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Hoesik lasts until 22:30. It’s a blessing and a curse that Wonwoo’s department lead favors him; having an unassigned-assigned seat right by their side meant his glass was kept topped full with beer, seldom straying below halfway. By drink three point five, Wonwoo had to get creative. Sometimes that meant letting Jeonghan take gulps whenever their department lead glanced away, sometimes that meant mixing his beer with water and taking slow, careful sips over the next two hours.
He’s still tipsy on the KTX home. It’s better than being drunk, but Wonwoo doesn’t like the way his head sloshes as the train rocks, how sloppy he feels: tie loose, legs spread in his dress pants, beer-sleepy. He doesn’t like the loneliness of a Wednesday, 22:30 train ride, fluorescence and the random scatter of business men the only company he has, and the way intoxication drags out the hopelessness he’s been trying to keep away.
Last weekend he was sharing anju and a bottle of lychee soju with Mingyu, romanticizing their high school years. The days they’d walk past restaurants on their way to the bus stop and not offer a glance at the men forced into bi-monthly hoesik in hopes of a promotion. Tonight, Wonwoo remembers the 22:30 bus rides back to his home in Changwon because hagwon was six days a week, and his academy professor wouldn’t dismiss him until he could write the English sentences without mixing up you were/you are/you’d been/you were going to.
It all floods back into him, then, loose like watered beer: the worksheets his father made sure he did before bed; spooning rice into his mouth with one hand while the other tapped pencil-points against notebook three of fifty; his favorite cubicle at university, because it sat against a window, and the street lamp outside helped guide him through his wordy, 9-font practice questions. His mother holding his hands in prayer the day of his suneung, tears in her voice as she told him to try his best, that she’d love him no matter what happens in the next eight hours. Keeping quiet and still as his friends scrambled to see the answers posted online and trying to remember what they’d chosen.
Suddenly, the occasional hoesik doesn’t sound so awful.
This song and dance eats at him, though. On nights like this, he can’t pretend otherwise. How hopeless it feels that he spends his life waiting for the hours to pass. In nine hours, he’ll be home. In two hours, he can dismiss himself without looking rude. In thirty minutes, he can scoop his lover in his arms and kiss their eyelids closed. In five minutes, he’ll be at peace.
Peace for whom? Wonwoo thumbs the code to his—his and Chan’s—apartment, pushes the door open to the lights on. All of them, from the kitchen to the living room to their tiny hall that leads to one bedroom, one bathroom. It’s so atypical that Wonwoo briefly considers that maybe he was the one that left the lights on before leaving this morning; Chan’s been antsy about waste since he’s been out of work. There was a tense air about him when six a.m. Wonwoo kissed him goodbye—that coiling, too-tight curl he gets whenever there’s another job interview on the horizon—but Chan wouldn’t do this. Chan doesn’t—
Wonwoo kicks his oxfords off by the cubby, doesn’t bother putting them in their rightful place before navigating through their apartment. If he stops and listens, he can hear the reverberating sound of running water, not muted like it would be if the door was closed.
“Chan-ah?” he beckons. His socks slide against the wood, a soft shuffle that’s drowned out with the crying faucets. Multiple crying faucets. Worry makes room for dread, and Wonwoo’s next, “Chan-ah?” is less steady, more frantic.
Wonwoo turns down the short hall. Both their bedroom and bathroom doors are open. Only the bathroom light pours out along the opposite wall.
There’s a strong, bleach smell, Wonwoo realizes. Bleach, some kind of manufactured fruit that reminds Wonwoo of conditioner, and quiet shuffling. Plastic knocking together.
He approaches the threshold and shoves the door farther open.
The knock of the hinges shocks Chan to attention, whom Wonwoo finds kneeling against the tiled floor on his haunches, surrounded by applicator brushes, plastic bowls from their kitchen, and hair products lying haphazardly at his legs. The sink and shower faucet is running, Chan’s sweatpants soaked through because there’s no demarcation between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. He has his phone in one hand, a used toner brush in the other.
And he’s blonde. Hair still damp, hanging just past his ears, eyes wider and rounder where Wonwoo’s standing. Everything is wet. Splotches on Chan’s (Wonwoo’s) old sleep tee, smeared into his cheeks, against his red-tinged nose. They stare at one another. Wonwoo can see the past year leaking out through Chan’s expression, rejection after rejection, the tutors and hagwons he couldn’t afford, a suneung score he told himself he was okay with because I’m from a family of entertainers, hyung, I’ll be okay. The turmoil that’s collected and festered and now it’s here, a tide too harsh to contain.
Wonwoo will work against their futility. Let this drag him under, too.
“Okay. This is nice,” Wonwoo says. He toes past the threshold, puddles seeping into his socks, and folds down onto his ass with a soft aigoo. “We’re at the sea.”
Chan doesn’t stop staring. Mouth open to bare teeth, eyes wide and nearly unfocused.
“Hamdeok in February. Cold—but that’s okay. It’s still a beautiful view.” Wonwoo shudders through an inhale. He lets the night out with his breath. “I love how the water looks against the sand, white and blue. It’s a pretty combination.”
Chan’s fingers are loose when Wonwoo pries his phone and brush out of both hands. He deposits the brush in one of the bowls—there’s still toner in it—and safely drops his phone into the front pocket of his dress shirt. He continues, “Maybe it’s too cold to visit the beach in winter... but we can go eat at that beachside restaurant. I forget the name. Naengmyeon is a year-round meal. Are you hungry?”
He dares himself to school his expression when he looks at Chan. There’s a long, almost-tense silence that the running faucets fill, a chorus of screaming water, of something rattling in their walls. Given everything, he’d done a good job at bleaching every strand of black from his head. His eyebrows are similar in color, albeit a bit darker. The longer they stare at one another, the redder his nose colors.
Finally, Chan’s voice cracks open on a, “Yeah. I’m.”
“Chan-ah.” This time, Wonwoo’s voice cracks, too. “Your blonde hair looks so pretty with the white and blue. Did you know that?” He waits for Chan to shake his head—a tiny jerk and nothing more. “I wish you could see yourself. Hamdeok has never been prettier. I like it.”
“Hyung—”
“It’s too cold to swim,” Wonwoo says, “but we can put our feet in the water. Go out far enough until it’s at our knees, and I can take a picture of you. Do you wanna do that? Enjoy our vacation together?”
Everywhere is so wet. Wonwoo’s dress pants are heavy with shower water, and Wonwoo can’t tell if Chan is crying or if the rivulets are trailing down from his hairline. There’s an undeniable sob when Chan offers, “I’m sorry,” and Wonwoo only hears it through the noise because he can see the words on Chan’s stress-raw lips. “I didn’t—but—but tomorrow I’ll hear back from—I shouldn’t have dyed—hyung, I didn’t mea—”
“No. No, no.” Wonwoo traces Chan’s broad jaw with his fingertips, across his chin and back up again. Chan goes easily when he cradles his face with both palms and guides him in. The skin of his face is so cold, sharp little hairs already coming in. Hamdeok is cold in February.
Wonwoo presses his mouth to Chan’s eyelids until he closes them. Wonwoo tells him, “No, baby. I don’t know about any of that. We’re at the sea.”