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In retrospect, Jaehyun should have seen this coming.
First of all, his alcohol tolerance is terrible , and being in a hastily-thrown-together Squid Game guard costume had done nothing to help him with that. He’d been two bottles of soju and maybe a shot of Jaeger in when it had happened (he doesn’t want to think about it beyond it . It is nothing more than an it ) and he supposes that it might be a blessing in disguise, the fact that he can blame the night on genetics and an Asian flush.
Second of all, the timing of the Halloween party couldn’t have been worse. Sunwoo had told him in advance that he wouldn’t be there to pick him up if he got shitfaced, something about I’m wishing on Eric’s Genshin account and he’ll kill me if I leave before he gets a 5 star and Haknyeon is also going to be there and I don’t want to embarrass myself which Jaehyun thinks is probably code for getting dick in the nerdiest way possible. And besides, even if Sunwoo had been free, the party is almost 40 minutes away from their apartment, sans traffic.
So now, he’s slumped against the cool glass of the nearest Ministop, so woozy that he can barely sit up straight. Jaehyun ponders how he hasn’t been kidnapped yet, eyes half closed to block out the bright fluorescents, and at this point, spending the rest of the evening horizontal in someone’s car trunk might be a better option. At least he can sleep like that.
The rational part of him wants to call Sunwoo, tell him to book an Uber or something and order him some takeout so that he can get home, dive face first into bed and watch romantic movies until he physically can’t cry anymore. The angrier part of him wants to go back to the party and continue it . The drunk part of him whirls around in a panic, because someone is tapping his shoulder at 3AM in a deserted Ministop, and he is drunk and maybe on the verge of tears and—
“Hi, are you okay?” The stool next to Jaehyun screeches across the linoleum, and there’s an elbow now taking up the rest of the tiny coffee table. “You don’t look so hot.”
There’s a stranger sitting next to him, soundlessly drumming long, callused fingers on the cheap wood of the table. Under different circumstances, Jaehyun would have probably zipped the front of his itchy pink tracksuit up higher, maybe pulled down his square mask and left the Ministop. Under sober, normal circumstances, Jaehyun would have probably phoned a random number and begged them to pretend to be his boyfriend.
Instead, he gapes at the stranger, blank. “I’m fine.” The syllable comes with a wave of nausea, and Jaehyun traces the stranger’s eyebrows as they rise slightly at his moderate (Jaehyun can’t tell if the walls are supposed to be moving) swaying. “Might be a little bit drunk.”
“Okay, maybe don’t move around too much?” He steadies Jaehyun’s shoulders with his hands, and the convenience store seems to come back into sharper focus. There’s a slight curve to the stranger’s jaw that Jaehyun can’t help but note, and he files that thought away for later. Is it weird to be thinking about a convenience store stranger’s jaw? “Stay right here. I’m going to get you something to drink. Is that alright?”
“You need to tell me your name first!” Jaehyun makes a fist around the stranger’s fingers, yanks them off his shoulder, and the stranger blushes pale pink, ghostly in the harsh light of the store. “I won’t let you just buy me things if you don’t tell me your name. It’s just manners!”
“My name is Jacob.” His lips quirk up at the edges, and is he laughing at Jaehyun? That’s quite rude, they’ve barely even met— “How about you?”
“I’m Jaehyun. And don’t laugh at me! There’s nothing funny about my name.”
Jacob schools his face into solemnity. “Okay Jaehyun. Do you want anything else?”
Jaehyun wants a hug. Maybe also cup noodles? Would it be appropriate to ask for both?
“Can you get me some of those Nissin ramen packs? The ones by the counter.”
Jacob gives him a thumbs up and retreats into the aisles. He’s a lot taller than he looks, standing up, and there’s a presence in the way he carries himself that Jaehyun can’t quite place. It’s gentle, somehow too quiet for what Jaehyun’s alcohol-addled brain normally associates with movement. He decides that he likes it, the soft glide of Jacob’s sneakers over tile as he pulls a bottle of Gatorade from the chiller, before heading to the counter and giving Jaehyun a soft smile as he picks out a pack of noodles.
And it honestly seems like too much for one night, Jaehyun thinks, leaning down so that his chin touches the coffee table. Dealing with what had happened at the party (hands and hands and then words that he wanted to hear, words that he couldn’t have expected and then the front door closing and opening behind him, running down the stairs and onto the main road where cars would drown out the voices behind him saying wait, wait ), walking all the way to the convenience store with his head spinning, remembering that Sunwoo probably wouldn’t be able to come get him until the morning after.
But now there’s Jacob, a complete stranger. Paying for his hangover drink and a pack of noodles he wants for some reason at this time of day, and part of him wants to run out the door and walk all the way home, because he doesn’t have to think as hard when his legs are pumping and he’s trying not to get hit by a car. He risks a glance back at the counter, and Jacob is heading back towards him, a small plastic bag in the crook of his arm.
“One bottle of Gatorade, and your noodles.” He’s got a small thermos in hand, and Jaehyun watches wordlessly as he peels the cup open, fills it to the marked line with hot water. Somehow, he doesn’t spill a single drop, and Jaehyun recalls the carpets he’s ruined back in their apartment, shaky hands that he can’t seem to keep still while pouring and Sunwoo’s braying laugh. It’s that quiet groundedness again, he thinks, and Jacob weighs the flimsy lid of the noodle cup down with chopsticks before turning to face him.
“So, what brings you to a Ministop at—” Jacob whirls to check the clock above the front door. “—3:34 AM on All Saints’ Day?”
He tugs at his tracksuit halfheartedly. “Halloween party. I’m a Squid Game guard.” And because it feels appropriate, he bares his teeth at the end of the sentence (why? Jaehyun doesn’t really know. It makes him feel a bit more in control, and less like crying, because he’s slowly sobering up in the most unfortunate manner). The zipper up the tracksuit’s front is still refusing to close properly, and he’s almost certain that all the yanking it’s been through had probably messed with the clasp. His sister is going to kill him when she finds out. “How about you, what are you supposed to be?”
Jacob’s lip twitches a little bit. “I mean, do I look like I’m dressed up for something?” He’s in a soft, brown jacket, layered over a flannel cardigan and worn jeans. It looks like something that might have been popular ten years ago, and the fake plugs in his ears do nothing to discourage the sentiment. His hair is a mess of brown curls that Jaehyun sort of wants to run his hands through, because he happens to be pent up in that manner. God, he needs to get a grip.
He licks his lips. “A...2000s boy band heart throb?”
The laugh he gets in response fills their corner of the convenience store, and it’s a sound that seems to even out the erratic spiking of Jaehyun’s heart, the bubbling of his blood that hasn’t stopped since the party. Jacob covers his mouth with one hand to stifle the sound, and his eyes curve into crescents as his shoulders rock gently. “Actually, I’m a ghost.”
Jaehyun frowns. “What kind of ghost are you supposed to be?”
“A 2000s boy band heart throb ghost.”
Huh. “Touché.” Jacob pushes the unopened bottle of Gatorade towards him, and Jaehyun takes it in both hands, allows the mist forming on the outside of the bottle to cool his skin.
“How did you end up here from a Halloween party though?” Jacob plays with the lip of the noodle cup as Jaehyun drinks, eyes tracing the grain of the coffee table. “Were you supposed to meet someone here?”
Ah. Jaehyun decides to drink extra slowly just to avoid the question, one gulp in, two gulps in, three gulps ohmygod he inhaled Gatorade, and Jacob is slapping him on the back as he wheezes into his fist, palm cool against the nape of his neck. “I left early, but no one was there to pick me up and I was pretty drunk, so…” He vaguely gestures through the rest of the sentence with his hands, and Jacob is kind enough to not press him.
“Was the party fun?” Jacob is staring right at him, and it’s so direct that Jaehyun has to look away. “I haven’t been to a Halloween party in a really long time.”
“It was…” And there’s a moment of hesitation that he prays Jacob won’t catch, a small pocket of want between the words that he can almost taste. It’s a tiny space, cramped and filled with heat and a little bit of shame and regret and something that feels like reaching out in the dark, and it lances a clean line between his words as he tries to continue. “Alright. It was alright.”
Jacob doesn’t reply at first, and Jaehyun hopes, briefly and regretfully, that he’s going to let him get away with it. And then he shuffles a little bit in his seat, pulls his sneakers up onto the tiny wooden rung of the stool and leans forward. “We’ve just met but—”
Jaehyun swallows. “Yeah, which is why I don’t have to tell you anything I don’t want to.” He feels drunk all over again, swimming through air like it’s made of syrup, and time has never passed more quickly or slowly than it has now (except maybe in that closet, maybe when there was something for Jaehyun to hold on to that still wanted him and didn’t force him out the door). “I don’t know you.”
“I know that.” Jacob’s voice is gentle, so gentle, and it sort of makes Jaehyun want to sob. Less in the angry, visceral way that’s been building up at the back of his throat all night, waiting to erupt, but something closer to an embrace. A release, maybe. “Which is why I won’t judge if you do tell me anything. Clean slate.”
A pause, and it somehow doesn’t feel as loaded as Jaehyun expected it to. “You looked like you had a lot on your mind.”
The clock chimes 4 AM, and Jacob slides him the cup of noodles. “Eat? It might help with the alcohol.”
He takes the chopsticks and splits them down the middle, cleanly. It sort of feels like a mockery, how easily it breaks in two. Neat, with none of the complication of things left unstated, things left just out of reach that have him groping for a sign. No splinters.
Jaehyun swallows. “I have this friend.”
Juyeon is much, much more than a friend. Even drunk, this is clear to Jaehyun, because friends don’t decide to co-parent a new kitten that one of them had spontaneously decided to adopt, chest throbbing at the sincerity of the other’s smile. Friends don’t return from Jeju after a summer trip with an entire crate of tangerines, and make a scene attempting to present them in the most heartfelt way possible. Friends don’t end up kissing in the back of the gym after Physical Education, all sweaty palms and hiked up shorts and gym bags discarded.
Jacob hums. “Take your time.” He’s rubbing circles into the coffee table with his index finger, and Jaehyun almost wants to borrow his hand, to play with lines of his thumb as he tries to organize thought upon thought into coherence.
“And I thought that maybe we were becoming more than that? Because we spent so much time together and I didn’t want to think that it was just me, and we ended up—” He takes a breath. “—together, at one point.”
“Together?”
Jaehyun nods, shakily. Inhale, exhale, and Jacob is placing a hand on his arm, running his thumb up and down the tendon that protrudes from Jaehyun’s pale skin, an aftereffect of how hard he’s been clenching his fists. “Together.”
And really, was there any other way to put it? Juyeon, clinging onto his arm that afternoon after they’d left the gym, equal parts flushed and embarrassed and giddy. Walking him to the gate of the campus, ten minutes away from where he’d usually exit to catch the train home. Was there any other word for it, walking arm in arm through a silence that was just as much comfort as it was rest, than together ?
“And because of that, I wanted to talk to him, right? At the party.” And it is cruel, Jaehyun thinks, that he feels most sober at this point. That there is no headache to wade through, no grogginess to scapegoat. “I thought that he’d be happy to see me.”
Jacob purses his lips, and Jaehyun can almost feel him testing the waters, probing. He has barely known Jaehyun for an hour, but there is a special perceptiveness to his movements, a dear caution. It persists when Jacob chooses to say nothing, to instead watch Jaehyun carefully, fingers gentle on the curve of his arm.
“So I did talk to him. And it didn’t go as planned.”
Juyeon had been much, much more than a friend. Yes, Jaehyun thinks bitterly, he had been , because more-than-friends weren’t supposed to drag you into a closet, kiss down your neck and ruin the zipper of your sister’s tracksuit, then leave you stranded in the dark with a half apology. More-than-friends weren’t unreachable in the dark, then reaching as you ran down the stairs of the apartment complex. More-than-friends weren’t supposed to realize halfway, face flushed to pale, that they couldn’t do this .
“What did you say?”
That draws a laugh from him, and it sounds more bitter than Jaehyun thought possible. “Barely anything, actually. I was too busy kissing him.” He swallows. “Sorry, you didn’t need to hear that.”
“And what did he say to you?” Jacob winces as he gets the question out, like he knows that whatever hurt he has locked away is barely worth repeating. Jaehyun lets it out anyway, because fuck , he’s drunk, isn’t he? He’ll blame his bad decisions on alcohol instead of heartache, because taking paracetamol is easier than thinking through things he can barely explain.
“That he couldn’t continue doing what we were doing.” That Jaehyun wasn’t worth it . “That he had his family to think about, and that he wasn’t out yet, and—”
One gulp, two gulps of Gatorade, and this time he chooses to stop drinking, to continue ( That Jaehyun wasn’t worth upturning the world for ). “Yeah. That.”
And Jaehyun is realizing, slowly, as the alcohol clears and he sits with his fingers clasped around the bottle, that he isn’t mad at Juyeon for it. He can’t be, because Juyeon lives in a place between his ribcage and spine that seems to contract and expand with every breath, and he smiles when Jaehyun makes jokes no one laughs at and knows his favorite off-brand of tea, and Jaehyun understands, first hand, how difficult it is to grapple with things like this. How much darker Juyeon’s world must feel, even if he’s not the one walking alone on the main road towards the nearest convenience store.
“It’s not his fault, obviously. That he can’t deal with things like this just to be with me.”
Jacob looks up at him, tilts his head. It’s a gesture of understanding. “No, it isn’t.”
“It’s just—” Jaehyun’s voice cracks, and he blushes. He should drink more Gatorade. “Am I just not worth thinking it through? Was it that easy to leave?”
Maybe that’s the root of it, really, because Jaehyun would move mountains for the people he cares about: for Sunwoo, for Haknyeon, for Juyeon , but he’s always wondered if valleys would shift in return. Because love isn’t always meant to be reciprocated, but it gnaws at the base of Jaehyun’s spine, accepting that truth. And it doesn’t mean that he’ll love less , of course it doesn’t. But he’s not immune to the hurt that comes with understanding how easy he is to let go of.
“Jaehyun. I know we’ve just met,” Jacob pauses, looks unsure , for the first time that evening. “But I hope you’ll take it to heart when I say that you’re absolutely worth it.”
Jaehyun blinks at him. “Why, exactly?”
“Well, first of all, you didn’t tell me to fuck off when I sat next to you.” Jaehyun lets out a small snort, and Jacob flushes. “It’s nothing major! But you were still...kind? Even when you asked for my name in what definitely wasn’t an indoor voice.”
Jaehyun winces. “Sorry about that. I was drunk.”
“You’re a very polite drunk then. Relatively.” Jacob gives him a small smile, and it undoes a knot at the nape of his neck, lightens the load. “Second of all, you didn’t take out your shitty night on anyone.” He swallows, rolls his shoulders as though pained. “I...know how hard that can be to do. To not hurt anyone else in the process.”
Jaehyun thinks back to the angrier part of him, the one that might have turned on his heels and hissed back at Juyeon, poison and miasma. “Isn’t that common decency?”
“Not everyone thinks like that.” He winces a little, like he’s unearthing an old wound. “Trust me.”
“Well people should, shouldn’t they?”
Jacob exhales through his mouth, and it’s like things are clicking into place. “And that’s the thing with you. Not shooing me away, believing that people can be kinder that they are.” His voice drops a little, quieter, softer. “Knowing what your...friend is going through isn’t easy. All that and more makes you worth it, doesn’t it?”
Jacob barely knows him, Jaehyun understands. But it feels like the earth is groaning beneath his feet, a valley rolling and sinking into motion at the weight of each word. Because he is a complete stranger to Jaehyun, dressed in horrible 2000s fashion and pressed close to his side, listening to every word as he traces the grain of the coffee table. A complete stranger, who’d pressed a bottle of Gatorade into his hands and decided that Jaehyun was worth his time, that he was worth the love and care and whatever other emotions seem to come to life in the dead of night, at an hour like this.
“Can I kiss you?”
Jacob stares at him for a moment, gives him a smile, and it might just be the kindest thing he's seen all night. And as far as smiles go, it isn’t a bright one, nothing like the fluorescents overhead that are almost painful to look at. No, Jaehyun thinks that it's more like the streetlamps outside. Warm, guiding, gentle. Soft and constant in a way that brightens the world bit by bit, brings one out of the darkness slowly during a walk along the main road on All Saints’ Day.
“Sorry, but we’ve just met.” He flicks Jaehyun’s forehead with an index finger, playful, and slides him the unfinished bottle of Gatorade. “Besides, you’re drunk. And heartbroken.”
"I suppose you're right." He drains the rest of the Gatorade and lets himself trace over Jacob's face for just a bit too long. So gentle, almost unbearably so. It’s like the lines of him are blurring with the passing of the evening, spilling over into the new day. "You're really pretty, did you know that?"
Jacob softens, grins at him. "Thank you. I guess I do now.”
The cup of noodles, completely cool, is still between Jaehyun’s forearms. “Hey, do you want this? I’m actually not too hungry.” It comes out sheepish, and Jacob jumps on the sentence with a mischievous tilt of his head.
“Really? After I went out of my way to buy it for you too.” Jacob pouts at him, and an irrational surge of emotion floods his throat. “Seriously though, it’s fine. I’m not big on convenience store food anyway.” He gives him a small wink, and Jaehyun hides his gulp by turning to the clock on the wall.
Jacob catches him looking and peers over his shoulder. “Almost 6 AM.”
Jaehyun sighs, and the exhaustion begins to rush through him all at once. “I can’t believe I spent my entire night in a Ministop. I could have been at home, asleep. Or partying.”
“Take a nap then.” Jacob pokes at his temple with a finger. “You can ask someone to pick you up later in the morning? I’m sure the staff won’t mind.”
“Only if you stay?” He squints tiredly at Jacob. “It’d be embarrassing if they found me asleep alone . Also kind of sad.”
Jacob laughs again, gentle, and it is a lovely sound. “Okay, okay. Just get some rest.”
He smiles at Jaehyun, and it is enough to bring his head down, Jacob’s other hand fading on the nape of his neck. The sun has begun to rise over the skyline in the distance. It is All Saints’ Day.
🎃
“Hey, sir? Are you okay?”
Jaehyun lurches awake, and his shin collides with the solid metal frame of the coffee table. The clock announces, in a tone way too cheery for the hour, that it’s almost 8AM. The beginnings of a headache and a fever are having a tap dancing contest at the base of his skull, and his mouth tastes like roadkill. He sort of wants to die.
“I’m up, hi.” He lets out a burp, and the attendant (maybe college age, pigtails, name tag with “Jiwoo” on it in curling cursive) blushes. “Sorry about that.”
“I was just going to ask if you wanted that?” She gestures to the cup of noodles, still untouched. Huh. He’d assumed that Jacob would have at least taken it out, if not eaten it while he was asleep. “It’s been sitting out all night.”
“No, it’s fine.” He stretches his arms above his head, and something in his lower back groans in protest. Jiwoo winces at the sound. “Say, uh, did you happen to see anyone else leaving the store this morning?”
Jiwoo worries her lower lip as she pauses to think. “No, I don’t think so. Friend of yours?”
Jaehyun shakes his head. “Just someone I met in the middle of the night.” It sounds strange, even for his hungover-addled consciousness, and he quickly amends the statement. “They just bought me noodles and a drink.”
She shrugs. “Well, I didn’t see anyone. And you should be more careful about meeting strangers at times like that!” Jiwoo lowers her voice to a near-conspiratorial whisper, and Jaehyun finds himself leaning in to hear her. “Someone was murdered here like ten years back, and on All Saints’ Day too! Kinda scary, honestly, something about a love confession going wrong.”
Huh?
Huh.
“Wow, that's…” Jaehyun gulps. Was he that drunk ? No. Maybe it was something else. “That’s crazy.” Something he needed?
Despite the daylight, the streetlamps are still on outside, and Jaehyun traces their glow with bleary eyes. Warm, guiding. Gentle.
He reaches for his phone and calls Sunwoo.