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“—and then, I thought, you know, you’re gonna be here, no one else is gonna be around, they’ve all got their own things going on tonight—” The bags in Brian’s arms almost slide out of his grasp as he sheds his sneakers by the door and attempts to peel his socks off with his toes. “—and, you don’t really eat real food, so I thought I’d come over!”
Jae stands in the corridor, unfazed. “Alright,” he says slowly, as Brian hauls the bags into his kitchen—his tiny kitchen that isn’t quite a kitchen, maybe a kitchenette, honestly, it’s really just a fridge and a stove and a sink, but it’s apparently enough for Brian, who inspects it all for just a second before deeming it suitable for use.
He hasn’t seen Brian in a hot minute, and this is how it happens, he supposes. One second, he’s sprawled barely-upright in his gaming chair, scrolling through YouTube, and the next second he’s opening the door to enthusiasm on legs.
“So, like,” Jae starts, watching Brian set the grocery bags down on the little kitchenette counter, “not to rain on your parade or whatever, but—what’s the special occasion? Really.” He pauses. “And what d’you mean I don’t eat real food?”
(Okay. To be fair. He’s sorta right.)
“Nothing.” Brian busies himself with unpacking. Somehow he’s managed to fit what looks like enough food for four people into those two little bags. Which, Jae isn’t all too surprised by, to be honest. “What, the others can visit, but I can’t?”
“They called ahead, y’know.”
Brian shoots him a grin. “I rang the doorbell. That counts, right?”
Jae lets out a snort. “Yeah, dude,” he says, “sure it does.”
The counter begins to fill up with food. The thump of a couple of potatoes. Three square packets of soft tofu, gently placed to one side. Brian sets a container of chopped kimchi down beside him, and says, “I watched that V-Live, by the way. Where they all came over. Caught the last few minutes before the radio show started.”
Jae knows. Of course he knows. He got tagged in a thousand tweets with that one clip of Brian in the KBS studio waving to his phone, as if the three of them on the other end could see him. Waving back in response to them before exiting out of the app, turning his phone off, and returning to the absence of a full group. He almost wants to ask if Brian had missed them as much as Jae had missed him in that moment.
Instead, Jae says, “So, what. You come over expecting your own livestream then?”
“Nah,” Brian says easily, crumpling the grocery bags up in his palms. “I don’t wanna share you with anyone else.”
There’s a weird, heavy feeling in his chest that hadn’t been there before. “Oh,” Jae says, and he clears his throat. It disappears without a trace. Like he’d just been imagining it. Maybe he had. “Right. So. You makin’ me dinner or do I gotta watch you stand there all night, huh?”
Brian’s eyes curve in a smile, crescent-bowed and sweet, and Jae just lets everything else fade out.
It just keeps happening. Brian keeps coming over, and Jae lets him. Jae, perched on a stool by the counter, watching Brian make fancy soy spinach noodles or boil that egg soup he likes or whatever else has struck his fancy that day. Jae, watching Brian dole out food into Jae’s shitty, mismatched ceramics and asking why Jae only has a single mug, how does he live, what the hell, why do you only have one, I’m not drinking coffee from a bowl.
And Jae lets him.
It’s not quite the same as having the others over. Jae doesn’t have to make any room for Brian; he seamlessly integrates himself into Jae’s already tiny living space as if he’s been over a thousand times before already. Leaves his jacket over the arm of the couch, sings along to Jae’s music as he stirs a pot on the stove, lets Jae coax him into fickle arguments about nothing and everything at all.
If it were anyone else.
Brian’s just left, one late night after dinner and a rewatch of Good Will Hunting that they’d put on on a whim after an off-handed conversation about Robin Williams movies, when Jae’s eye is caught by something metallic between his couch cushions.
He reaches over, one hand planted on the back of the couch, and digs his fingers into the gap, tugging the thing out without much fuss.
It’s Brian's watch, the one he always absentmindedly takes off whenever he’s over. Like the time’s the last thing he wants to look at while he’s here. Jae rubs his thumb over the clear crystal face of it, and doesn’t worry about texting Brian to let him know.
He’ll be back to get it soon enough.
Dowoon comes over to borrow an XLR cable and one of his light panels one evening, and is halfway into the flat when he stops, glances around, and backtracks.
Jae sticks his head out of his room and asks, “What’s up?”
“Has…” Dowoon stares at him, and then walks past him into the kitchen. Jae follows after him, raising an eyebrow when Dowoon opens his refrigerator, and leans so far in that Jae thinks he’s going to get swallowed up. “Has someone else been living here with you?”
“What?” All of Jae’s breath explodes out into a haphazard, unexpected laugh. “What kind of question is that?”
“You have actual vegetables in your fridge,” Dowoon says, sounding confused, straightening back up. He’s holding a plastic-wrapped bundle of watercress in one hand. It’s the freshest thing Jae has seen since… well, three days ago, when Brian had showed up with a recipe for doenjang jjigae and a far-too big plate of minari namul (that Brian had somehow managed to restrain himself from eating all of, and save just enough to leave in Jae’s fridge for next day’s lunch).
“Oh my god, okay, look,” Jae says, stomping over to shut the fridge door. “Number one: I eat vegetables, okay. Most of the time. Sometimes. And, number two: uh. Well. Brian’s been over.”
Dowoon gives him a look.
“He’s been coming over a lot,” Jae amends, “ever since Sungjin—yeah. Since he’d enlisted. He keeps bringing stuff over to make dinner with.”
“Ah,” Dowoon says. His gaze skates over the cramped kitchen, and then across the Not-Really-A-Living-Room-But-Mostly-Just-A-Place-For-The-Couch-And-Coffee-Table where Brian’s forgotten watch is still sitting propped up on a couple of books, and then says, “Dinner. Yeah. Sure. I see. I see.”
Jae’s eyes narrow. “You want that Key Light or what? I’m thinking it’s about to go missing in about three seconds.”
Dowoon gives Jae his biggest puppydog eyes. Jae sighs, and beckons him into his room, almost forgetting the way Dowoon’s voice had wavered suspiciously on the last part of his sentence.
(There’s nothing to see. What’s to see here?
Nothing. That’s what.)
It’s a punishment. Of course it is, because he doesn’t get good things. He doesn’t get fair. What he gets is one of the only things that’d kept him happy over the last year ripped right out of his hands, all because of one stupid fucking thing, something he didn’t even know was a mistake to say—
He submits. He retreats, because it’s the easier decision.
They get him to post the apology, and he’s made to go radio silent for a couple of weeks. No posts, no tweets. Everyone’s sort of figured out to give him space as the next few days roll around, and he spends the first two in a fugue state, curled up in his sheets and denying all the calls he gets that aren’t from his mom.
Everyone, that is, besides Brian, who shows up three days after the incident and lets a slightly annoyed Jae open the door for him. Toes his shoes off, drops his jacket on the couch, starts unloading a bag. Jae rubs at his eyes, just fresh off a two-hour nap that hadn’t been satisfying in the slightest, and asks, “The hell you think you’re doing?”
“Making dinner,” Brian says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Keep up.”
“I never said—” Jae starts, but he falls silent. Sure, he hadn’t said that Brian could come over, but he hadn’t said that Brian couldn’t, either.
Brian starts pulling things out of Jae’s cupboards without asking him where he keeps any of them the way he had the first few times he’d been over. Jae’s eyebrows furrow together. He hadn’t realised how familiar Brian had gotten with his kitchen.
“I don’t own a colander,” Jae finally says. “Since when do I have a colander?”
“Since always,” Brian says imperiously, brandishing said colander before turning around to wash it in the sink. Jae’s still pretty certain he doesn’t, but, alright. If he says so. “Go take a shower or something. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”
Jae doesn’t give it much thought, still sleep-logged and feeling a bit too unwilling to argue, so instead he returns to his room and flops onto the bed, scrolling through his phone for about twenty minutes until the smell wafting in from the kitchen is too much to ignore.
He drags himself from the comfort of his mattress and pads back towards the stove, peering over Brian’s shoulder at the chicken that’s grilling in the pan. “What is it?”
“Something,” Brian says, turning the fire down and motioning towards the counter. There are a couple of bowls of cooked corn, beans, rice, red and green bell peppers… cheese… and tortillas, laid out neatly across a bright yellow silicone mat. “We had these in LA. Do you remember?”
Yeah. He does.
A concert stop, two years ago. The burn of the night air against their cheeks as they slipped out of their hotel room under the cover of the city lights. Getting lost along winding streets until they’d found the cart. “These are the ones,” Jae had emphasized, motioning at the sign that said $7, “the burritos to end all burritos. You won’t ever have a better one once you try these. No cap.”
Of course he remembers.
The hot, street-side, foil-swathed ones he’d juggled between his hands on their walk back to the hotel. Jae quietly closing the door behind them, hoping nobody’d seen them on their way in or out. Brian toppling back onto his bed, almost inhaling two right away before Jae could even unwrap his first. “God, I really missed these,” Jae had sighed, savoring the taste of home (in a place that still wasn’t really his home).
Brian hadn’t even looked like he’d heard him, then.
Jae stares at the spread and feels a lump rise and stick in his throat.
“I also made that guacamole… sauce? Dip? Thing? The one that you like,” Brian says. “Is it okay?”
“Yeah dude,” Jae murmurs, voice a little too thick to pass as normal. Thankfully, Brian either pretends to not notice, or really doesn’t at all. “It’s okay.”
He moves to get a drink of water, and Brian’s hand brushes against his.
It’s home in a place that still isn’t really his home. Maybe it’s enough for now.
They eat on the couch, careful to keep fallen crumbs to a minimum, and watch Netflix until Brian’s idly yawning, one hand over his mouth. “Think I’ll pass out on the road if I walk home like this.”
“Coffee machine’s in my room,” Jae mentions, “I’ll clean up.”
Brian shoots him a grateful smile, and goes off in search of caffeine. Jae’s pretty certain he won’t spill anything. Well. Certain enough.
It doesn’t take him long to be done wiping everything down, washing the dishes and setting everything away back where they’d been before. The work takes his mind off things the way dinner had taken the edge off the last few days. The last week.
Jae rinses his hands clean, and heads to his room to check what’s taking Brian so long.
The coffee machine isn’t even on. Brian has fallen asleep on his bed, head puddled on one side of Jae’s pillow, arm hanging off the edge of the mattress. And, Jae despairs for just a moment, in the same clothes he’d walked over and cooked in.
But—he finds that he doesn’t mind.
He really doesn’t.
Jae steps closer, and just stands there for a moment, taking him in. The lines of his face have smoothed out. He looks younger, less worried. There’s a lock of hair curling over his forehead that Jae wants to thread his fingers through and push back.
Sometimes, Jae feels like he’s been slammed against the wall with it. Everything about this life, all the responsibilities he’s been given, the limits of what he gets to do and have. And then, sometimes, Jae feels like a tennis ball just bouncing along the floor. On its own path. Rolling to a slow, steady stop by Brian’s ratty, years-old Chuck Taylors. Coming to a rest.
And then, Brian shifts, and his hand catches on the hem of Jae’s sweater. “C’mere,” he whispers, moored between the planes of wakefulness and sleep, and Jae’s about to tell him to get up, get out of his bed, get out of his apartment before Jae does something he shouldn’t be doing, something he’s not allowed to do—when Brian reaches for his hand, curling their fingers together.
Jae will let himself have this. Just once.
He clambers in and shifts around and presses himself along Brian’s broad back, getting comfortable. Brian’s warm. Jae wonders if he could count all the fine, little hairs at the nape of his neck before Brian properly wakes up and realises what they’re doing.
There’s a long silence. It’s the quiet whirr of the air-conditioning, and their breathing. Then, “You left your watch here weeks ago,” Jae murmurs, watching his breath tickle the skin above his shirt collar. “It’s on the table.”
“I know,” Brian says.
Brian still hasn’t let go of his hand yet.
And then, Brian makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, and says, “Jaehyungie-hyung.”
“Mm?”
“You don’t own a colander.”
Jae laughs, and buries his face against Brian’s shoulder. “Yeah, Bri,” he whispers. “I know.”