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It’s on a June afternoon between two hot pre-summer showers, that Hyunjin kisses him for the first time.
They’re cutting history, two hours to themselves on the roof of the humanities building, up high between the skyscrapers where the basketball court is. The air is heavy and slice-it-with-a-knife-thick, city groaning and struggling to stay upright beneath the weight of the damp air and the too close, sleepy sky.
Hyunjin’s chunky Nikes squeak against the green of the roof and the white of the three-point line as he jumps to shoot a hoop. His tie is loosened, his uniform shirt’s sleeves pushed up to his boney elbows, the skin of his face glowy with sweat.
Jisung pushes his elbows into his knees, legs spread wide. Sweat trickles down his neck, into the collar of his shirt.
He’s been trying to look away from the dampness of Hyunjin’s hair for a while now, the soft inside of his wrists, but he has yet to succeed.
Hyunjin shouts his name. His last name, “Han,” he shouts, and his voice sounds strange up here in the summer heat, with all that air, Seoul summers like a lazy animal winding itself around the houses. The sun behind the grey-blueish, bright sky melts Hyunjin’s voice against the ground of the roof and the chain-wire fence surrounding the court. Jisung looks up from his beat converse.
The ball is somewhere behind Hyunjin, Jisung isn’t sure if he hit or missed the basket, but it doesn’t matter when Hyunjin comes towards him, runs a hand through his hair. Jisung stares absent-mindedly at the fine hairs on Hyunjin’s forearms for a beat, until Hyunjin snorts, snaps his fingers for him.
“Han, how much time do we have left?” Hyunjin is a little out of breath, pushes his hair away from his face a second time. Jisung blinks up at him, down at the casio on his wrist. Hyunjin leans over him.
“Around 40.” He looks back up at Hyunjin, up at Hyunjin looking down at him sitting on the plastic bench the same color as the floor.
Hyunjin’s grin is small, winning.
“Cool. Wanna play?” he asks, and turns around with a small skip, or; a small stumble, really, jogging and picking up the ball. He squints at Jisung over his shoulder when he doesn’t reply, and Jisung blinks, gives him half a shake and half a nod.
“Nah, I’m good watching,” he says, which makes Hyunjin snort. He raises an eyebrow.
“You’re good watching,” he repeats, voice dipped neck-deep in sarcasm.
Jisung feels his cheeks heat up, and stares at his shoes again, black and white against green, and he feels more than sees Hyunjin coming towards him, tossing the ball aside.
Hyunjin drops himself to the ground on front a few feet away from Jisung and leans back with a sigh, sleepily staring at the sky, fingers spread out where he's supporting himself on the ground.
Hyunjin watches the sky, watches planes passing, and Jisung watches Hyunjin.
He’s always been all long lines, all defined, pretty features, the slant of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the dip of his jaw. Jisung doesn’t remember a day since they got thrown into the same self-study class at the beginning of 9th grade on which he didn’t find himself staring at Hyunjin for a second too long, lost in thought, something sitting high in his throat, heavy, rising that he’s so used to pressing down. Press it down, Jisung, press it down.
Hyunjin glances at him.
“What are you thinking about,” he asks quietly, and Jisung feels his tongue press against the back of his teeth. He cracks his knuckles, fumbles with a loose thread on his uniform shorts, lets a few moments pass before he replies.
“Nothing much,” he says, and that’s a lie, because who he’s thinking about is Hyunjin, you, I’m thinking about you. You’re all I can think about these days, even though I should be worrying about my grades and my future and my finals and what I want to do with my life.
But those thoughts make him shake, make his windpipe clamp up even more than the thought of Hyunjin. Thinking about Hyunjin, and his pretty eyes, and his pretty smile and the way he sometimes holds onto Jisung a little tighter than necessary when they’re hugging goodbye and Jisung tries to pull away.
Hyunjin is still looking at him, eyeing the way Jisung is now ripping bits off the thread on his pants, pulling the seam apart, jaw tense, fingers so very nervous. There’s a certain practiced clarity, calmness in Hyunjin’s eyes.
“Come down here,” he says gently, and stretches out a hand, makes a come-hither-gesture with his index and middle finger. Jisung lets out a bated breath, pushes himself off the bench and slides to the floor, crosses his legs, faces Hyunjin, his head hung low.
And Hyunjin scoots closer until their knees are pressed against each other. He bats Jisung’s hand away from the poor seam of his uniform shorts, takes it into both of his own, and they’re so abnormally pretty and long-fingered, so wide next to Jisung’s hands that Jisung has to look away, close his eyes when Hyunjin starts rubbing between his index finger and his thumb.
“Where are you right now, Ji,” Hyunjin says, all gentle, and Jisung squeezes his eyes shut. He’s floating somewhere. He doesn’t know where or why, but he’s floating, swimming through air.
“I don’t know.” He sounds so small when he says this, wants to curl into himself in shame.
“Good. Stop thinking about it then. You don’t have to be anywhere. You’re here, right now. You’re here with me. We don’t have to be anything else right now.” And its kind of a lie, because somewhere far below them, their history teacher is filling the whiteboard with dates upon dates spelling out the aftermath of the Korean war, and up here between clouds and chain-wire, Hyunjin is intertwining their fingers, rubs his thumb over Jisung’s knuckles.
So Jisung tries to focus on the touch, tries not to slip further. Tries to focus on Hyunjin’s hands, Hyunjin’s eyes that he can feel resting on him.
The tension Jisung holds between his index and his thumb. The softstrong press of Hyunjin’s fingers.
Jisung keeps losing himself, but every single time, he remembers this, remembers Hyunjin.
They sit and breathe in this pocket dimension of theirs where time doesn’t move. Hyunjin keeps pushing slows circles into Jisung’s hand, and Jisung keeps stealing glances at Hyunjin out of the corner of his eye. Nervous little flickers that linger, that Hyunjin catches every now and then, a knowing glint in his dark orbs, before they flicker up and away.
Jisung continuously, pathologically craves this very specific kind of contact that’s on the thin line between just enough and not too much. He’s so fragile these days, crumbles like dry clay under pressure; he’s quick to close himself off and he’s quick to cry, and he needs this quiet reassurance more than anything.
And Hyunjin knows. Of course, he knows. And he’s always eager to give, always bursting at the seams with love.
“What were you really thinking about,” Hyunjin says after a while, voice louder than before, and Jisung realizes that he moved closer sometime back, shins pressing together now, and a breath rushes out of Jisung. He fixes his gaze somewhere above Hyunjin’s shoulder, ignores the way Hyunjin is watching him, patiently through strands of his bleached hair. His nervously flitting gaze finds a plane way up and behind layers and layers of dust and clouds to hold onto.
“Nothing much,” Jisung insists, and once again, it's a lie.
He’s shaking. Hyunjin must feel it too; he’s still holding his hand, and the warmth of his shin is still pressing into Jisung’s own. Their palms are growing sweaty, Hyunjin’s nails gently scratching at the back of his hand now, like it’s the back of a kitten’s head, like he’s holding something sweet, something precious and fragile.
It’s a game of who will move first.
Their skins linger with each other, as they tend to, and Jisung is so sensitive to it, so very aware of it, of every inch, every cell they’re touching, he feels on fire with it, and thinks it’s impossible that Hyunjin doesn’t. The fact that they’re touching; he watches the plane disappear behind one of the surrounding skyscrapers.
They’re touching, and neither of them can deny it, and it’s so painfully in between awkward and pleasant that the two feelings melt together somehow. Heat seeps through the fabric of Hyunjin’s slacks, against Jisung’s bare knee. A game of who will move first. If not me, if not you, then who.
Hyunjin traces a question mark on Jisung’s skin. Jisung looks up, and meets his smile, meets his everything, and he’s still shaking, goose bumps on his neck and arms.
“You’re funny,” Hyunjin smiles, and Jisung huffs.
“Funny?” Hyunjin just nods. His nimble fingers find the hollow of Jisung’s wrist, find his fluttering pulse under the flower-petal soft skin. And his lips part on an airy grin.
“Yeah, and a bad liar,” he says.
There’s something so knowing and tender in the way Hyunjin looks at him, something so deeply trusting and enamored that always makes Jisung feel a little winded, in the way he would feel after running up a flight of stairs only to stand at the top step and find that he has forgotten what he came upstairs for. Like all his words have rushed out of him, leaving him vacant, staring.
Jisung doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t dare to open his mouth, his mouth that only ever blurts out things that irritate others, doesn’t dare to disrupt the moment in all its fragility.
Hyunjin has moved closer, his hands squeezing around Jisung’s.
“Ji,” he says quietly, and tilts his head, eyes flitting down, up again.
There's someting so reverent in the way Hyunjin says his nickname, the way he rolls the syllable around his mouth like a piece of melting chocolate, and Jisung has half a mind to get hung up on it, before he feels Hyunjin's free left curl around the side of his neck, all gentle, all warm, dry palm, and Hyunjin is in his space, and Hyunjin is tilting his head and connecting their lips. Hyunjin kisses him, and something inside Jisung's chest collapses in on itself, all the walls coming down, down. They collapse, dry clay, and Jisung feels it in his throat, in his spine; the way his heart starts pounding.
It's so good. Feels so, so good to be this close.
It's soft at first, the barely there press of warm skin on skin, Hyunjin evidently testing the waters. Gauging Jisung's reaction before he moves. And when he moves, it's still so unbelievably soft, so purposeful and gentle. What leaves Jisung's shoulders pulled up to his ears, has his cheeks burning, is the sheer intimacy of it all.
He's shaking all over, his bare arms covered in goose bumps, overwhelmed by how close they are with a wine stuck between his tongue and throat as Hyunjin kisses him. Beautiful, funny, kind-eyed, talented Hyunjin, kissing him, and Jisung's trembling hands surge up to curl into the collar of his uniform shirt, white-knuckle grip as his head spins and spins.
Hyunjin takes it in his stride and presses closer, his tongue on Jisung's teeth, runs his fingers into the soft hairs at the back of Jisung's neck on an exhale.
"Jisung," he sighs between two kisses, "Jisung, can I touch you?"
His voice is all hot breath against Jisung's lips, gentle fingertips ghosting against Jisung's wrist, and that finally dislodges the whine from the back of Jisung's throat.
"Yes," he gasps, "yes," and barely catches the please before it slips out, and rushes back in, kisses Hyunjin hungrily as Hyunjin's hand curls into his waist. His hands are so impossibly, stupidly wide, strong fingers burning Jisung's skin through the thin cotton of his shirt as Hyunjin edges closer, his other still on Jisung's neck, playing with his collar, pressing against his chest.
They kiss like that, suspended somehere in between utterly gentle and passionate, and Jisung is shivering, trembling against Hyunjin, so sensitive to his every touch, his every move, whining and gasping and shifting around and around. The angle is awkward, and he's itching, skin crawling with the need to climb into Hyunjin's lap, wanting so badly to feel him even closer. Jisung wants Hyunjin so much, wants so much of him, and he says as much, tugs on Hyunjin's shirt, swings a leg over Hyunjin's thighs, rests his elbows on his shoulders and cages his head between his forearms.
"Hyunjin," he says, "Hyunjin," his voice so tight, so desperate, almost tearful that he's afraid it might tear itself apart. Hyunjin, Hyunjin, Hyunjin pushes at his waist gently, and they break apart for a moment, and that's when Jisung realizes that he's been holding his breath. This whole time.
"You're burning," Hyunjin mutters, and Jisung ignores him, chases his lips blindly, hears his own voice, hears himself say "Please, please," hears himself heaving out breath after breath, please keep touching me, please keep meaning to, please keep telling me how much you like me.
"Let's slow down," Hyunjin hums, "okay?" and Jisung squeezes his eyes shut, locks out the light. He wants to sob, hands cramping up in the fabric of Hyunjin's shirt as Hyunjin kisses his temple, brushes his bangs back carefully, kisses his hairline. "Let's slow it down a bit."
Jisung's burning up, his chest full of an achey emptiness, his lungs on fire, his lips numb, and he curls into Hyunjin, presses his head into his chest; his spine splumped, his shoulders heavy as he gulps in breath after breath of air.
"I like you," he says then, his head pounding, "I like you so much, Hyunjin-ah," because the thought was there, has been for a while now.
Hyunjin puts his hands on Jisung's back, and they're so warm, so wide and gentle and Jisung keens, pulls Hyunjin closer and drops his head into the crook of Hyunjin's neck, seeking refuge. Hyunjin noses along Jisung's temple, presses a kiss to the shell of his ear, breathes there for a few beats; he runs his hands up and down Jisung's shaking back, and his voice is so calm and sweet, a honey sound, a morning sound when he replies.
"I really like you, too, Ji," he says, and Jisung presses his lips together, giddy little heart threatening to jump out. His cheeks are hot to the touch, and so are his ears, and so are Hyunjin's hands when he takes one of Jisung's into his again.
Hyunjin presses down on the tense spot between index finger and thumb; rolls his touch around it, rolls a wave of quiet through Jisung.
Leads them through their little pocket dimension in which there's a teacher, a class, a live down below them somehwere, but where the rain can be put off another hour by hour by minute by minute. Where right now, they don't have much else to be but Hyunjin watching Jisung watching Hyunjin shoot hoops. Jisung, climbing into his lap. Jisung watching Hyunjin as they play on the roof in the diffuse light of an afternoon.
It’s on a dry Thursday evening in August, 14 months later that Jisung remembers this day.
They’re on the roof of their building, 8 floors above an apartment on the 12th floor, Hyunjin taking photos of the sunset and Jisung's can of melon soda, and of Jisung, who keeps grinning at him, all shy and sunburnt.
“What are you thinking about,” Hyunjin says, half to the empty air between them, the rest to the blushing gradient of the sky that stretches everywhere, from the tops of the surrounding skyscrapers to some place Jisung can’t see without craning his neck.
Jisung doesn't want to answer "Nothing much," so he doesnt. Doesn't reply at all, just throws Hyunjn's name out there, allows a bit of his smile to slip out with it.
"Hyunie," he says, and, ever a mirror, Hyunjin smiles back, and leans over, into Jisung's space, places his phone aside in favor of cupping Jisung’s cheek, and kisses him with that impossible softness of his.
That impossible finding Jisung exactly where he is, and meeting him halfway.
Hyunjin finds him, and kisses him, and it shuts everything up, everything down. Melon soda spills down Jisung’s forearm as he shivers heavily, curls a hand around Hyunjin’s wrist, tilts his head.
It takes him right back to the green and grey of the basketball court. The basketball court between the Skyscrapers. Hyunjin, shooting hoops.
Hyunjin here and now, climbing into his lap.