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An exit to the Train peeled open in the middle of the park with an unearthly humming. Ryan and Min-Gi rushed out, hand-in-hand, so close together they nearly stumbled over each other's feet. They stopped just before colliding with the bench next to the sidewalk.
Ryan pulled away and flopped onto the bench, panting heavily. His hair was more unkempt than usual and a bad bruise covered his jaw. His glasses were askew.
Min-Gi smiled affectionately. He leaned over and adjusted the glasses. A faint blush appeared under the dirt on Ryan's face. "You look awful," Min-Gi said, breath still coming short.
"Sit down," Ryan wheezed. He patted the bench next to him.
Min-Gi suddenly realized how sore he was. His legs throbbed. He let himself fall into a sit next to Ryan, shaking the bench. For a long moment, they caught their breath. He took a deep inhale of the cool evening breeze and closed his eyes. Ryan's hand tapped his, and he took it, squeezing tightly around the warmth. Ryan squeezed back. After the Train, he was grateful for the simple comfort of a wooden bench.
He cracked his eyes open and turned to Ryan. He was looking at the sunset, a faint smile on his face. Cute, Min-Gi thought, and he didn't hate himself for it. He remembered kissing Ryan, and he wanted to do it again.
Ryan leaned toward him. "You look worse."
"Huh?"
"I look awful, you look worse. You're all scuffed."
"No way. You've got a gnarly bruise. And I don't mean it's cool."
"Yuh-huh, way." Ryan's hand drifted to the bruise. He winced as he felt it. "I'm gonna need an icepack, though."
"I'm going to need twenty-four hours of sleep."
"Me too. And I want some real food. You know what sounds really good? A burger. And fries-"
"-With ranch," Min-Gi finished for him.
"Yeah, with ranch. Or an entire pizza. And then vegging out for a week."
"I wish the Train had picked somewhere more convenient to drop us. Nice park, but..." He yawned. "Man, I'm burned out."
Ryan yawned, too. He blinked the tiredness away and then ran his fingers over a slat in the bench. "I wonder why it left us here?"
"I'm pretty sure Kez said something about that. It creates an exit to your home."
"But this isn't either of our houses. It's a park." Ryan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. He pulled his feet up and sat cross-legged, one of his knees resting on Min-Gi's lap. Min-Gi laid a hand on it.
"Yeah, I don't get it." They had been to this park hundreds of times growing up, but it wasn't more of a home than either of their homes. He flitted through memories of the park. Climbing on the playset with Ryan when they were kids, hanging from the monkey bars and talking for hours as preteens, playing his stylophone to Ryan's guitar in the grass, the time they ditched prom to--
He flushed, head to toe. "Ryan," he said.
"What's up?" Ryan looked up. He had picked a stick from the ground and was methodically cracking it. "Oh, man, you're really red. You okay?"
"Do you remember when we skipped prom? We hung out at this bench." Hung out wasn't the right phrase, and he regretted picking it.
"Yeah," Ryan said fondly. "That was pretty sweet. I had fun with that."
"That," Min-Gi started, "was when I...okay, I dunno how you felt, but--fuck."
Ryan snickered. Min-Gi wanted to hear the sound again. "Dude, for cear, are you okay?"
He took a deep breath. As terrifying as the experience had been, if his time on the Train had taught him one thing, it was that he could say it now. "I think that was the night I realized I was sprung on you. Was that you, too?"
Ryan shifted to fully face him, one knee tucked to his torso. "More or less. Why?" He was blushing too, now. Blushing because of Min-Gi. The same warmth he always felt near Ryan flooded his chest, and he was glad for it. He scooted closer.
"That was kind of where I found you, I guess. Man, how do I put this? We were best friends, obviously, but if that was when I realized and you realized, and the Train drops you off at home..."
"You know I'm sort of an airhead. If there's something I'm supposed to be getting here, I don't." He looked confused, but curious, and his blush hadn't lessened any. He leaned in slightly, until they were as close as two men sitting in a public park could be. The fading sun caught his hair and turned it vaguely gold as it fluttered in the wind. Min-Gi desperately wanted to kiss him.
The words were stuck in his throat, but he couldn't imagine turning away from those soft brown eyes. "You're my home, Ryan." He was on fire.
Ryan's eyes went wide. Min-Gi swallowed hard.
"Whoa," Ryan whispered. He began to flap a hand, slowly at first, and then suddenly both hands were flying through the air while his clothing rustled wildly. He grinned so hard it looked like it hurt.
A smile spread across Min-Gi's face. "That's okay?" he asked.
Ryan opened his mouth for a moment, as if to speak, and then closed it. He flapped harder and harder, and then slowed to a stop. His glasses threatened to tip off his face. "Sorry," he finally said. "That was weird." The phrase came out more like a habit than a show of regret.
"You're cute when you're excited," he assured. He had never voiced the feeling so openly before. To his surprise, something about the sentence felt reverent rather than shameful. The words were heavy, but they fit right. "And every other time."
Ryan beamed, and it was stunning. He took his glasses off, folded them roughly, and set them aside. "You too," he said simply.
"Thanks," Min-Gi mumbled. This was new, clumsy.
Ryan glanced around them furtively. "There's no one here, right?"
"I think, yeah. Why?"
"Because." Ryan leaned in, close enough for Min-Gi to feel his breath, close enough for his hair to bump gently against Min-Gi's forehead. "I wanted to do this." And then he worked a hand through Min-Gi's hair and kissed him.
It was less fumbled than the first one had been, but it still made his heart stop, and he couldn't think of anything other than how nice Ryan smelled even after all that time on the Train, and how right that hand felt in his hair, and how perfectly they fit together. When Ryan pulled away a few seconds later, his head was spinning.
"You look like you're gonna black out," Ryan said, a dopey smile on his face.
"You're even cuter now," he breathed.
Ryan slid his glasses back on and flapped again, more casually this time. "So to be max cute, I just need to keep kissing you?"
"Not here. What if someone saw us?"
"Later?" he said hopefully.
"Please."
"I'm holding you to that," Ryan grinned.
Min-Gi ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it back into place. The air was cooler now, the chill of night setting in. "Speaking of later, what's the plan?"
"What do you mean?"
He began to count on his fingers. "We've been missing for at least a month or two, we're all beat up, we're hungry as hell, and we definitely smell like shit to anyone who has bathed in the last month."
"Oh. No shit. I dunno why I didn't think of any of that." Ryan absentmindedly scratched the back of his neck. "Basic stuff first, and then we get our lives back on track, right? Like, we need to tell everyone we're not dead, clean up, all that stuff."
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What are we telling our families?"
"It's easy, dude! 'Hey, Okaa-san, Min-Gi and I got kidnapped by a giant magic train while we were on our other train, so that's why I didn't call you for three months! Why does it look like someone slammed my face in a door? Well...' Okay, I'm joking, don't look at me like that. I'm not a total narbo."
"Sorry. I was just imagining how that would actually go."
"We'll come up with something. Hey, we've still got wallets. You wanna check into a hotel for the night? We could use a shower and some sleep before we try explaining."
"Yeah, I dunno if we can lay it on them straight for this one. Lying will be easier after we're clean and rested."
"Can I hold your hand?"
"What?" Just after it had faded, the blush returned to Min-Gi's cheeks. At some point, this would stop being so much. For now, every gesture of affection was almost overwhelming.
"There's not that many people out. Can I hold your hand while we walk?" Ryan fumbled with a fold in his clothing.
It stung that the other people made a difference. He checked the sidewalk running along the road, and spotted several couples walking together under the twilight sky. Some had children, laughing and dashing ahead, and some didn't. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said bitterly.
Ryan looked dejected. "Yeah, you're right. I hate that you're right."
He wanted to kiss the creases of Ryan's frown. "I'll make it up to you at the room."
"Okay," Ryan perked up. Suddenly, the people on the sidewalk barely mattered. The prospect of making Ryan happy, of seeing him grin and giggle and blush, dissolved the bitterness like sugar into tea.
Min-Gi pushed himself off the bench, wincing slightly at the renewed soreness in his feet. The night was uncomfortably cold, now. "Let's bounce. We're not getting there unless we walk."
Ryan stood, nodding in agreement, and they started toward the street. "Hey, Min-Gi?" he said softly.
"Yeah?"
"I think you're my home, too."
Min-Gi smiled, and the warmth in his chest kept the chill of the night out all the way there.