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Johnny is only a few steps from the great, looming doors of the Catholic church when he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He can’t deny that he’s hesitant to enter this place so he leans into the distraction, turns his head to look and see.
There’s an absolutely sprawling cemetery next to the church with huge weeping angels and what feels like miles of tombstones, grave plaques, and markers. Like most Catholic cemeteries it’s absolutely bursting with massive statues, crosses and towering angels, sun bleached stone markers that stand at nearly half his own height. It’s a stunning display and when he sidesteps to get a better look, he can see someone sitting several yards into the graveyard on a stone bench, shoulders down, hands in their lap and chin tilted to the sky, as though they’re making shapes of the clouds. It’s a pretty bleak place to just stop and think but Johnny isn’t really the kind of person that has the room to judge another on their life choices.
He walks back down the sidewalk to the wrought iron fencing and gate of the cemetery. The sun is hovering just above the height that turns everything peachy gold—he has time—but he spots the sign that warns that the cemetery is closed dusk until dawn before entering. Johnny tucks his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and he walks into the graveyard, boots crunching the gravel below his feet softly.
The cathedral is a gigantic presence beside them, casting a long shadow across the ground, shrouding the already bleak graveyard into an artificial darkness. Johnny wanders right up to the figure on the bench, still and settled, chin still tilted up even as Johnny gets close. They only sigh as Johnny takes the empty seat on the white stone next to them, settling down, fruitlessly trying to get comfortable on the awkward and hard bench.
“How’d you find me?” Joshua asks, voice soft as he slowly lowers his chin.
“Took a guess,” Johnny admits with a shrug. “I thought maybe you could be the kind to look for religious guidance when they’re a little lost.” Joshua snorts softly. “Jeonghan’s losing his mind.”
“I brought my phone.”
“You’re not answering his messages,” Johnny points out. He turns his head slightly when he hears Joshua rustle with his own jacket, pulling his phone out. There are about 20 missed texts from Jeonghan alone, at least Johnny can only assume that’s who that smiling halo emoji is, and about a dozen missed calls. Joshua sighs heavily. “You should text him back,” Johnny comments, leaning against the back of the bench. “He’s worried.”
“I will,” Joshua promises but he doesn’t at that moment, instead pushing his phone back into his jacket pocket. “And I don’t really subscribe to the same beliefs as the church anymore, I just… come here to think.”
“Here?” Johnny asks. “Like the cemetery.”
“Is that morbid?” Joshua quips but his tone suggests he already knows the answer. “I know,” he answers his own question. “I told my mom once, when I was a kid, that I thought cemeteries were pretty. She told me to never say that to anyone ever again,” he states, recounting it like a memory that doesn’t bring forth any particular emotion. “I think she thought there might be something seriously wrong with me and she didn’t want the other people at the church to think it.”
“She was always like that,'' Joshua continues, voice going soft. “I think she was worried about what the other people would think about her. About us. Like she was always trying to get the approval of all the other women at the church. We were the only Asian family at the church,” Joshua states and Johnny hums softly, looking over at him. Joshua looks forward, as though studying the large granite tombstone in front of the bench. “All my other friends went to the Korean church or were Protestant or Buddist or… just didn’t go to church. My mom always tried so hard to make sure I was fitting in with the others at the church. Praise Team and church choir and church camp…” he trails off and Johnny nods slowly.
He doesn’t understand but he does understand the need to fit in. His family was one of the only Asian-American families in his town and he stuck out like a sore thumb. Early on, he tried to fit in. He tried to be the same as every other kid in his class but he was always the butt of every joke. So he tried to be funny, which worked for a little while, but fitting in... it just wasn’t worth it to him. Without Taeyong, Ten, and Jaehyun he really doesn’t know where he would’ve ended up. Turning to emo music was kind of the reason he found a place he belonged at all.
“But you know, I always found cemeteries sort of… calming,” he admits and Johnny turns his head to look at him again. “I’ve always thought it’s so sad that you have to have a reason to go to them because it must be lonely, y’know, if you believe in that sort of thing. I’m Korean and raised Catholic so I’ve always kind of felt like there are things, spirits, still here and the fact that they’re alone so much. I think that’s kind of unfair, y’know, that they die and the only time they ever get to see anyone again is for a special occasion.”
“A religious raised boy who has a flair for the macabre,” Johnny comments and Joshua tips his head down, chin to chest, snorting softly as he smiles. “You know you would’ve fit right in with my friends and I in high school.”
“I told you, my mom would’ve never allowed it,” Joshua states, lifting his head to meet Johnny’s gaze. “Boys like you and Ten were the ones I was strictly not allowed to hang out with.”
“But that’s what would’ve made it fun, right?” Johnny jokes, grinning widely. “Ten would’ve loved messing with you,” Johnny continues, leaning forward to push Joshua gently in the chest. He chuckles as he moves with the little push, leaning back against the bench.
“I feel like Ten’s type hasn’t changed much,” Joshua replies and Johnny laughs outright. It’s a little too loud, in his opinion, for a cemetery, but it feels good. He wonders briefly if this place hears laughter much, if ever.
The silence that comes over them isn’t weighty like most silence that sits in a graveyard is. The cemetery isn’t still, there is a cool spring breeze ghosting around, there are birds tittering in the trees that rustle with bright green, new leaves and the buds of the flowers. Life still blossoms even in the wake of all the dead that lies at their feet, the sun-bleached whiteness of the tombs and the dark earth below. Johnny looks up at the sky as it begins to turn orange. The golden hour is threatening to fall on them and dusk is only minutes away. He looks back at Joshua who meets his gaze, sunlight turning the brown of his irises liquid gold.
“We should go,” Johnny points out and Joshua nods once. Johnny gets up first and offers a hand, a hand that Joshua takes easily and doesn’t let go of even as they head back to Johnny’s car where it’s parked in the church’s lot.
Joshua texts Jeonghan in the car and there’s another outpour of texts into his phone which causes Joshua to turn his volume off again. Johnny snorts as he drives down to campus, Joshua curled up in his passenger seat, phone left discarded in the cup holder.
Johnny pulls up to the front of the Sigma Lambda Tau house but Joshua doesn’t move to get out. His brothers are probably all inside waiting for him to come in so they can berate him for going missing for so long. Joshua stares at the house through the window but doesn’t move, staring like he doesn’t want to get out. Johnny watches him, doesn’t push him to get out, eyes falling to where his fingers are flexing on the gearshift.
“Hey, do you—” He cuts himself off but Joshua has already turned his head to look at him. “Do you wanna come to mine tonight?”
“I don’t want—”
“I’m offering,” Johnny says and Joshua nods once. “Okay,” Johnny says. He puts the car back in drive and pulls away from the curb.
Johnny’s apartment is lackluster, to say the least. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in it other than eating and sleeping because his Masters is keeping him so goddamned busy. He lives with two other men who are also never there, Yuta and Doyoung, generally also always on the go since they’re also in graduate programs at the university. It’s very practical, they keep it as clean as they can manage but there are still hoodies on the back of the couch and the chair, a handful of dishes in the sink and the dishwasher is propped open, full of clean dishes that have yet to be put away. Johnny apologizes as he picks his way across the apartment, Joshua trailing behind him.
“I swear, my room is clean,” Johnny assures him and Joshua chuckles softly as he follows him to the short hallway where all their bedrooms and the communal bathroom is. Johnny shuts a couple of doors on the other side of the hallway and pushes one on the left side open, leading Joshua inside.
It’s clean, which does strike Joshua, but what he notes is the strings of lights that Johnny plugs in rather than the overhead light. It douses the room in a warm glow, the light quickly leaving out the window, which has black out curtains tied aside, he notices. His bedding is all shades of grey and black and his wall is plastered with posters. Well, maybe not posters, they look like magazine pages ripped out of their homes and stuck to the wall. Some are even covers, and Joshua gravitates towards them as Johnny slides his jacket off.
“Are these… from your bedroom back home?” Joshua asks and even in the dim of the string lights he watches Johnny’s face flush softly.
“Yeah… uh, my mom wanted me to take them with me to college so I just… put them up,” Johnny admits, sitting on the edge of his bed. Joshua runs a fingertip over the worn, ripped edges of the Rolling Stones cover.
“I feel like I should know these groups but I just don’t,” Joshua admits but Johnny merely shrugs his shoulders.
“They’re all emo groups. Or like, alternative rock or pop punk. All those shitty little niche groups that were really popular in the early 2000s,” Johnny explains, getting up from his bed. He crosses the room while Joshua is still looking at the posters. There are a lot of them and when he finally turns away he notices Johnny changing at his wardrobe, pulling his shirt off to reveal a myriad of tattoos written across his skin. There are words tattooed into his back, his ribs, things peeking out over the edge of his waistband. Joshua presses his lips together, crossing the room cautiously as Johnny opens the wardrobe.
“I didn’t know you had so many of them,” Joshua says and Johnny falters for a moment. He pulls a shirt off of a hanger, tosses it over his shoulder but doesn’t put it on. He pulls a second shirt out and turns around. Joshua’s eyes take in all that’s written across Johnny’s skin, a tattoo drawn over his chest and peering out over the edge of his Tommy Hilfiger underwear. If Johnny is surprised to see Joshua closer than before he doesn’t say anything, meeting him in the middle of the room, tossing the shirts onto the bed.
“The Academy Is…” Johnny states, pointing to his chest piece. Joshua looks closer and notices that the swirling script is words. We Are The Same Blood, is written across Johnny’s collarbones. “Panic! At The Disco,” he comments, turning slightly so Joshua can see the words written on the left side of his ribs. The writing on this is smaller, a tightly spaced font that spells out a couple of lines from a song. can’t take the kid from the fight // take the fight from the kid // sit back, relax // sit back, relapse again “The ones on my back are mostly stick and pokes from high school. Most of them are pretty faded,” Johnny tells him. “I have to get this one redone,” Johnny tells him. He turns around and Joshua looks at a rudimentary rose tattoo on the back of his left shoulder. “Taeyong has a sunflower in the same place. We gave them to each other.”
“What about this one?” Joshua asks, fingers coming up to touch a tattoo between his shoulder blades. Johnny’s skin prickles with goosebumps as he does so and Joshua notes the fine tremble that runs through him, jerks his hand back briefly before pressing fingertips to it again. It’s a dark tattoo, dark red in color, a big flowering bloom that takes up a huge part of his back.
“It’s covering an old My Chemical Romance tattoo,” Johnny admits, voice a bit sheepish. “I really hated it so it was one of the first ones I got covered. I like the hibiscus a lot, actually. I’ve been trying to cover up most of the worst tattoos I got when I was a kid,” he admits, turning to face Joshua again. “I want to cover this one but I haven’t figured out something big enough yet,” he says, gesturing to the words on his ribs. “This one,” he says, pointing to the sprig of lavender that brushes against the end of the word Blood, delicate light purple and green that travels into an intricate swirling vine pattern on his shoulder, “is on top of where I got a few stick and pokes removed. I want to connect it to the rose somehow but I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“What about the ones on, uhm…” Joshua trails off. His hand drops to Johnny’s hip, gesturing vaguely and Johnny looks down before lifting his eyes again. “I assume they’re on your hips.”
“Yeah. When I thought I could be Pete Wentz before I chickened out,” Johnny jokes, chuckling softly. “You wanna see?” He asks and Joshua nods hesitantly.
Johnny unbuttons his jeans and pushes them down far enough that he can reveal the bone of his hip. Tattooed into it, the thing that Joshua saw peeking over the edge of his waistband, is a flower—a handful of them actually—that trail along the outside of his hip, white and pale pink five-petaled flowers with yellow and orange centers. They curl around to the top of his backside. Joshua’s fingers twitch at his side to touch but he resists the urge.
“They’re Japanese Primrose,” Johnny explains. “I got the first one here,” he says, reaching his left hand around to touch the one that blooms right on his hipbone. “It was the sun from The Academy Is’ Almost Here album and I realized a little too late that it was a stupid idea. I didn’t want to get rid of it so we got creative and the artist helped me come up with the primroses. They’re pretty and cover it up rather well.”
“How many stupid tattoos did you get as a kid?” Joshua asks, lifting his head to meet Johnny’s eyes.
“Too many. And that’s on top of the fact that Taeyong and I pierced my ears three times and my nose,” he says, pointing to the offending hoop in his right nostril. “Like I said, I’m working on covering them all up. There are a few I can’t get rid of though,” he admits. He adjusts his jeans back onto his hips and turns the insides of his arms over, showing Joshua what’s written on the inside of his forearms.
His right says the best part of ‘believe’ is the lie and on the left is until your breathing stops forever.
“I wish I had put them somewhere else but it’s too late for that now and I don’t really want to get them redone so they’re just… there now. And that one,” he says, pointing to a little tattoo on the inside of his right wrist that’s just :(:
“We all make mistakes,” Joshua allows. “Do you have any more?”
Johnny has a tattoo on the inside of his ankle and there’s an unfinished sketch for his shoulder piece, the one he wants to connect the lavender and rose to that involves a few other common tea plants. Johnny explains the ursa major on his right shoulder and the dagger, ghost and skull he’s got decorating his spine. He’s got a match and a cleaver there as well and Joshua traces the shapes of them, mostly faded where they trail from under the hibiscus down towards his tailbone. Suddenly the My Chemical Romance lyric makes a lot more sense.
“All that they say about being sure, really sure, about what you want to put on your skin? They’re right,” Johnny tells him. Joshua’s fingers are tracing the veins of the hibiscus petals as Johnny speaks. “I was 16, 17, 18 years old and a fucking kid, getting lyrics I thought meant something tattooed. Some of them I don’t mind but some of them are so useless and now I keep trying to get them covered or removed. It’s not worth it and it’s expensive as fuck.”
“You know a lot of people think it’s hot though, right?” Joshua comments and Johnny turns around as Joshua’s hand falls away. “Your tattoos and your facial piercings. They think it’s sexy.”
“Trust me, it’s not,” Johnny assures him. “We all make dumb kid mistakes, I guess.”
“Some of them aren’t so bad,” Joshua replies, stroking his thumb over the top of the letter B on his chest piece, right below where his collarbone is. “I think they’re pretty good.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Johnny tells him, tone just a little bit teasing. Joshua sighs, letting his hand fall away. “You ever wanted to get a tattoo?”
“Never thought of anything I cared that much about. And to be honest, these were enough to nearly give my mother a conniption,” he says, gesturing to his earrings. Johnny reaches out on instinct, touching the shell of his ear gently. The one at the top of his left ear is one Johnny has always had a certain fondness for, mostly because it's not one he’s seen many people have. His left ear is a little more decorated, with that one, a forward helix, a regular helix and his lobe pierced. His right is a little more subdued, a lobe and an upper lobe piercing. When he, on the rare occasion, wears earrings in all of them Johnny thinks he could possibly pass as someone in his crowd of friends. His fingers find the one at the top first, touching the silver metal of it gently.
“I like them. You get a couple on your face and you might actually be up to par with me,” Johnny jokes and Joshua’s eyes dart down to his mouth. Johnny knows his tongue ring moves when he speaks. He knows everyone notices it pretty quickly and Johnny moves his hand away to cup Joshua’s chin gently. “Maybe you should get one just here,” he says, pressing his thumb to the corner of Joshua’s bottom lip.
“Never in a million years,” he insists, reaching up to push Johnny’s hand away. “But dream big, Suh.”
“I will,” Johnny assures him. “We should get to bed, though, it’s late,” he informs him and Joshua sighs softly as Johnny stands up. His tattoos all disappear when he pulls a t-shirt on his Joshua watches the primroses show back up when Johnny pulls his jeans off, causing his boxer briefs to slip down his hips. He adjusts them back up but Joshua commits to memory the cluster of flowers that decorate the side of his hip.
They lie together on Johnny’s bed, thankfully a queen rather than the dorm standard twin XLs that they would certainly never be able to both fit on, but Joshua turns over into Johnny’s space anyway. Johnny lets him get in close, close enough so that his head lands on Johnny’s shoulder and Johnny tips his head down in Joshua’s direction, mouth pressed to his temple.
“Would you have, if we lived near each other?” Joshua asks in the silence of the bedroom. Johnny hums, the vibration of his lips pressed against his temple warm and soft. “Tried to be my friend. My parents would’ve hated it but would you have tried anyway?”
“America’s a pretty shitty place for Asian kids, y’know?” Johnny mumbles and Joshua’s eyes fall to Johnny’s chest where he knows those words are tattooed. We are the same blood. “I think as long as you wanted to, I would’ve tried. I think it’s important that we kind of stick together. No one else really gets us like we get each other, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Joshua agrees. “Yeah, I do.”
Jeonghan almost knocks the door off its hinges the next day and Joshua turns from where he’s sitting at the table, turkey bacon in his mouth. Johnny doesn’t even react from where he’s putting the dishes away, Jeonghan stomping his way around the apartment throwing himself melodramatically over Joshua’s back to complain in his ear about where he was for over twelve hours the day before.
He doesn’t stop them when Jeonghan all but drags Joshua from the apartment, still berating him about how worried everyone in the house was and why he didn’t call or text him back all day. Joshua clings to the wall to thank Johnny for breakfast and Johnny nods, wishing them a good day under the crowing Jeonghan is doing.
When Johnny turns to put a mixing bowl on a top shelf Joshua’s gaze lingers over the flowers that bloom over his hip when his shirt rides up before letting go of the wall and stumbling out the door with his best friend.
Joshua still remembers the first time he met Johnny. There was a slight feeling of fear permeating everything that night as he walked on eggshells around the man, taller and broader than himself with tattoos up and down his arms and piercings on his face. When he looks back on it it seems silly when he knows Johnny couldn’t hurt a fly, the closest thing to a BFG Joshua has ever met.
Jeonghan hung off of him all night, the kind of boy who always enjoyed the feeling of dancing with danger (still does, that much is apparent when he’s dating a man as unreadable as Yuta) while Joshua tried to keep his distance. Jeonghan was the reason he ever got anywhere near him that whole night, trying to make nice while the feeling of uncertainty threatened to eat Joshua’s insides whole.
It was a party not unlike this one, Joshua considers as he watches Johnny be dragged from the living room towards the kitchen by his friend Taeyong. He hasn’t heard a thing Junhui or Wonwoo have said in the past two minutes, distracted by the playful grimace on Johnny’s face while Taeyong was trying to strong arm him outside. He seems to have managed it based on the way Johnny is dragging his feet to get into the kitchen where the back door is located. Joshua glances at his drink when they disappear from sight and finds that it’s almost empty.
“I’m gonna get a refill,” he tells no one in particular but Junhui replies affirmatively and Joshua wades his way through the frat house to get to the kitchen.
The Delta Tau Delta house is full to the brim of people and it’s difficult to get anywhere in a hurry here but Joshua manages to sidle his way into the kitchen where the drink counter is located. There’s an oversized Yeti with jungle juice on the counter and bottles of cheap liquors all over the place. There’s even a half full bottle of grape Everclear that Joshua carefully pushes out of his way to get to the vanilla vodka. Even the kitchen is overcrowded with college students and, most likely, other party crashers. A flip cup tournament going on on the opposite counter.
He goes for the door when his drink is full and stumbles out of the crushing heat of the house onto the back porch. It’s also crowded but far less so, a walkway clear from the backdoor to the steps while smokers crowd the railings, cigarette butts underfoot and decorating the grass underneath the railings. There are rusted metal coffee canisters overflowing with white and orange cigarette butts and he steps down from the wooden porch onto the grass where people are scattered in circles or small groups, sharing joints or hookah. Joshua’s never been the type to partake but Taeyong’s bubblegum pink hair is a dead giveaway in the back corner of the yard even in the dead of night.
Johnny’s got a joint between his lips when Joshua manages to make his way over to him, Johnny looking up when he gets close. Joshua lifts a brow but Johnny only smiles, removing the joint to hand it to Taeyong. Taeyong takes it patiently and Johnny blows a gray cloud as he turns to face Joshua properly.
“Hey,” he greets him.
“Hey. I didn’t know you smoked,” he says conversationally. Johnny shrugs a shoulder as Joshua gets down to sit in the grass with him.
Johnny’s wearing a scoop neck shirt that reveals his chest piece tonight and his leather jacket, jeans ripped through the knees and all the way up his thighs, holes big enough they reveal the pockets inside the denim through the white strings holding on for dear life against the stretch of Johnny’s thighs. He wears things like this all the time but Joshua feels out of his league as he settles down in his totally intact blue jeans and converse, maroon button up a stark difference in style to Johnny’s chosen aesthetic.
“Helps me relax sometimes. And Taeyong hates smoking alone,” he says, nodding to his friend. Taeyong has already passed the joint to Yuta, whom Joshua is just now noticing has Jeonghan hanging off of him. No surprise there. They started dating after winter break and have been practically inseparable ever since. It would be cute if it wasn’t super annoying. “You wanna?” Johnny asks, nodding to the joint that’s made its way between Jeonghan’s lips.
“Not for me,” he replies and Johnny nods understandingly.
The conversation dies there and Joshua takes account of everyone in the circle. It’s mostly grad masters students or upperclassmen, he notices. There’s the five of them, also Chan and Changbin from music production, Sangyeon and Changkyun from music composition, Changkyun’s boyfriend, Kihyun, and Sanghyuk, with whom Joshua has shared a class or two. There are two joints being passed around but a few of them are still sober.
DTD parties are usually shit but it’s not so bad tonight. Joshua thinks it might be because they’re one of the only houses throwing so there’s a lot more people here than normal. He even saw Joy and Yeri inside and he ran into Nayeon a little while ago. As he sips his drink the tips his head up to look at the sky. The stars are actually kind of bright tonight. That’s surprising.
“You ready for graduation?” Johnny asks, ashing the joint before taking a drag. Joshua lets his head roll on his shoulders to look at him.
Johnny looks like every boy his parents told him not to befriend in high school like this. The brown paper on the outside of the spliff is burning slowly but bright and the cherry lights up Johnny’s face in dim orange when he pulls it from between his lips and keeps it close to his face. It makes his nose ring glow for a second before he exhales a puff of gray smoke, taking another drag before handing it to Taeyong. He holds it for a considerably longer amount of time before exhaling. He looks like something out of a movie, one leg stretched out into the circle while the other is bent at the knee, combat booted foot resting next to his opposite knee, hands behind himself, arms extended.
“Nope,” Joshua replies. He takes another sip of his drink. The orange juice is sharp and tangy, muddled by the artificial sweetness of the vanilla vodka. It tastes alright but whoever said this tastes like a creamsicle probably did so after having at least three of them. Or maybe this is just too much vanilla vodka.
“Weird to think about, right? That we have to get out of here soon,” Johnny comments casually. “I still gotta get an apartment. Fuck.”
“I have a couch if you wanna borrow it,” Joshua replies and Johnny snorts, shaking his head. “Better than no roof, y’know?”
“If I don’t have any other choices I’ll definitely take you up on that,” he tells him. Joshua smiles to himself. “I gotta head home for the summer though before I settle down. Mom and Dad insisted. It’s gonna be a long fucking few months.”
“You got a job here?” Joshua asks immediately.
“It’s a paid internship,” he says. “It’s not much but it’s better than nothing and everyone wants experience or something before you really get into the job these days. It’s fine,” he sighs. “Doyoung is moving in with Kun though and Yuta and Jeonghan are either going to get married over the summer or they’ll kill each other, I can’t tell yet.” He says it without any particular emotion but they all know it’s true. This summer will make or break those two and no one’s entirely sure what’s going to come out the other side. He looks over at his best friend and his beau as Johnny says it and then just a quickly looks away when he sees them shotgunning like the disgusting infatuated gay boys they are. “What about you?”
The question, for some reason, catches Joshua off guard.
“Uhm… I’m staying here,” he mutters and Johnny tilts his head at him. “Seungcheol’s getting an apartment downtown and it’s approximately the size of a closet but he can’t afford it on his own,” he explains and Johnny nods slowly. “I told him I’d move in with him. I’ve been working at that Asian market since the beginning of the year and they already want to make me an office manager. It’s nothing that’s got anything to do with my masters but it’ll pay the bills until I can find something else.”
“At least it’s an apartment and a job,” Johnny points out. Joshua hums noncommittal. “You’re not going home?”
“No,” he admits in a sigh. “I’ll probably visit for a few weeks this summer but I can’t really deal with my parents anymore, y’know what I mean?” Joshua says without actually explaining anything.
Based on all Joshua has mentioned, maybe not explicitly, Johnny can guess. He turns to look at Joshua properly and takes a moment to really look at him. He takes the joint from Chan and takes a drag as Joshua drinks his drink, the bob of his Adam's apple, the purse of his lips around the lip of the plastic cup. When he lowers it, his tongue slips out to catch whatever’s left on his lips. Johnny counts the rings in his right ear and realizes he doesn’t know how many Joshua has in his left tonight.
The joint is nearly burned out when he’s done and Taeyong waves a hand at him when he goes to hand it to him, Yuta already rolling another one. Johnny tucks it between his lips to finish it off, the feeling of his high rolling through him as he takes in Joshua’s features, from the curl of his eyelashes to the pout of his lips down to the rose colored blush that’s blossoming over his chest, a deep triangle of which is revealed from the two buttons he’s not done up on his button down. Johnny reaches over to scratch it out when it’s done and leaves the filter in the metal canister in the middle of the circle before getting to his feet.
“Where you goin’?” Taeyong asks, lifting his chin to look at his friend.
“I’m gonna head out,” Johnny says. He adjusts his jacket to sit more comfortably on his shoulders. “It’s gettin’ late.”
“Get home safe. And leave the door unlocked,” Yuta tells him and Johnny agrees shortly before leaving, the grass swishing softly around his boots.
He doesn’t bother going through the house, it’s going to be too hot and stuffy anyway, so he walks around the porch and along the side of the house to where he knows the gate is. The DTD boys are too stupid to ever remember to lock it so it pushes open easily for him and he steps around the overflowing trash can and recycle bin on his way down the sideyard to get to the sidewalk. His boots have just reached the pavement when he stops and looks back at the house through the mess of swaying bodies and yelling students that litter the front yard of the fraternity house.
Joshua is in the front window of the house, cup still clutched in his hand as the circle parts and reforms around him. He’s got a smile on his face but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Johnny tucks his hands in his leather jacket pockets before turning away from it all, headed down the road so he can catch the shuttle back to the apartment block.
A group of them skip graduation. They just don’t go, don’t pay an astronomical amount for a cap and gown they’re never going to wear again and request their degrees get mailed to them. Their parents are pretty upset with them but with the money they save, they plan a trip out to the Hamptons. It’s stupid expensive for them to try and rent a vacation home for a few days but it’s better than expending that cash on things that are going to be worth next to nothing in a few years.
Doyoung and Jihoon plan the whole thing together and the rest of them show up when they’re told to drive them out to the shore. Johnny tries not to be surprised when he’s packing up one of the cars to see Joshua wandering up to them with Junhui next to him. Logistically Johnny knew that they had a full house going to the beach but for some reason he really thought Joshua would go to graduation, that his parents would insist he spend the money on a gown and a cap and accept his masters in front of their entire class proudly.
But Joshua is wearing a pair of shades on his head, bumping his shoulder into Junhui’s on their way to the car. He offers Johnny a sunny smile when he gets close enough and Johnny hops down from the back of the truck to meet him, dusting his hands off on his jeans.
“Hey,” Johnny says. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Let me guess, you expected me to be at graduation,” Joshua says, crossing his arms over his chest. Johnny shrinks back a little, shy of his assumption. “It’s cool. So did I. But Jeonghan and Seungcheol told me they weren’t going to be there and what’s the point really when my friends aren’t going to be with me anyway. This sounds fun though,” he admits and Johnny nods. “Besides, you wouldn’t have a third car without me anyway,” he says. Johnny’s brow creases and Joshua turns around, pressing a button on his key fob to unlock his car. The SUV beeps happily and Jeonghan immediately goes over to it, throwing open the trunk.
“Nice car,” Johnny says. “You drive your kids around in that thing?”
“Someone has to make sure Channie gets to dance troupe on time,” Joshua retorts, making Johnny laugh. “And don’t mock the car that has the most storage. Ten’s has a Jeep and I’d like to see you guys fit more than the Yeti in that thing,” he points out.
“Alright, alright,” Johnny concedes. “I promise not to make fun of your mom mobile anymore.”
“That’s thin ice but I’m going to let it go,” Joshua tells him. Johnny laughs brightly while the others show up with their own bags.
The house in the Hamptons is way too nice for a bunch of 20-somethings that are only just now graduating from college with their masters but that’s why they got it, right? So they can pretend they’re a bunch of adults that are moving on up in the world even if they’re really just grasping at straws, hoping to find footholds in this world that’s threatening to eat them whole if they take a single step outside of their comfort zones of classes, parties and casually hooking up. It’s an optimistic view that’s truly only going to last for about four days.
The bedrooms are broken up into couples and singles, Johnny and Ten volunteering to take a double while Jihoon and Junhui take the other. The other rooms are all singles, leaving Joshua to his own devices in one of the single rooms, a room that feels way too big when he’s been living in the same room as Jeonghan practically since he started college. The queen bed is almost daunting in size when his black duffle bag lands on it. He tries not to think too hard about it, instead heading back down to the living areas as soon as he’s left it there.
The daylight is already turning orange on them but it doesn’t stop the others from getting in the pool. The ocean is only a stone’s throw away but no one seems eager to deal with salt and grit at this house and Joshua settles down on the steps of the deck as Yuta literally throws Doyoung in the water. He’s not very happy about it and comes bobbing up above the surface to yell at him. Everyone’s in varying states of dress while Jihoon tries to command attention so he can get everyone’s orders for their dinner, a long day of driving leaving no one interested in making food.
“You give Jihoon your order?” Johnny asks, sitting next to him on the steps. In only his black muscle tank almost all of his tattoos are on display, letting Joshua drink them in. He tries not to be too obvious about it but Jeonghan always told him he wasn’t good at being inconspicuous. Johnny’s staring right at him with this unreadable expression on his face when Joshua meets his eyes. His cheeks heat up without permission.
“I’ll tell him when he’s done trying to wrangle the others,” he replies easily, turning his attention back to the pool. It looks like Kun is trying to drown Ten. That’s not going to be very good for their deposit if they leave a dead body here.
His eyes dart around their friends, from Jihoon in his oversized hoodie, hiding his phone from any possible splashes of water while Junhui and Seungcheol half heave themselves from the water to tell him their orders. Jeonghan and Yuta are in their own little world in the shallow end of the pool, as they always are whenever they’re together. Taeyong is lying on a floating lounge in the deep end while Doyoung and Kun continue to pick on Ten in the back corner of the pool. There’s a feeling of easiness in the air now that exams are over and while the threat of the real world weighs heavy on their shoulders it’s a far away concept where they’re hiding away in this vacation home.
Joshua’s eyes fall to the ground and then over to the side slightly. Johnny’s wearing shorts, revealing any of the tattoos he might have on his legs. There’s one on the inside of his thigh in a tiny script that Joshua can’t read from this angle but it catches his attention, dark ink against the pale inside of his leg.
“Shua hyung, what do you want?!” Jihoon’s voice rings out and Joshua gets up from his seat on the steps to approach him, unaware of the way Johnny’s eyes follow him as he walks across the pavement.
Joshua finds the emptiness of his bedroom here unsettling and even when he turns on the fan and his music it feels as though it echoes ominously through the empty bedroom. It doesn’t help that there just isn’t very much furniture in the room. He rolls out of bed to wander through the house instead, still unable to sleep. The house is also big and empty though and he finds himself out by the pool, curled up at the edge of the patio in a way that allows him to see past the low hedges and the green, green grass of the lawn to the seaside that stretches out before them.
It almost reminds him of California. Except cold as hell even in his hoodie and sweatpants.
“Fancy meeting you here,” a voice says and Joshua turns around to see Johnny walking out onto the patio with him. He sits down next to him, sharing the blanket he had the presence of mind to grab with Joshua, draping half of it over his shoulders. It’s warm under the fuzzy blanket and even more so with Johnny’s body heat so close to him.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Joshua says in lieu of a greeting and Johnny nods. He yawns a second later though and Joshua wonders if he woke him up. If he did, he doesn’t think Johnny would admit to it, even if he asked. Instead Johnny rests his head on Joshua’s shoulder and Joshua lets him, watching the moon sparkle on the ocean waves as they crash over the sand in rippling crests of seafoam.
Every day in the beach house is eventful but it’s eventful in that kind of way that it’s relaxing at the same time. The kind of eventful that tells you that every day is a new memory you won’t ever forget even when you’re old and gray and time has marched on way, way past that fateful moment that became ingrained in your memory. Every day Joshua becomes more and more thankful for the people college has put in his life and he knows that even if they don’t persist past these last few moments, growing apart as they get older, he’s going to be glad he knew them. His cheeks hurt from smiling and exhaustion tugs at his bones that lets him fall asleep in a satisfied and happy manner.
The last night before they have to leave they go down to the beach and build a fire. It’s not very big but Kun’s a pretty good boy scout, it turns out, when he can keep it burning for a long time after it starts. It’s freezing out by the water, all eleven of them wrapped up in hoodies and long jeans but the fire is warm and the salty sea air is refreshing next to ice cold beers and a joint passed around between friends.
It’s when the conversation starts to die down that Johnny notices that Joshua has gone missing. He couldn’t have gone far but the seat he occupied between Jeonghan and Junhui is empty and he turns to look at the beach, finding Joshua down by the water. Somehow he’s not surprised and he sticks his bottle in the sand before getting up to follow him.
“So you’re moving into that apartment soon, right?” Johnny asks, settling down in the cold sand next to Joshua. Joshua looks at him with wide, startled eyes before his shoulders relax. He nods long and slow, turning his attention back to the water. “Back to the daily grind then, huh? Work and stuff as soon as we get back.”
“That’s the plan,” Joshua tells him. “When do you head back to Chicago?” He questions back and Johnny shrugs a shoulder.
“Next week or so,” he says. “Move out isn’t for a little while so I’m gonna stick around and try to get the others settled before I go back. It’s weird though, thinking about the fact that when I come back I won’t be going back to campus, y’know?”
Saying it out loud makes Johnny realize something. When he looks at Joshua he’s nodding and Johnny wonders when the next time he’s going to see Joshua is. It’s a strange thing to wonder when he and Joshua have never really been that close, friends through mutual acquaintances and intervention by the universe. When they leave school, actually leave for good, he might not see Joshua again for a long time, if not ever. He’s been a fixture in Johnny’s life that he’s long since taken for granted, he thinks, because every time he’s gone somewhere, hung out with someone Joshua was there or was talked about or nearby.
And he doesn’t know that he’s ready to let that go.
“You should message me,” Johnny says and Joshua looks at him, lifting a brow. “When you move. Message me. You and Cheol are having a housewarming party, right?” Joshua nods a tad hesitantly. “Let me know, I’ll come by. And when I come back I’ll let you know, okay? So we get together or something.”
It doesn’t say what Johnny wants to say but he hopes it conveys what he means. He hopes that when Joshua thinks about it he realizes it’s Johnny’s way of telling him, “let’s stay in each other’s lives. I don’t want to let go of this just yet so let’s not do that. Let’s have a little more time together.”
“I will. That sounds good.”
“Thanks for your help today, I really appreciate it,” Chanyeol says as Johnny is putting the rest of his things in his bag. Johnny’s head whips up in surprise and Chanyeol offers him a grin. “I know today was such shit but you were a huge help. I know running around and taking care of recording artist’s every whim isn’t on your to-do list in terms of what you want to do but you’ve actually been heaven sent today. I thought I was going to punch that guy,” Chanyeol says, swaying back and forth in his chair.
“Hey, no problem,” Johnny says with a grin. “Everybody’s gotta start somewhere, right?”
“Yeah. Still, I just wanted to let you know.”
Johnny’s been working for Suho Records for about a year now and it’s been… doable. By no means does his current workload have much to do with what he wants to do but it’s a job and it pays well and Chanyeol’s a good boss. Working in the music industry sucks, or at least it does right now, but having a foot in the door is better than the gutter so he’s trying not to complain about it.
“Well, thanks. You headed out?”
“Nah, I gotta finish this shit before his management comes down on my head,” Chanyeol tells him, spinning the chair around to face the mixing board. “But you have a good night, Johnny.”
“You too, hyung,” Johnny replies, looping his bag strap around his shoulders.
Suho Records is a hop skip and a jump from the nearest subway station. It’s convenient and it’s not, Johnny thinks because he has a bad habit of waiting until the last minute to get out of the house to catch it. Taeil, his roommate, tells him that’s going to make him late one of these days and Johnny doesn’t have enough pride to tell him it already has because Taeil will tell him exactly how stupid it is and say “I told you so”. Johnny both loves and hates Taeil and often wonders how a man like that ever puts up with him.
It’s 5 o’clock so the subway platforms are insanely crowded and Johnny has to fight his way to the front or he’s not going to make it to the store in time. He clearly clips his foot in the doorway when he gets on and shuffles over to a pole lest he fall on his ass the moment the train moves. He checks his watch like his life depends on it and counts the second until his phone starts to vibrate because it will. It always does at exactly eight minutes after five, which is exactly when Johnny gets off the train and is running up the stairs to the sidewalk.
The Asian market is on the second floor of the shopping center and Joshua is already waiting out in front for him. He doesn’t even look up as Johnny approaches, which is also very expected. Johnny waits with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Joshua check his phone with feigned disinterest until he slowly, oh so slowly, lifts his head from where he’s bowed over his phone and smiles at Johnny indulgently.
“You ready?” Johnny asks.
“Waiting for you.”
He’s always waiting for Johnny. Johnny often wonders just how long he’s been waiting for him.
The bar is crowded, as it always is, and their friends all show up at least 15 minutes late. Even a year later Johnny has a hard time reconciling this Jeonghan and his short brown hair with the one that rocked long, silver hair up until he started the masters program. Even then it was usually a painfully bleached shade of blond. Taeyong is much the same but the style is similar. Johnny orders another round for everyone at the table as they settle in, even though he and Joshua are both already each a drink in.
There’s something in the air that tells Johnny that tonight isn’t the same as every other Thursday over the past year. Maybe it’s the way Yuta and Jeonghan are attached the same way they used to be when the love was fresh or the way Seungcheol and Taeyong lean into each other, Taeyong’s head on his shoulder. Maybe it’s just a realization left only to Johnny that his friends are pairing up and settling down and he’s just now becoming aware of it.
Hell, just last night Yuta had come over and started making ‘I’m gonna make an honest man out of him’ noises about Jeonghan over a bottle of whiskey and that’s both exciting and utterly terrifying to think about. Yeah, they’re at that age now where it’s very likely families aren’t far off but everything becomes crystal clear as Doyoung and Kun finally show up, holding hands, and Johnny excuses himself for a cigarette.
He’s never been much of a smoker but old habits die hard and work is stressful and he’s always been prone to smoking when he’s drinking. Ten used to be his smoking buddy but Ten hardly makes it to Thursday drinks anymore and if he does he’s being trailed by his partner.
That’s life.
“You got out of there fast,” Joshua says not five minutes later and Johnny flicks his ash, motion a little harder than normal. “Taeyong sent me out here to check on you.”
“I’m fine,” Johnny replies. His right hand rests on the railing of the smoking area and thumb up and Joshua leans over as he spots new ink there.
“Did you just get this done?” Joshua asks, reaching over for his hand. Johnny looks over, taking a drag as Joshua curls his fingers around the outside of Johnny’s hand, tugging his hand closer so he can get a good look at the black ink.
“Yeah,” Johnny breathes, smoke coming with it. “I got homesick the other day so I just…” It’s an airplane, no bigger than the size of Johnny’s thumbnail, a simple black ink silhouette along the side of his palm under his thumb.
“It matches mine,” Joshua says, voice soft. Johnny turns to him with wide eyes and Joshua merely smiles as he lifts his head to meet Johnny’s gaze.
When he rests Johnny’s hand on the railing again he pulls up the sleeve of his hoodie to reveal a black silhouette of an airplane high up on his forearm, just below the bend of his elbow. It’s very similar to Johnny’s own if only bigger. Johnny didn’t even know Joshua had gotten a tattoo, didn’t know he was ever thinking about it but he doesn’t comment further, pulling his hoodie sleeve back down and leaning on the railing again.
“You wouldn’t think I’d miss it so much but I do,” Joshua sighs and Johnny takes another slow drag as he turns his attention to the city again. The bar is on a third floor, the balcony leaning out over a side street. From here you can see part of the big city, but only at an angle way off to the left. It sparkles gold and silver but when Johnny breathes out the smoke covers it like the smog that actually touches the ground. “I think about California all the time,” Joshua admits. “But y’know. I don’t know that I’d call it home anymore, even if I did go back.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Johnny admits. “Home sickness is weird because it’s not usually about a place. It’s about the memory of that place. The familiarity that you crave to get back. I get homesick for college. How fucked is that?” Johnny suggests with a little laugh and Joshua chuckles softly. “But I guess that’s part of growing up.”
“Yeah,” Joshua replies.
Johnny finishes his cigarette and tosses the butt in the metal canister they leave out here and turns to Joshua. He’s still looking at the skyline as it turns peachy gold. It makes him glow golden and his eyes sparkle and Johnny hesitates to pull away. This moment charges itself on the words they’ve said, the words they’ve not said and a feeling of never letting go that lodges itself right into the base of Johnny’s throat and threatens to suffocate him.
Impulse causes him to make a leap and for just a second the only sound in his head is the spring breeze as it floats around them when he leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of Joshua’s mouth.
Joshua turns his head to look at him as Johnny is pulling back and their eyes meet for a suspended moment.
“You good?” Joshua asks, eyes darting around his face, glancing at his lips for a second before meeting his eyes once more.
“Yeah. Let’s go back.”