Chapter Text
Johnny's bones hurt. They always do when he wakes up in the morning. But now it's worse because it's fucking hot outside, so he's been waking up in his stifling bedroom with his bones hurting and his tank top sticky with sweat. The insulation in this house is absolute crap; his room is freezing cold in the winter and impossibly hot during the summer. He went to bed last night with his windows wide open, hoping for a little breeze to come in and cool off his room, but all it did was coax in the suffocating summer sun. And like the cherry on top of the dunghill that is his life, it still fucking smells like frying oil no matter how much he airs out his room. It hangs around him like a brand, doesn't leave him no matter how many times he showers or washes his clothes. No matter how long it has been since he quit his miserable job flipping burgers for minimum wage.
Maybe it's all in his head, though. It wouldn't be the first time.
He turns over onto his belly, pillow shushing the sharp wince at the sharp crack of his hipbone. Growing pains, among some of his other hurts. It's quiet in the house apart from the mosquito prowling around him, and his own breathing. He doesn't have to strain his ears to know that his parents aren't home. Off to work, off to make a living, off to somewhere else. He doesn't know what they're up to most days, and honestly, he can't seem to find it in himself to care.
Ah.
Busy. Away. Stay far away. Busy, don't go away. Stay, oh- stay. There's a beat that belongs to those words. A set of sounds he had mapped in his mind some time ago, probably even plotted it out on his laptop. He should write that down for later. Kun might even like it, too.
Johnny feels around for his phone, pawing around beneath his pillow, and then on the nightstand next to his bed. He's still not accustomed to his long limbs - that's what he says to himself as his phone, some change and a smattering of cash clatter to the floor from where he haphazardly emptied out his pockets last night, just as he fell face-first on his bed. He hangs over the side of his mattress to rescue his phone, not bothering to get up and retrieve the rest. It's way too hot to move more than is strictly necessary.
Busking is tiring, but he earns more in a couple of hours on the streets on a good night than he used to during a night-shift at the burger joint. The local university students are very generous when they're drunk out of their minds, happy to relax and spread joy after their exams, and he's received fat wads of cash from lonely businessmen on more than one occasion. Being an adult seems hard, but Johnny can't wait till he's eighteen. With school out of the way, he'll finally have the time to go on auditions, maybe even stop busking in the dead of night. It'll be good. It’ll better at least. It will have to be.
He never tells Kun when and where he goes singing anymore, because he would want to come too, even though he can't. Kun said his parents don't want him hanging around on the streets that late at night. Johnny thinks it's kind of funny how they care so much considering they're never around to reinforce the rule anyway.
"But aren't they away on business right now?" he'd ask and Kun would shake his head. "They might come back tonight."
Johnny doesn't know if they ever do come home, because Kun never tells him when they're around. He only hears about Kun's parents when they've already left again (if then), but Kun is easy to read. Johnny can spot the dejected set of his jaw and his furrowed eyebrows from miles away. His expression says enough.
So Johnny doesn't tell Kun anymore whenever he's planning on busking if only to stop him from looking so sad and guilty all the time. It's not like he's doing anything particularly special. He's just singing on the sidewalk.
He yawns against the morning sun poking at his eyes from outside as he types the silly lyric in his notes app. He throws his phone in the fray of his bed and burrows his face in his pillow when he's done writing as much as he could still remember, and then his ears focus in on someone on the block watching tv. A bird chirps outside his wide-open windows along with the jingle of the morning news, and just like that he catches the broadcast through the thin walls of the apartment building, his sleep-fogged mind doing its best to register the information.
It'll be hot out, and even hotter still later on in the day. There are children in need somewhere in a faraway country, people fighting wars over causes that go way beyond him, and the South-Korean election season is starting soon. But Johnny still has his American passport and he is definitely not old enough to vote, so he isn't even going to pretend to care about politics. The tv cuts to a different channel right when the news anchors start to discuss the stock market and Johnny can't help but snort into his pillow. Something about POSCO and Samsung- fuck if he knows. He's willing to bet that Kun knows, though. Maybe he'll go over today and ask him all about it. If he still remembers by then. He rolls out of his bed with a final stretch, carefully jumping over the blanket he must've kicked off his bed during the night, and stumbles out of his room.
It's dark in the hallway, it's dark as he makes his way through the living room and it's even darker in the empty kitchen. He can't even see his toes or where he's walking, but he knows the route by now after a scant year of living in this hell-hole. He only slams face-first into doors whenever his dad leaves the bathroom door wide open after he's done with his business, ever the forgetful parent. His mom and dad like to keep the curtains tightly shut, so naturally, Johnny has got his own blinds open at all times. He only regrets it on some days. There must be at least a handful of people in the apartment block who know a little bit too much about him.
He scratches at a new mosquito bite on his chest as he walks into the dark and relatively cool kitchen, the tiles delightfully cold beneath his feet. There's an apple on the dinner table next to yesterday's newspaper, but Johnny ignores it even though it looks delicious and he hasn't had an apple in a good fucking minute. He perks up when he remembers that he should still have a can of his coffee. But his excitement dies down real quick in the short second it takes him to cross the kitchen and glance inside the nearly empty fridge. All there's left are some stray vegetables and a plate his mom has left for his dad to eat tonight, neatly wrapped in foil.
Oh well.
Johnny pads back to his room, squinting at the sunlight peeking through the trees outside his window as he picks up the coins and bills scattered all over his floor. He's earned enough by now to buy himself a new laptop, or even get more equipment. But in all honesty, he doesn't know how much longer he can do this, doesn't know how much longer he can stretch himself thin like this, trying to juggle school, his job and his passion for music without losing his goddamn mind.
He bites back another yawn and the movement has him noticing the faint imprint of Kun's number still visible on his arm, the address already fully faded away a few days ago. To no one's surprise, Kun had been right when he'd said that the permanent marker would be a bitch to wash off. It's been a handful of days since he wrote down Kun's information on the inside of his forearm and the last three digits of his phone number are still visible no matter how hard he had tried to scrub it away to prove Kun wrong.
Either way, it wouldn't have mattered if it had all washed off when he came home from the café that day after Kun invited him to come over during their break. Johnny already knew all of his info by heart by the time he was home.
Kun will be so pleased to know that he was right about the marker. Johnny can already hear the 'I told you so' falling from Kun's lips, his mouth upturned in amusement followed by a fleeting concern he'll have for his health. (Aren't permanent markers full of toxic chemicals? You shouldn't have written on your skin!) The thought of Kun stressing about something so insignificant gets him right up on his feet, propelling him into the shower to get ready for the day. He's out the door within ten minutes, his tote filled to the brim with his notebooks and laptop, his gig bag slung across his back, and the 10 o'clock sun beaming at his rapidly-drying hair from above.
It takes Johnny a little while to get across the river into Kun's area of the city. In part, because it's fucking hot out and he can't be bothered to walk faster in the heat, and in part because they really do live far away from each other. He's damp with sweat by the time he arrives at the apartment building, and he's almost sure it took him a full hour to make the walk (so what if he got lost a few times, his phone GPS sucks and it’s a winding road). Though, Kun's place is less of a building and more of an entire complex of tower blocks attached to each other through fucking sky-ways. He can even spot a doorman in the lobby on the other side of the building entrance.
There are at least a billion of numbers and buttons sprawled across the perimeter of the vestibule and Johnny's about two seconds away from having a panic attack. He tries to look through the apartment numbers listed, looking for a sign of the name 'Qian' or the number 1208, but he's more than a little nervous at the prospect of even entering this building and the doorman keeps glancing at him from the other side of the glass doors. Johnny doesn't know if the doorman's ogling him because he knows that he's freaking the fuck out right now or if he thinks he doesn't fucking belong here and wants him out. He would've been sprawled across the floor if it wasn't for the air conditioning cooling him down at full blast, battling the sweat at his temples, and the well-dressed lady striding inside with a fluffy dog hopping around at her shiny yellow shoes. Johnny can't help but smile at the sight.
"Good morning, ma'am," he says because he always tries to be polite, especially to people who inadvertently stave off his meltdowns. "I like your dog."
She laughs, he thinks, because the sound she makes is little more than a huff of air. But he can tell by the way she crinkles his nose at him that she's at the very least mildly amused. "Thanks, kid. Are you here on a visit?"
"Yes, but I'm having a little trouble finding the apartment," he answers, gesturing at the buttons lined around them in neat columns.
She looks him over once, coaxing the impossibly fluffy dog in her arms. "I'll help you out. What's your friends' name or apartment number."
"It's Qian, number 1208," Johnny says, noticing how the dog is well-trained.
She pauses, her dangly earrings jostling by the movement. "Qian, huh. Come on, I'll let you in." The dog jumps to the floor. She turns to the glass sliding doors, then, and she doesn't even have to use the key fob in her hand because the doorman is already rushing to open the doors for her. The lady steps through without another look at him or the doorman, gesturing at Johnny to follow her with a flick of her hand.
That's odd, he thinks, bowing at the doorman who gives him a crooked but friendly smile. It'd probably do him good to investigate this whole 'Qian' situation later. He kind of feels like having that panic attack anyway as they enter the elevator that manages to be even fucking colder than the climate-regulated air in the lobby. The lady - Mrs Choi according to the doorman's greeting - is wearing expensive perfume, probably. He's kind of choking on the smell now that they're in the enclosed space of the elevator together, no music or sounds except for the soft panting of her dog and the rustling of her shopping bags.
The dog looks at him then, with its beady little eyes and little tongue peeking through the mess of curls, and that's enough to push Johnny into pressing the button for the twelfth floor despite the way he is burning hot with nerves.
***
Johnny feels like crying when he walks back home from Kun's house that night.
It had been good. Great even. It had been really, really nice together, watching stupid videos on Kun's laptop, ogling Kun as he browsed through his alphabetically organised bookshelves, his fingertips rhythmically tapping along their leather spines to the beat of his guitar but-
But now he has to go home again.
***
Kun is always busy with something, Johnny notices. Most of the time, Kun will be reading when Johnny glances over at him from where he is sitting on the floor. He'll be sprawled on the couch, either actively avoiding the sunny spot or practically basking in it, the sunlight almost blindingly bright on the white pages of his novels. Sometimes he will be messing around on his laptop playing a game, doing online shopping, or even playing his flight simulation thing. (Kun keeps insisting it's not a game, though.) And if he's not busy with that, he'll be researching recipes, or catching up with the news on the New York Times website to practice his English. Johnny doesn't even know why he was so surprised to find that Kun has a subscription in the first place.
But sometimes, Johnny catches Kun staring at him. During the blazing hot early afternoon over the rim of his iced tea, or even in the low light of the fancy designer lamp by the couch at night; Kun will just look, and look, and look. It's not nearly as distracting as Johnny makes it out to be. He'll bow over his guitar a little more, digging his toes in the plush carpet in the hopes that Kun doesn't see how much the attention makes him burn. Then he gets lost writing all about it in his notebook, busily scribbling some gibberish about dimples or eyebrow moles that makes perfect sense to him in one minute, and in the next, he'll be struggling to decipher his own handwriting. He's almost filled up his entire notebook in the days he's been coming over.
The melodies come easy, too. They could be busy cooking dinner and it'll hit him like a freight train, rushing him out of the kitchen, into the hall, down to the living room where his phone is charging to plug it out from the socket and hum whatever he can still remember into his shitty iPhone. Then he'll run back to the kitchen to finish chopping the vegetables for the dish Kun's planning on making only to see that Kun's already finished it up, humming away at the stove while he stirs.
"Did you record it on time?" Kun asks, his eyes not leaving the pan bubbling away at the stove, but when it takes a little while for Johnny to answer he tacks on a worried "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I managed to catch most of it," Johnny answers eventually, sneaking up behind Kun to leave a soft kiss at his nape where his hair is growing a little longer than usual now that it's their summer break. "It smells delicious."
"Thank you," Kun laughs, his shoulder shooting up at Johnny's tickling touch.
Sometimes, Johnny catches Kun humming his own songs. It doesn't even look like Kun knows that he's doing it, too, like just then in the kitchen. But Johnny knows, though. He knows that it would be fine if Kun turns out to be the only person in the world who enjoys his music.
***
Their summer has only just begun when Kun asks him to stay beneath the neon lights of the 7-eleven, bathing them in an electric mix of fluorescent white and bright orange-green-red. Johnny's hands are sticky and wet from the Popsicle melting all over his fingers, his cheeks burn despite the coldness of the treat.
"Okay," Johnny answers when he actually wants to blurt out a pathetic 'thank you' and 'no one has ever wanted me to'. He doesn't know if he's supposed to do something, if he's allowed to reach out and kiss Kun stupid like he wants to right here in the middle of the street. But Kun's shaky fingers slide in his own before he can make any rash decisions on his own, and they walk back to the apartment amongst the sounds of light traffic, the sweetness of melting ice cream, and giddy laughter.
It's just past nine when Johnny toes out of his sneakers, and he has work in the morning so he really should be sleeping soon anyway if you think about it, is what he tells Kun when the door locks behind them with a definitive beep.
"Yeah, right." Kun snorts, shaking his head as he rushes past him to put away their freshly bought popsicles in the freezer.
Johnny follows after him, resisting the urge to wipe his sticky hand on his shorts. "You don't want to have an early night?"
"It's not even fully dark outside," Kun laughs, his voice a little higher than usual, unceremoniously throwing their frozen treats in the freezer.
"We can close the blinds," Johnny tries again as he washes his hands, making space for Kun so he can join him at the sink. He doesn’t move when he's done, just so he can crowd Kun against the kitchen counter. Close enough to smell the sunshine on Kun's shoulders, close enough to almost taste the sugary chocolate ice cre- oof!
Unfortunately, also close enough to receive Kun's elbow to his ribs.
"You can go to bed early. I want to watch a movie," Kun says without a care over the sound of Johnny's ouches as he wriggles away and pads out of the kitchen.
Johnny’s quick to follow him into the living room, absentmindedly rubbing his chest. He could swear he saw a mottled rosy blush on Kun's face just now. "What are we watching?"
"Oh, so now you're interested?" Kun asks, turning around to quirk a perfect brow at him and oh- yeah, yeah he's blushing. "I don't know, I've got a bunch of DVDs. Showers first, though."
Kun's word is the law, so Johnny lets Kun push him down the hall, through his bedroom door and into his en-suite bathroom. It all happens so fast he can’t even take a proper look at Kun's room. But it's fine, he'll have enough time for that later. Kun shows him how the shower works, where the towels are, where to put his dirty clothes, tells him to separate his whites and colours or else. And then he's right out the door before Johnny even has the chance to ask for a fresh set of clothes for him to change in when he’s done.
Johnny takes a quick shower despite the eighth world wonder that is Kun's shower; it has pressure so perfect that his muscles feel like complete goo and an actually reliable heat regulator. Unlike his own shower, mounted so low on the wall that he has to bow down to wash his hair with its mere two water settings: cold as fuck and hot as balls. He probably could've fallen right asleep standing beneath the magical thing, but the knowledge that Kun was waiting for him somewhere right on the other side of the door has him hyper-focused. Maybe even a little nervous. Okay, definitely a lot nervous.
He manages to emerge from the bathroom with a towel around his waist within a handful of minutes to find Kun paused at his bedroom door, his arms clutched around his laptop.
“You okay?” Johnny asks, stepping into the cold room.
Kun only grunts in reply before rushing past him, plopping down his laptop, charger and a handful of DVDs on his bed. He’s not even looking at Johnny when he points towards a stack of neatly folded clothes at the foot of his bed. “You can change into this. Check my closet if it doesn’t fit, or if you want to wear something else. Pick a movie while I take a shower.”
Then he’s gone, the door of his bathroom falling shut and locking behind him. Johnny doesn’t bother to hide his smirk in the empty room while he gets dressed in the soft pyjama set Kun laid out for him. Kun’s so fucking easy to read.
Johnny settles on Kun’s large bed when he’s finished getting dressed in a soft pyjama shirt and shorts, thinking it can fit the two of them easily. He browses through the six DVDs Kun had picked out for them, but honestly, he is so not in the mood to be watching anything other than the red hue that seems to be ever-present on Kun’s face tonight. He decides on a blockbuster movie that looks interesting enough to watch, but generic enough that they can easily ignore it. He’s fairly sure they’re just going to make out, after all. Fingers crossed.
It isn’t long until the bathroom door opens and Kun walks out in a cloud smelling of citrus-cedar and soapy steam, dressed in light blue linen pyjamas. “Did you pick something?” he asks, throwing his towel over Johnny’s at his desk chair.
“Yeah,” Johnny says distractedly, having a hard time following Kun’s words when he’s looking so.. So... Homely?
“Okay.” Kun slides in next to him, his laptop the only thing between them.
Johnny presses play right as Kun hits the lights. They’re on each other before the opening credits even finish, and Kun deftly pushes away his laptop to the foot of his bed. Their furtive glances and shy touches of earlier long gone, hands travelling across places they haven’t mapped out yet. The kissing is familiar, but their nervous giggles morphing into short gasps as they try to figure out what to do sure as hell are new.
Kun’s pressed beneath Johnny on the bed, his fingers trembling as he cups Johnny’s cheek with a touch so tender that it makes him want to burst.
“Do you- Would you want to try some things?” Kun asks, thumb brushing the slightly bumpy skin of Johnny’s chin, “With me?”
Johnny almost passes out right then and there at Kun’s glossy eyes and spit-stained lips, looking at him like he hung the moon. He’d find a way to do it if Kun asked, would do anything so he’ll never stop looking at him like that. Instead, he leans into Kun’s touch, pressing them closer to one another before answering in a whisper, “Yeah. Have you ever…?”
“Never,” Kun says softly, biting at his lip.
“Me neither,” Johnny confides with a little grin, his fingers ghosting over Kun’s collarbones. “But I’d like to, with you.”
He has thought about this before, as he watched Kun calculate equations across from him at the café, in the privacy of his bedroom late at night, sometimes even during class, and very often when he's trying to focus on the weight of his guitar in his lap. He'll be going about his day when his mind races back to Kun, his lips, his smile. How it would feel to be wrapped up in Kun's embrace; from the tips of their noses to their knocking knees, ankles hooked around one another. But nothing could've prepared him for the real deal, though. Nothing could have ever prepared him for this.
Kun is warm against him. Not cloying warm or sickly summer hot, but comforting and reassuring even though Johnny feels like he’s been set ablaze. The weight of Kun’s arm thrown over his back coaxes him impossibly closer, anchoring him in the moment and not letting him go.
Kun’s lips chase after his when he breaks their kiss for air, his eyes are red and his cheeks are even redder and god Johnny doesn’t want to know what he looks like right now. He can only hope he looks half as good Kun does in the scattered moonlight coming in from the blinds.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Johnny blurts out, because he really doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He only knows that he wants more of this, more of them together in whatever way possible.
But Kun only crinkles his nose, a smile blooming on his face. “Me neither. But it’s fine, isn’t it? We can figure things out as we go.”
“Is this okay?” Johnny’s fingers skirt along the soft expanse of Kun’s belly, quivering beneath his palm with every touch. He tries to focus on the tickle of Kun’s still damp hair against his cheeks and the whirring of the air conditioning cooling down the room.
“Yeah,” Kun gasps out, mouthing at his ear as he grips the elastic of Johnny’s short. “Can I?”
Kun is a fast learner and an even better teacher. It helps that his hands are soft, too. Johnny tells him just that as he melts into Kun’s caresses, slotting against him like he was put on this earth for the sole reason to find Kun. To find him waiting in the rain all those months ago.
Kun noses at his cheek, clinging to his pyjama shirt. “Shut up, ah-”
Johnny has always been a more tactile student, though, preferring to learn through experimenting and example. He is especially good with his hands despite his rough calluses from all his guitar playing. It’s good that Kun doesn’t seem to mind them at all.
***
It’s on the second night that he’s been staying over at Kun’s house, when they’re hanging out on the balcony watching the sun go down, that Johnny realizes how silly they are.
“Hey,” Kun starts, and Johnny has to strain his ears to hear Kun’s whispers over the sounds of the city settling down for the night. “Are we dating? I mean are we- You’re my boyfriend, right?”
Johnny cocks his head at Kun, his hand clutching the cool steel of the rails. It bites at his overheated skin, but he finds that it grounds him as he tries to gauge Kun’s mood. But it’s a little hard to read his expression when Kun’s not looking at him, his head and arms dangling precariously over the balcony rails, fixated on watching the traffic roll by below them.
He shrugs even though Kun can’t see him do it, and bumps his hip against the other’s. “I sure hope so after last night. You’ve got to take responsibility.”
Kun snorts at that and he takes his time to stand up straight again, his hair flopping back in its place as he lets all the blood flow back to the rest of his body. He is a little unstable on his feet when he walks over to the rattan couch in the corner of the balcony, nestled between an assortment of flower pots and hanging plants.
“It’s just that,” Kun sighs out as he sits down and pulls his feet up, patting at the open space next to him in an invitation. “We never talked about it, you know. I wanted to be sure.”
It’s odd. Johnny doesn’t remember a time in the past where Kun has sounded this unsure about anything. He hates everything about it, wants to kick himself for making him feel this way. Instead, he goes right for the couch and pulls Kun into his arms. “You’re my boyfriend, and I am yours.”
Kun settles against Johnny, resting his head on his shoulder. "We didn't even have each other's numbers until last week."
"In my defence, I have never seen you use your phone, ever. I was starting to think you used pigeon post to keep in touch with people," Johnny jokes, mumbling the words into Kun’s fluffy hair. Kun smacks his arm. "I didn't think to ask until I realized we wouldn’t see each other over the break.”
Kun hums, burrowing closer. "Thank you for asking me to hang out."
"You're overthinking things again," Johnny chuckles, pressing a kiss to Kun’s ear.
"I can't help it," Kun says and Johnny can hear the pout in his voice.
"I know," Johnny sighs out. "You don't have to think about anything. Not when it’s just you and me."
"Okay, good." Kun sags against Johnny's side, the tension finally leaving his body.
"Good," Johnny echoes, his fingers skirting over Kun's hand clutched over his knee, taking it in his own.
The sun goes down at a steady pace, bright red and blazing orange before mottling into a curtain of dark purple and indigo. Johnny thinks Kun might have fallen asleep next to him, his breaths steady and soft, but he doesn't want to check in case the movement wakes him up. Not after Kun spent all day with his nose in his complicated books. He deserves a little break. But Kun speaks, then, murmuring the words against the skin of his shoulder.
"Do we still have popsicles?"
Johnny bites his tongue before he can laugh, not expecting a question about popsicles of all things. "There were five in the pack we bought yesterday and we each had two after dinner. It's late, though, you'll get a belly ache."
Kun slides into his flipflops and stretches as he gets up, his t-shirt riding up a bit at his stomach, exposing untanned skin. Johnny has half the mind to realize it would do him well to look away, but he doesn’t. He holds his breath and watches on in rapt attention as Kun curls his fingers around the cold steel of the balcony railing, one finger after another. He can’t look away when Kun closes his eyes against the twinkling lights of the cityscape stretched out in front of them, and leans into the cool breeze that passes by.
Johnny shivers. He’ll never be the same after tonight.
Kun purses his lips in contemplation, or maybe even mischief, before turning to him with a grin, all languid and perfect against the dark sky. “Wanna share the last one?”
A car honks from somewhere down below. Johnny doesn’t know if the buzzing he hears is coming from between his ears or if there are mosquitoes on the prowl. “Yeah, I do.”
***
The unforgiving pitter-pat of rain tapping against the car window wakes Johnny from a restless sleep. Blinking at the foggy morning city blurred in a mess of rainwater, he briefly wonders if God is playing some kind of sick joke on him. He burrows deeper into his sweater hoodie, turning away from the window as he fishes his earphones from his pocket.
"We're forty minutes away from the airport, so try to sleep while you still can. You're not going to get much rest on tour," his manager calls out to him from the front and Johnny only grunts out a response.
He plugs in his earphones, playing a soothing song loud enough to drown out any and all sounds around him.
There had been a time when he could've wept at the sight of a light drizzle, a few years ago already. When the sound of hail hitting asphalt or the smell of an oncoming storm would've swelled in his heart and poured out of his eyes in sheer delight. But that had been a different time. That had been before he had to grow up.