobs. “You wanted to live like a true New Yorker, so what better way to do that than to do nothing?”

Jisung slaps him on the knee. He appears to be in a lighter mood now, but there’s still a hint of melancholy left on his face.

“I’m not lying to you, Jisung,” Minho ventures. “I would never lie about something like this. It’s not your fault, and I seriously don’t care that we can’t go out today, because we still have half of our vacation left.” He pinches the apples of Jisung’s cheeks. “So don’t be so sad, okay? There’s still a lot to do.” He tries to sound as earnest as he can.

He returns to carding his fingers through Jisung’s hair mindlessly. Jisung’s more at ease, if the smile was any indication of it, and after some time, Minho crawls into the covers next to Jisung, letting the younger burrow next him like he always does.

☼

New York is an imposing grid of tall buildings and flashing lights upon nightfall, but Los Angeles is comforting. It’s warm, it’s sunny, and it’s more inviting than the east coast’s concrete jungle.

If New York had always been Jisung’s dream destination, then Los Angeles was Minho’s. He’s always wanted to live in a sandy subtropical place by the ocean. Living in the boundary where the shore meets the sea roots him to the world—the boundlessness of the water beyond eye’s view stretching miles and miles, touching upon the swathe of beach that is a doormat to the mainland. This trip is his chance to really marvel at what he’s always wanted to enjoy.

He accomplishes some impressive shut-eye on the plane because he’s burnt out after Jisung’s movie marathon all-nighter. He wakes up in a haze when the cabin lights flicker on, and is fully jolted awake as the wheels hit the runway. Sitting next to him is Jisung, with his eyes barely open and headphones pulled over his ears as he watches some cooking show. He doesn’t look like he’s in any pain, which means that the healing is coming along nicely. The plane taxis into their gate, and Minho decides he will be positive about the rest of their vacation.

The house that Minho’s rented for the remainder of the week is owned by a Korean-American student who was away because of an exchange program for the rest of the summer, and they had been very open minded on pricing, even inclined to allow any willing tenant to haggle their way with a fair price. When the uber passes through the neighboring city, Santa Monica, and arrives at the house, they see the small size but sleek design typical of the area. Inside, with its contemporary designs, white tiles, and glass cabinets, and most importantly, its crucial location right next to the shore, Minho feels like he shouldn’t even be stepping a foot inside lest he break something. If this house were in Seoul, he knows neither he nor Jisung could afford it, not even if they pooled all their savings together. Thankfully they had managed to barter their way into a good deal for their time here, and Jisung is already transfixed by the decor.

“Woah, hyung,” Jisung marvels. “How did you find this place?” He hops to the nearest window, pressing his fingertips to the glass and gasping at the view. There’s the sand Minho loves so much, a soft shade of tan. Then, he understands why Jisung is so mesmerized: the water, its aquamarine engulfing the entire horizon. running on for miles. The sun is hitting the water at an angle where the waves dance, iridescent and glimmering under the light.

“Never underestimate the power of Lee Minho,” he simply shrugs, throwing his jacket over his shoulder.

…

There are times where he does wonder if Jisung is really just a friend.

Of course, Jisung has been his best friend for more than half his life. He can’t even remember a time when the younger boy wasn’t attached with him at the hip.

When Minho had met him for the first time, he had been shell shocked at how easy it was to get along with Jisung. It was like the last two puzzle pieces in a grand one-thousand puzzle set had finally found each other, as cliché as it was. Minho has never believed in any variation of the idea of soulmates, but he does believe that if there existed a red string of fate, it would lead him to Jisung every single time.

There’s a reason why Jisung is the only friend he’s had for as long as a decade and a half. The rest of his friends from that time of his life have become all but strangers. But Jisung is still here, even after all that time, and Minho doubts there has ever been a dull moment between them.

Changbin accuses him of playing favorites with his friends. How Minho would never let him get away with the things that Jisung does, how he would move mountains for Jisung if it was necessary, how he treats Jisung much like how Changbin treats Seungmin, his husband of two years.

(He chooses to ignore the implications of what Changbin said, especially the last one.

Because who was he to say anything? Isn’t it normal for best friends to make each other happy?)

But Jisung is special to him, in whatever manner that may be.

But he does wonder if Jisung is only a friend, or if there's something else there he’s not privy to.

They don’t actually get to experience the beach firsthand until the sunset, but Minho is perfectly content with that. Jisung grabs one towel and forces them to change into shorts before heading out. Jisung’s overzealousness about the beach gives him warmth; it makes the trip worth every minute of overtime he had put in to be able to save up for it.

They don’t believe in wearing shoes, knowing that if they did, the grains of sand would forever haunt them, even back in Seoul, so they trek out onto the beach in their bare feet. Jisung lays the towel down on the ground, smoothing out the edges until they lie completely flat. Minho tries to squash himself onto the towel next to Jisung, but both of them have half their body directly on the sand. His pants are surely ruined, but he brushes off the fleeting complaint.

Pink and indigo streaks cut through the sky, blending into a fervent orange. It begins to fade, leaving a dark blue twilight, until they are fully blanketed in darkness, with only the pinpricks of light winking from the lamp posts and hotels keeping them from sitting in a complete blackout. The world is quiet underneath their toes, and Minho sprawls out on his stomach, arms spanning out, and hugs the ground as he feels the world go round.

Jisung is leaning with his arms behind him, supporting his entire weight. Leaning forward, he then brings his knee up to his chin, hugging it with both arms. The sea breeze ripples through their hair, wildly ruffled in a scruffy tangle, but Minho doesn’t even reach to comb through it like he normally would.

“How’s your ankle?” Minho asks. Jisung had been able to hobble through the airport at a snail’s pace this morning, often leaning on Minho for support, but they haven’t moved around much since.

“It’s fine,” Jisung says, carefully flexing his ankle, rotating his foot to the left, then to the right, before wincing minutely. “A little sore, but I’m not in excruciating pain or anything.” Knowing Jisung and his low physical pain tolerance, the impending doom clamping down in Minho’s chest releases.

Jisung laughs then, warm and full of life, and shakes his head. He pulls himself into a crisscrossed position, dropping his hands into his lap, and fixes Minho with a gaze that makes chills creep down his spine. When Jisung looks at him like he’s the only person in the world, it never stays for long.

Jisung averts his gaze before Minho could even process the motion.

“Maybe I’ll write a song about this,” Jisung muses, rolling the hem of his shirt with his right hand. His left hand rests on the sand, drawing nonsensical patterns in the grains “I like it here.”

“Give me a cameo in your song,” Minho suggests, tilting his head. His statement elicits an airy giggle from Jisung.

“Maybe I’ll write our wedding vows about this place.”

“Yeah?” Minho starts, feeling flushed and faint, simply because Jisung is Jisung. He looks up, expecting to meet Jisung’s gaze, but the younger is turned away from him, looking far beyond into the ocean. “When we’re—”

“When we’re forty and still single, I know,” Jisung finishes for him. It’s an ongoing joke they’ve had since they were in college. That if they were still single by the time they were forty, they would marry each other, rent a spacious apartment in the nicer parts of the city, and adopt three cats. “I’ll write about how I almost broke my ankle as a metaphor for something. Maybe something like, I was in New York and I fell for you. Sounds romantic, right?” Jisung clutches his heart and falls back dramatically before rolling back upright.

“I’m only marrying you so we can file our taxes together,” he retorts.

“Of course,” Jisung replies. “Gotta save money for retirement.”

Minho scoffs. “When I’m with you, I feel so old.”

“We are old. I’ve had my quarter life crisis already,” Jisung smirks, leaning in closer to him. Minho looks at the boy who's peering down at him. “And you’re almost thirty, hyung. But it’s not about the number. It’s about how you feel. And I still feel like I’m eighteen.”

He is unable to hold back his snort. “You act like it, too.”

“Are you calling me immature?”

“Hey, those were your words, not mine.”

Jisung narrows his eyes in disdain.

“I remember you had blue hair when you were eighteen,” Minho recalls, brushing the sand off his elbows and sitting upright again. Jisung had dyed it an electric blue on a whim. That was the first time he had altered his hair color, and Minho still remembers the box dye splattered all around his newly-cleaned bathroom counter. Jisung’s hands had been stained blue for two weeks afterwards because of an unfortunate oversight regarding gloves (of which there were none), and planning. “I kind of miss the crazy colors.” He thumbs a strand of Jisung’s dark hair between his fingers.

“I do too, sometimes,” Jisung agrees, now peering up at Minho. “But then, I remember how much of a pain in the ass it all was, and I don’t miss it anymore. Like maintaining the roots. Having to buy expensive color-safe stuff. Switching out all my white pillowcases for black ones.”

“Oh, please, as if you didn’t still try to get away with using three-in-one hair products.”

“Shut up,” Jisung retorts, but his cheeks are dimpled and his eyes are crinkled.

“Which color was your favorite, then?” Minho prods.

Jisung hums in thought, pursing his lips together. “I liked the silver. And the blonde. The blonde was nice.”

Minho nods in agreeance. The blonde had been quite nice. It enveloped Jisung’s face like a halo, his aura nothing but angelic.

“But hyung, remember when you dyed your hair?”

He does remember. Jisung had pressured him for weeks, and when summer break came around in his third year of college, he had given in, letting Jisung to drench his hair in bleach and dye. The end result was a burnt orange color that complemented his skin tone quite nicely, but after it grew out, he never dyed it again.

“You made me look like a traffic cone,” he squints at Jisung ruefully. “I couldn’t leave my house for weeks.”

Jisung pouts. “But I made you look so pretty, hyung.” And then Jisung says something under his breath, in such a low voice that Minho almost misses it. Almost. But he doesn’t. “You’re always pretty, though.”

Minho’s breath hitches and he’s glancing back at Jisung, wondering if he misheard. No, he couldn’t have, though he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t want to hear it from the younger again. His eyes flicker to the Jisung’s lips, glossy and full under the night sky, and he’s leaning in from the force of sheer magnetism and—

Jisung pulls away first, standing up and brushing away the granules of sand that had stuck to the surface of his clothes. Minho blinks, pulling himself off of the towel and watches as Jisung folds it into a neat square.

“I’m tired, Minho,” is all he says. “Let’s go back.”

It’s times like these where Minho has to ask the age-old question once again—if he’s really just friends with Jisung. If they really are just friends, then why do they have this constant push and pull, like the lonely moon at night tugging on the waves lapping so many light years away. Why does Jisung have to keep his head resting on Minho’s shoulder whenever possible? Why does Jisung have to give him the widest smile that rivals the sun? Why does Minho have a constant pang in his heart, so great that he’s adjusted to it being normal for years?

He’s content with being friends. Truly, he is. Nobody in the universe could match with him as well as Jisung does. He’s hit the jackpot with this friendship, and he knows it. Knows full and well that he’ll never be unhappy as long as Jisung is in his life.

But as he lags behind Jisung, as he always is, as he always has been, his feet trudging through the lumpy sand on the way back to their rooms, he finds himself asking something new.

Whether or not these things really meant anything at all.

…

Sleep evades him.

He spends most of the night tossing and turning under the covers, the duvet hot and itchy on his skin. The ceiling fan is turned up to the highest possible setting, but instead of cooling him down like he wanted it to, it blows back hot air, mocking him in his suffering.

It's infuriating. He makes an effort to come up with any imaginary scenario to fall asleep to, then has a shot at counting sheep. He loses count by the seventh sheep.

Every. Single. Time.

He makes a forthright attempt to fall asleep before flipping over to grab his phone as a last ditch resort. It ricochets off the mattress and lands on the hardwood floor. The smack of the phone against the ground doesn't sound promising for the state of the screen, which elicits a groan from Minho. He doesn't stand up to retrieve the device, opting to keep his body taut on the bed while stretching his arms and torso a strenuous amount to pick up the phone.

The screen brightens when he clicks the power button, blue light assaulting his eyes. There aren’t any new notifications; nobody in their right mind would stay up until three in the morning on a Thursday. He slams the phone down onto his chest and stares up at the fuzzy ceiling.

He does the only thing he can think of.

Stepping onto the wooden floor, frigid when it hits the balls of his feet, the floorboards creak wretchedly upon each step he takes. The door to his room doesn’t fare much better, and he winces at the squeaking sound the knob makes as he turns it. Then, he pads next door to the bedroom where Jisung is sleeping. Or not sleeping, because it’s Jisung.

He’s silent when he opens the door and enters. It has the same layout as Minho’s room—cream colored walls, queen sized bed, floor to ceiling windows—looking all very put together. But the thing he focuses on is the warm light coming from the bedside lamp, illuminating Jisung as he furiously scrawls words into a moleskin journal. He’s draped in ivory colored sheets. Heavenly.

Minho is a mere moth drawn to a celestial light.

Jisung doesn’t acknowledge him yet, with his brows furrowed and lips pursed, absorbed in his work. It isn’t until Minho trips over a suitcase that the younger lifts his head, like a deer caught in the headlights. Then, he relaxes—first his face, and then his body—and scoots over, a nonverbal cue for Minho to join. Jisung closes the journal and sends it flying to the ground, cradling Minho’s head with his arms.

Because that’s just something they do.

…

He awakens at 5 a.m., having dozed off for a measly two hours before his circadian rhythm decided that was enough.

Jisung is in the same position he had been in when Minho first came inside. Still brushing his fingers through Minho’s hair as well, which gives his scalp a slightly tickly sensation, making his stomach fizz and flutter and flip. He’s unaware if Jisung’s gotten any rest at all, but Jisung looks bright eyed and bushy tailed, not a dark circle in sight and a lack of sunken cheeks. He’s lively, like he has energy stored somewhere in a reservoir. A cache that seems to be limitless with how much radiance Jisung exudes at the crack of dawn.

“Good morning,” Jisung begins. “Want to go watch the sunrise?”

Minho shuts his eyes and groans, not ready to acknowledge the rising sun that signifies a new day. Jisung taps his fingers successively on Minho’s stomach. They flit over his skin, and Minho lips tug upwards but he tries to force them back down to a neutral resting place, but then he must end up with a grotesque frown because Jisung breaks out into giggles.

He peppers kisses into Minho’s hair before crawling out of bed. Minho whines at the sudden loss of warmth, tugging Jisung’s arm so that he crashes back on his chest with a thud. They stay there in comforting silence. It’s pleasant, just soaking in each other’s presence. Jisung smells like a blend of salt air and citrus—specifically oranges and lemons. He smells like sunshine.

(He revokes his previous statement about Jisung being the personification of New York. Rather, he’s Los Angeles, reminiscent of sun rays so saccharine it aches.)

“Did you sleep last night?” He murmurs.

“Did you?” Jisung laughs. “I wasn’t the one who snuck into your room at ass o’clock.”

Minho presses his lips together in a thin line. “That’s not fair. I asked you first.”

“When did you care about anything being fair?” Then there’s only the sound of their breathing in the room. After a prolonged silence, Jisung speaks again. “I slept a little. But I feel great. Your turn.”

Minho holds up two fingers to symbolize the miserable two hours he had gotten last night. He frowns when Jisung begins to clap, his chest shaking up and down with laughter. “Guess I’m being a bad influence.”

“If you were gonna be a bad influence, I would be so much worse off right now.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” They look at each other. Then, smugly: “I’m definitely not the bad influence here. It’s you.”

“Little shit,” Minho hits Jisung on the arm, taking a mock offence. “What did I do?”

“You used to get me to steal snacks for you from the vending machine in our dorm,” Jisung says. “I almost got my ass busted cause of that bitchy RA.”

“You mean, we stole snacks from the vending machine.” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t act like I held a gun to your head just so I could get some candy. You did it because you were broke and wanted to cheat the system.”

“Semantics,” Jisung shrugs. “Now get up. We have to watch the sunrise.”

Minho watches Jisung swivel to get ready first. The view before him was more magnificent than the sunrise on the ocean.

…

Minho much prefers sunsets over sunrises. It fits neatly in his schedule; he doesn’t have to go out of his way to watch a sunset. Any rational individual would think the same.

Or so he thinks.

Jisung is the complete opposite, and Minho has the pleasure waking up to photos of the dawn, which he would never view otherwise, on most mornings back home.

The two of them move in unison, lugging the cruiser bikes out of the garage and hauling themselves out the door around 6:20. They position themselves in a strategic place for optimal sunrise viewing, smack dab in the midst of the expansive shore, backs to the waves lapping at the sand, their bikes propped up on their kickstands nearby.

The sun slides out from under the wispy blankets of dark blue. Like watercolor droplets falling onto a blank canvas, peach flecks appear on the navy sky. Following after come the rosy speckles, the yellow and orange bands of marigolds bloom. Tendrils of cotton white clouds frame the swelling sun, matching the blazing glory of the gates of heaven. Jisung might just have converted him into a sunrise person. But how could he not be? When the sky is alit with fire, the world emanating a new light that pulses throughout Minho’s heart.

The sun rises everyday. With never-failing dependency, it sheds the covers of night and presents itself, even behind clouds thickly blocking it out. Will always rise, whether he is witness to it or not. Yet it feels different somehow, and the swell in his chest from the birth of the dawn melts into yearning. It longs for something else that he hopes will greet him every morning as steadily as the sun rises.

Once the sun has affixed itself in the sky, Jisung spares him a sidelong glance and kicks the stand up from his bike. Minho emulates the movement, taking his own bike from the sand and wheeling it out onto the bike trail. Using the sole of his shoe, he wipes off some of the sand from the grooves of the tires, but only a few grains fall off sadly, and the tire is still peppered with sandy grit. Giving up, he sets one foot on the pedal and pushes over, effectively straddling the seat.

Jisung’s lopsided smirk challenges Minho, before words that would be cut off and obstructed by the wind can. “Race you,” the breeze swallows up, and Jisung is already mounted on top of his bike seat and pedaling off furiously before Minho can accept the challenge.

Minho’s never done anything in his life without turning it into a full-blown competition. He begins to pedal, fast, the gust of wind whipping his hair off his forehead. The current is blowing against him, but he continues to pump his feet with reckless abandon. There is no final destination in mind—Jisung hadn't specified anything—and a couple minutes into cycling, he’s still some distance away from Jisung. Minho extends his legs until he’s nearly standing up on the pedals, using the last of stamina to push through, rejoicing when he turns around and detects Jisung’s shocked face over his shoulder. After maintaining a reasonable lead, he halts abruptly and leans his bike against the trunk of a palm tree. Thighs burning and lungs empty, he sinks down with his chest heaving.

Jisung is still on the bike path, the oversized white t-shirt that he’s wearing drooping down on one shoulder and it looks like it’s been suspiciously plucked from Minho’s suitcase. His hair is also a frenzied mess, several strands stubbornly sticking up.

Jisung has the look of contentment settled into his face as he slows down towards Minho. It verges on jubilance. He’s so cute.

And then it hits him.

It’s sunlight triumphantly shining on the ground, on a patch of soil housing the delicate seeds of love, it’s sunlight joyously beaming down on a brilliant diamond forged from day after day of refining, swaddled in layers of gauzy friendship, it’s sunlight striking right into the eyes of Minho that blinds him, because it finally hits him, without a single shred of hesitation.

He’s halfway around the world with his best friend and everything feels so magically steadfast. In a sense, he has come to the realization that he’s sort of... in love with Jisung. And maybe that realization was a long time coming. He doesn’t know. Notwithstanding, that’s all there is to it.

He is in love with Jisung.

He tests those words out in his head again. He is... in love with Jisung. He is in love with Jisung. It flows naturally, a rushing river with an unmovable strength, like it was always filed away in the depths of his soul waiting for future use. He tries it again, saying it like a mantra. He is in love with Jisung. And it feels so utterly right.

The younger doesn’t bother to keep his bike upright, letting it drop onto the sand. It crashes and sends particles of sand flying, some straight Minho’s eyes, the bike vibrating from impact a little before stilling. Jisung descends next to him, the rate of his breaths quick and short. He offers Minho his water, which tastes slightly briny and grainy, but it quenches the thirst in his throat.

“Best two out of three, hyung,” Jisung proposes. “Your bike tires are way better than mine. There’s no possible way you could’ve beaten me in a fair race because you haven’t been that active in years.”

“Life’s not fair, Jisungie,” he replies cheekily. “Deal with it.”

Yet he still finds himself racing, his heart hammering in his ribcage from both his sudden realization of his emotions and from physical exertion, and indeed, life clearly was not fair, because Jisung does win the subsequent two races. Minho gives it his best effort, but he doesn’t outpace Jisung’s swiftness.

(“I still won the first round,” Minho ribs once they get back to the beach house.

“Your win didn’t count,” Jisung argues. “You got lucky. There’s a difference.”)

It doesn’t matter to him in the end. He’s in love with Jisung.

It feels so good to say, to think, to acknowledge.

That’s as good of a prize as he’s going to get.

…

Back in Seoul, Jisung and Minho had agreed on one thing: that once they were in Los Angeles, they would head to a club, relive their college glory days of getting blacked out, dance a little (or a lot, dependent on the volume of alcohol consumed), and then hop in a rideshare to return to the place they were staying. On the second to last night of their trip, Jisung narrows down the handful of options to a place that’s somewhere that’s close to the beach house.

That’s how Minho finds himself in the middle of this club, surrounded in a writhing turmoil of sweaty bodies and thundering music. Neon lights flash in a dizzying pattern across the walls and floor of the club, illuminating the surfaces violet. But the hazy light is not bright enough for him to see anything. Plus, there are way too many people for his personal comfort; he bumps into someone new at every slightest movement. Planting his feet to the floor, he thinks he’s escaped the curse of knocking body parts with a stranger, until a drunk group of college students crash into him, probably gifting him several bruises on his arms as they grab onto him to halt their fall, slurred apologies tumbling out of their lips. The continuous bass thuds in his head, followed by a generic and repetitive synth drop. He would like to see whoever the DJ is fired.

His mood brightens as Jisung pulls him towards the bar area, sure to be filled with spirits (liquor and kindred). Jisung is also the one who orders the first round of shots, against Minho’s protests. They toast, clinking their shot glasses together. Minho tilts his head back and lets the liquid trickle down his throat, burning in a way that’s satisfying and not too gruesome. He feels himself perking up. On the other hand, Jisung sets down the shot glass and pulls a face. Even years of hardcore partying did not change the way the younger felt regarding alcohol.

The anxious sensation crowding his brain earlier was sliding away as the alcohol slunk into him. He begins to feel himself flush, and it’s a good thing it’s dim in the club, or the red powdering his cheeks would be embarrassingly noticeable. As unpleasant as overheating in the already stuffy club is, Minho surprisingly enjoys it. The sensation instills a surge of nostalgia in him, back to when he was just nineteen years old and didn’t have to care about anything except submitting assignments before midnight. It had always been a real mood killer to be in the midst of a party and then get an assignment reminder ten minutes before the deadline. Before he gets too caught up in the memories of his college days, Jisung is calling over the bartender again for a second round, and Minho throws back the shot along with his head. More acidic and astringent this time around, he grimaces as it hits his throat.

Then it’s a third round, and a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth. And a seventh. Or is it the eighth? Or were they still on the sixth, and the shot glasses piling up on the counter had just created an illusion? He’s lost count. The world glides by slower, at a relaxed tempo, and he enjoys the change of pace. Now, he’s ended up stepping onto the dance floor with Jisung, the music deafening in his eardrums. The lights have also changed color—now to hot pink, electric green, and neon blue—and he bounces up and down to the tempo of the music thumping from the speakers overhead.

“Minhoooo,” Jisung draws out his name, carding his fingers through his hair. “Let’s dance.”

“We are dancing, though?” His reply lifts into a question.

“No, I mean like this...” Jisung proceeds to wrap his arms around Minho’s neck. He slowly sways in a sensual dance, words sultry and prickly on Minho’s skin. His eyes are glassy, filmy as he presses his forehead to Minho’s. “I want to dance like this.”

Minho stops jouncing on the balls of his feet and begins to rock side to side, following Jisung’s lead. Jisung treads on his toes every couple of steps, bursting into a flurry of giggles each time he does. It’s silly. They’re slow dancing, but it’s a piss poor rendition of doing so. It’s more along the lines of what he would call moderate dancing: a slow dance to an upbeat song. In the midst of the clubbers shaking to the beat of the music booming across the room, they probably stick out like sore thumbs, interlocked clumsily.

Jisung latches onto Minho’s neck first, but then his hands find their way to the small of his back, trailing down all the way to his ass. Jisung’s forehead is still against Minho’s, but he’s impossibly close now. Then, Jisung’s lips make startling contact with his jaw, the first time it’s ever occurred. Usually, they reserve their platonic kisses for friend-approved places like the forehead or hair. It’s a brush lighter than a feather, but the area stings, lingering for a second too long.

Granted, that might just be the alcohol speaking.

Minho rakes his hand in Jisung’s hair, messing up all the gel Jisung had used to style his hair into a dramatic coiffure, but Minho thinks he looks even better like this.

A little disheveled.

Bathed in lowlights.

Just so close to him. Minho doesn’t know what to do except go along with it because he feels like he’s drifting along, weightless atop thin air.

Minho’s gaze travels down from Jisung’s eyes to his lips. Most of the lip gloss that he had applied earlier has rubbed off, but there’s a faint sparkle remaining. When it catches the light, it is glittering. It beckons him; it’s tempting, too, how he could just lean forward a centimeter and kiss the rest of the lip gloss right off. He can barely register the clutter of thoughts forming in his head, but one side of his brain is chanting at him to just go for it.

The time in this club is warped, the seconds squeeze into hours yet the minutes streak by like milliseconds. He couldn’t even guess how long they’ve been on the floor, rocking back and forth to the music. It could be years for all Minho cared. It could be mere minutes—time always flew at sound-barrier-breaking speeds when he was with Jisung.

Jisung licks his lips so that they're glossy, slick with spit. He brings his hand to the back of Minho’s neck and applies a light pressure, heat blooming in that spot. Another hand is sliding over the curve of his waist. The only thing registering in his jumbled brain is how full of pleasure this is, Jisung’s embrace. They’re so close—so, so close—he imagines how sweet Jisung’s lips would taste on his. Aching rockets through his body, from his toes to his head and back. It’s as if they’re going to—

But they don't.

The disappointment that floods his body, from his head to his toes and back, is offset by the alcohol coursing through his veins, and as he fumbles around in the darkness, he is left with nothing. And feeling nothing feels even worse when there had just been something within reach.

By some means, Minho has lost sight of Jisung. He’s now left to fend for himself in the humid club whose walls suddenly are closing in, his shirt sticking against his back, his sweat an adhesive that he can’t shake. He scans for Jisung in the crowd, but it’s far too dark to even make out the features of the nameless faces of the crowd, or even the familiar visage of the person who brought him into this godforsaken place. Furthermore, the strobing lights make it downright possible, dulling his senses, his head pounding with each flicker.

He maneuvers his way through tight openings around the club, past the herds of people with sloshing drinks in their hands. There’s still no sign of Jisung, until he catches a glimpse of discernible black platform boots with silver eyelets. Latching onto the lifeline, he stumbles over until he can see the legs wearing the boots, the torso above the legs, the back of the head with the mop of mussed hair affixed to the torso.

The lights drown the room in red, a crimson fitting of lust and carnal desire, and Jisung is staggering on the dance floor drunkenly while another guy grinds up against him. The lights are fading from red to purple again, then to an off-white, and Minho fights the drowsiness beginning to drape around his shoulders. Relief washes over him, knowing that Jisung hasn't wholly abandoned him, until he catches a glimpse of the expression plastered on Jisung’s face. His eyes are blown wide, uncomfortably wide, as he inches away from the man. Then the man shuffles closer, teetering on his drunken legs, with no goddamn respect for Jisung’s personal space.

And again.

Minho creeps closer. He can make out a couple of the words that the man is muttering to Jisung, who looks agitated, crinkling his nose and stepping further away in a clear show of disinterest, but the man persists.

“I’m here with someone,” Jisung shouts at the man over the thudding bass.

Minho stifles the urge to leap forward and perhaps put the man in a chokehold, but he holds back.

“Who?” The man is encroaching into Jisung’s space with one corner of his mouth lifted in a smarmy smirk. Minho wants nothing more than to wipe the slimy expressions off of his face. The lights flare back to red, lecherous with desire. The man puts his hand on Jisung’s shoulder to pull him in towards his chest, but Jisung pries the knobbly fingers off. Before the man can further advance and do something he would regret, Minho pushes past a group of college kids and lunges for Jisung’s wrist, yanking him back. Jisung flinches at first, eyes still terrified, but then the recognition sparks in them once they land on Minho and he allows himself to be pulled away from the scene.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” The man yells at him once Jisung is in his grip. Then, he hollers a string of what sounds like expletives in their direction, punctuated with a rolled tongue and spit, before he’s angrily stomping away. Minho continues to tug Jisung through the club, all the way until they’re over the threshold and out the door. The air from the outside hits his face, still warm but breezy.

“Thank you, Min,” Jisung utters, voice pitched low. He clenches the hem of Minho’s shirt and exhales deeply. “He wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Dude was a total asshole,” he snickers, to lighten up the mood around them. “Let’s just go back.” Jisung nods slightly and Minho takes a hold of his hand, their fingers intertwined. They begin to walk down the street, and even though it’s early morning by now, there are clubbers wandering past them. It’s not a leisurely stroll; Jisung is unbalanced, relying on Minho to keep upright, still tipsy from the alcohol, and Minho isn’t faring much better. Briefly, he wonders if Jisung’s ankle has been exacerbated by their pitiful trudge back to the house.

They make it back eventually. Minho holds back the frustration still bubbling in him as the key refuses to fit inside the keyhole, always slipping and scraping the wood around it. He momentarily imagines punching down the door, except he knows the student loaning it to them would be very unhappy indeed, so he fumbles with the key and finally succeeds after an unreasonable amount of tries, and they tumble inside.

“Are you o—” Minho says, turning behind him, but he gets thrown up against the doorframe. Before he has any time to react, Jisung’s lips are on his. His lips are slightly chapped and taste like the alcohol that they’ve been downing all night. Minho angles his head so that he presses in further so that their lips are sliding against each other. Jisung takes a fistful of his shirt before pulling back, eyes foggy and disoriented.

His vision swims as he’s being led into Jisung’s room. Jisung grunts as he hits the doorframe, miscalculating his step, and Minho almost trips over him. He has to jiggle and twist the knob—pressing pause on everything—until the door flies open. Jisung’s fingers skim across his jaw and cheekbone, and he presses back down onto his lips hungrily. Minho’s going crazy, he’s sure. Seriously going crazy as Jisung’s tongue is in his mouth. He savors the taste, drinking him down and gnawing lightly on Jisung’s lower lip.

Jisung shudders and tilts his head so that the kiss is even deeper, the feeling tingling and burning into his skin. Then Minho presses his thumb into Jisung’s clavicle, and Jisung moans slightly, his fingers trailing blazes under the fabric of Minho’s shirt. His head spins, and he wants more. Craves more, because this is the first taste he’s ever gotten and he doesn’t want it to stop.

Minho pulls away and blinks, taking in the sight of Jisung, who’s all plump and swollen lips, flushed cheeks and neck. He leans into Jisung again, Minho's hands on his back. Jisung groans into the kiss, melting in his arms, and guides them to the bed. They topple over on the mattress and Jisung tugs at Minho’s shirt with heightened urgency, shrugging him out of his clothes as quickly as he can.

Jisung trails a hand down his bare chest and climbs on top of him. “Hyung,” he whispers, his voice hoarse while he pulls back slightly, sending shivers down Minho’s spine, “you’re pretty.” Then Jisung swoops down and captures Minho’s lips in another kiss, fumbling with the waistband of his pants, another hand squeezing his thigh. Jisung is everywhere, desperate, his mouth on Minho’s neck, leaving sloppy wet kisses. Minho’s heartbeat is thundering now, loud and erratic, but he’s not thinking anything through.

He eventually finds his voice, and it comes out smaller than he intends it to. “Sungie,” he says, goosebumps erupting across his skin. “Sungie, we—”

Jisung nips the underside of his jaw, causing him to let out an embarrassingly loud moan. He buries his fingers in Jisung’s hair, gripping lightly as Jisung peppers kisses down his torso.

“You’re so fucking pretty,” Jisung says again between kisses. “Fuck, we should’ve done this sooner,” he mutters, but it sounds like something Jisung is saying to himself instead of to Minho. He removes his fingers from Minho’s chest and begins to latch onto the zipper of his pants, but Minho blocks his hands wildly before he can go any further.

“Stop. Jisung, stop.” He’s breathless and can’t quite get the words out. Jisung peers up at him, his eyes shiny and confused. “We can’t, Sungie. You’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” Jisung whines, the pronunciation of each word rounded at the edges and proving otherwise. “I’m fine. I won’t regret this.”

“Only a drunk person would say that,” he shoots back without malice, sitting upright on the mattress. “We can’t.” There’s evident hurt in Jisung’s eyes. But he can’t and he won't. He won’t take advantage of Jisung like that when he’s drunk. Damn it, he’s drunk, too, but this whole situation is sobering him to the state where he is dismayingly more clear-headed than he wants to be.

He can’t meet Jisung’s gaze, so he looks fixedly at the ground, picking up his shirt off the floor before heading towards the door.

“Hyung,” Jisung calls after him, stopping him in his tracks. “Please don’t leave.”

Minho lets out a long sigh, flattening his hair down with his palm. Turning around on his heels, he stares at Jisung, who’s kneeling on the mattress with his eyes pleading. “Jisung…” He takes one more step towards the door. “I’m being serious. We can’t.”

“Please,” Jisung chokes out, “please just stay here. I’m not going to do anything. I wouldn’t.” If Minho looks closely enough, he can make out a subtle redness that rims Jisung’s eyes. “Please, hyung,” he scurries to the other side of the bed to make space. “Just please, stay.”

“Okay.” He walks back towards the bed and sits on the edge of the mattress. Can only slump his head forward, clasping his hands together and exhaling. On the other side of the bed lies Jisung, his back turned the other way, hands curled into tight fists. “I’ll stay.”

The silence between them after that is suffocating.

…

Minho wakes up with a two ton weight pressing down on his body and his eyelids heavy. He blinks several times through drowsy eyes threatening to close with every blink, the white bedroom excruciating to his vision. Jisung is nuzzled into his neck, with an arm slung over his chest and drool running down the side of his face. Vulnerable and delicate, even if Jisung was obstructing his ability to breathe efficiently.

Luckily, he doesn’t have a hangover. He’s built up his alcohol tolerance, but there’s a downside to that.

Because he remembers everything, starting from the club all the way to when they got back. To how Jisung threaded his fingers through his hair, how his lips burned on Minho’s. There’s no way to take that back now, and he doesn’t want to undo it, either, but a new hole tears through his heart.

Even though Minho has an all too vivid memory of what transpired last night, Jisung is, thankfully, a lightweight. He could scamper through a park naked and would barely retain any of the experience, given enough alcohol. It’s a blessing and a curse, because maybe last night meant something to Jisung. But if he brought it up, and it didn’t, it would be fourteen years of friendship embarrassingly down the drain.

It seems so frustratingly trivial that a kiss could ruin their friendship, just like that. It’s only physical contact, and he’s been down that alley with Jisung for years now. But it was different. He knows it’s different, the type of different where he acts on impulse instead of thinking things through. In the dim light, where there’s no wisdom of hindsight, everything feels simpler. Everything exists in the present, with no past to dwell on and no future to cower in fear thinking about. With no regrets either. At the same time, Minho doesn’t know if he regrets anything at all. To call Jisung a regret would be insulting on Jisung’s behalf. And on his feelings. He doesn’t regret falling in love, not one bit.

Jisung stirs, giving him a tightlipped smile once his eyes are open. He stretches his arms over his head, almost knocking into Minho’s teeth while doing so.

“What time is it?” Jisung yawns, lifting a hand into his hair, matted and tousled.

“It’s eleven, sleepyhead,” he grins at Jisung. “You’re sleeping the day away even though it’s our last day here.”

“Don’t remind me,” Jisung grumbles. He reaches across Minho for his phone, checking himself out in the camera, first holding it close to his forehead, then checking both eyes, his cheeks, then his jaw, and lastly the whole front view before placing it back on the nightstand. “My head hurts.”

“Go drink some water, then.”

“But there is no water,” he sulks. Sure enough, the tables are all empty, save for some of Jisung’s toiletries.

“Then go get some water,” Minho replies matter-of-factly.

“But, hyung…”

Minho already knows what Jisung is about to say, so he doesn’t waste time rolling out of bed. He walks to the kitchen and fills a cup with lukewarm tap water before shuffling back into the room, flicking Jisung’s forehead and handing him the glass. Jisung gulps it down in a matter of seconds with voracity, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand once the cup is empty.

“Thank you,” Jisung smiles. He’s too fond of the boy in front of him to deny him anything, as the story usually goes. “I can’t believe myself. No matter how hard I try I literally could not tell you a single thing that happened last night…” He presses his head in his hands, scratching at his scalp in stress.

Minho hums, hiding his inaudible sigh of relief. So Jisung hadn’t remembered. He had predicted that perfectly, having experienced enough of drunk Jisung to have extensive knowledge on his tolerance. But still, that doesn’t make it any less disappointing. “Sucks for you.”

“You’re not going to give me a play-by-play?”

“Not at all.” It’s a bad idea, and he refuses to gamble on that risk.

“You fucking bastard,” Jisung says, swatting him on the calf, and they both begin giggling obnoxiously. And everything is back to the unshakeable way it’s always been.

Nothing can change that.

…

A week and a half is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Since they leave for Seoul tomorrow morning, this is the last time he’ll be able to enjoy the city.

This will be the last sunset Minho can see in Los Angeles.

The sky, the sand, the water—he soaks it all in. Doesn't know when he’ll ever be able to do this again. Even with the tens and thousands of people that they’ve passed by over the days, even while being present amongst a megalopolis of people everywhere, this has been his quiet escape, the little corner of the world that he and Jisung have made all their own.

They decided to forego the towel today, sitting on the sand with their knees drawn up to their chests, the sand still holding warmth from the sizzling sun. The sky is emitting scalding shades of yellow and orange, and Jisung is bathed in the light, his skin pure gold. It’s something only seen in movies. Beautiful.

This is one of those fleeting moments where everything feels tranquil enough that he can just breathe. He isn’t even caught getting stressed out trying to enjoy the moment because of cursed self-awareness of being in a situation he knows he’ll never get to experience again. Right here, right now, he can forget about all of his worries because he has limited time here, and it would be a great shame to waste it brooding. It’s like a dream that will evaporate the second he tries to keep it clasped to his chest.

He doesn’t want to leave.

As much as he wishes it were otherwise, all things must come to an end.

“Hey, hyung,” Jisung says, grabbing a handful of sand and watching as it falls through the sieve of his fingers. “Look. It looks like one of those hourglass timers the dentists used to give out.” He picks up another fistful, the grains filtering through immediately.

“How many hourglasses do you think this beach could fill?” Minho muses, drawing patterns into the seashore with his index finger.

“Is this like that game where you guess how many jelly beans fit in the jar?” Jisung chuckles, dusting off his hands. “You say your guess first.”

“So you can gauge your estimate from mine?” He sneers, arching a sly eyebrow. “No thanks.”

“I already have my estimate,” Jisung says, eyes twinkling with mischief. “I don’t need yours to be able to guess.”

“Oh yeah? What is it then?”

“Infinitely many,” Jisung says. “As long as there are hourglasses, this beach will be able to fill them. All sand is just eroded rock, and there’s plenty of rocks. Plus, there’s more sand under the water,” he finishes and looks back at Minho for a response.

“What about the sand that’s used to make the glass part of the hourglass?”

Jisung shrugs. “Still the same. There’s infinite sand in the world.”

“Your answer is way too philosophical. I was just going to say at least three million.”

Jisung rolls his eyes. “It’s not philosophical, it’s just a fact. Ever heard of the rock cycle?”

“Ever heard of the rock cycle?” He mimics before he can stop himself, voice pitchy and high. “I think I prefer the water cycle.”

Jisung hums and stretches his legs out so that his feet are dipped in the ocean, foamy sea water washing onto his legs. The sun goes out with a dramatic burst of indigo and scarlet before disappearing over the water on the horizon. The deep blue sky, its final stage, signifies the end of their trip. Before they know it, they’ll be in Seoul again.

“Hey,” Jisung speaks up, turning to peer at Minho intently. He flashes him a small smile, private and full of fondness that it renders Minho breathless. There’s something reflected in his eyes, a careful, nervous flicker, but Minho can’t understand why. They stay suspended like that for a while, until Jisung lifts his hand and cups Minho’s jaw, exactly like he had last night. His cheeks are rosy and his breaths are unsteady flurries. But unlike the rest of their almost-kisses, Jisung closes the gap. It’s chaste, nothing more than a delicate brush of the lips, a tentative taste before Jisung pulls back, offering another smile and then biting his lip. Minho is done for.

There’s nothing to hide behind this time either. No alcohol, no adrenaline rush from the dance floor, not even lust.

There’s nothing.

But he doesn’t hesitate to surge forward, reconnecting their lips and letting the kiss linger a little longer. Trying to inhale Jisung slowly, unhurriedly, he wonders if Jisung can feel it too, the jumble of nerves and familiarity rushing in him all at once. Then Jisung pulls away once more.

“Hyung,” he whispers into his hair. The combination of Jisung’s voice and the sea breeze causes him to shiver. “Let’s not worry about anything right now. Let’s just enjoy the rest of our trip.”

His voice is honeyed, but his words are as transparent as they could be, knocking Minho out of his trance. Let's not worry about anything, the subliminal message says, and enjoy the rest of our trip because something like the chance to kiss Jisung would only be in a moment and place like this. Somewhere far from where they’re permanently rooted. Somewhere short-lived, vanishing once day broke.

Minho hears what Jisung has to say loud and clear. He’ll relish in this moment tonight, follow Jisung’s guidance and not worry about what kissing his best friend means. He’ll enjoy the rest of the trip, but when he gets back to Seoul, he’ll push this memory away. Because if that’s what Jisung wants, then that’s what Minho will do. He’s always had only Jisung’s best interests at heart, and those will always quash the traitorous feelings residing alongside them.