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The great tragedy of Johnny Suh’s existence is that when he’s expected to write the most important speech of his life, he can’t bring himself to even start it. He’s been hunched over his laptop for a good hour and a half, and he’s tried several iterations before ultimately highlighting everything and hitting ‘delete’ over and over. The beer isn’t helping, either. It just made him more morose.
This should be easy. He’s known for a year that Mark was going to ask him to be his best man, and that he would be expected to deliver it at the reception raising a glass to toast to Mark and Injae and their happy union, to wish them well and make a joke here or there about how Mark had been too nervous to ask her out in the first place. Objectively, Johnny knows what he’s supposed to say.
It’s just that he can’t say it and mean it, because he is in love with Mark, and has been for nearly fifteen years.
He takes another swig from his bottle, the third of the night. His belly’s too full now, and his awful posture only serves to make him more uncomfortable. He toggles over to the clock on the upper right hand corner of his screen, and the 12:05:24 am feels like time is sneering in his direction. He told himself he would at least make some sort of headway on this fucking speech but nothing had come that felt sincere.
He used to be good at the impromptu stuff before they disbanded, and he’s still able to exercise that during the interviews he does for his movies. He could handle the acceptance speeches to the fans with the canned “Thank you for always showing us support,” and “We want to keep showing our many sides to you!” He could handle interviews and think up content for JCC. He could handle being charming enough to keep up his charade for long enough that there’s barely been a whisper of his most guarded secret being revealed to the masses.
But not this.
He doesn’t know how to write anything that feels true without revealing the truth, without making it blatantly obvious that the reason why he’s had so many starts and stops to attempts at relationships with other people is because the other people were never men, and, more importantly, they were never Mark Lee.
He sighs and gives up the ghost for the evening, pulling the top of his laptop down to shut it.
He doesn’t even know what experiences he’s supposed to draw from, what his best man’s speech is supposed to entail, even if he has a modest twenty-three different tabs open with samples of varying degrees of cheesiness: A snappy opening, something to make the guests and Mark and his wife laugh; an anecdote about how long he and Mark go back, how Mark had been this tiny twelve year old and how they grew up together in the company; another anecdote about how Injae rtfit right in, and how meeting her was the happiest he’d ever seen Mark.
He rises from his desk, dragging the bottom of the beer bottle across the polished wooden finish, uncaring of the staining it will leave. Doyoung would cringe at it if he was here.
Johnny swallows. Just another person he’s lied to for years and years.
He walks over to the window, pulling back the curtain to press his forehead to the glass. Outside, snow flutters down, another marker of time that reminds him just how close the date of Mark’s wedding is, how much time he has before the finality of it all.
He closes his eyes.
Not for the first time, Johnny thinks of how different things would have probably been if he’d chosen differently. If he’d decided a different path from every other road he’d taken. How much happier he would be if he didn’t love Mark the way that he does.
As it stands, he’s a bachelor pushing forty—he will be forty, when Mark gets married. It feels ridiculous for him to even think about it like that, to know that it’s been over a decade since he realized that he’d doomed himself by letting his stupid crush at twenty-five flourish into something full-blown and irreversible.
When he opens his eyes, the glass has fogged over from his breath. He drags the tip of his finger through it, two dots and a curved line.
He steps back and sees his reflection. He schools his misery into a smile that hasn’t quite reached his eyes in years.
--
It was Johnny’s fault they met in the first place. That’s the real kicker here. Johnny meets Injae and thinks she’s cool as hell and she’s beautiful and charming and he should have known that the moment he introduced her to Mark, he was doomed.
Not that he was ever going to tell Mark how he felt. That was never in the plan, but somewhere between falling in love with Mark at twenty-six and realizing that he was never going to cough it up at all, Johnny hadn’t accounted for the very real, very true possibility that Mark would fall in love with someone else.
Johnny was stupid like that, he supposes.
Many things in their lives happen with these weird twists of fate. The day Johnny introduces Injae to Mark, it happens in almost the same fashion as the day Johnny realized he was in love with Mark. Both were clear, spring days. Both had Mark’s eyes shining and radiant in the sunlight.
Injae was a photographer, someone that Johnny met when he really started throwing himself into it, two years after they disbanded. She had cropped, short hair and a nose piercing, this little diamond stud that glinted in the lights of her studio, and Johnny knew her for three months before he finally decided that he wanted his best friend to meet her.
Johnny doesn’t believe in love at first sight, but he knew it probably looked a little something like the scene that played out in front of him. Mark arrived outside Mingles and Johnny waved him over, and when Injae turned around to smile Mark’s way, Johnny saw Mark’s expression falter and light up. Throughout the entire lunch, Mark laughed, hearty and full, and Injae leaned in closer and closer, moth to flame.
It was something Johnny could relate to. It was something he knew well, being drawn to Mark like that.
When Johnny drove home, Mark in the driver’s seat next to him, Mark could only talk about Injae, and that was it—the catalyst for everything.
Johnny does his best now to suppress it, to swallow down the regret of ever having been the one to say “Hey, Markie, do you wanna meet my teacher Injae? She’s really fucking cool, bro.”
The five years they’ve dated in secret have aged them, mellowed them out a little, but not much has changed. Injae grew her hair out, and she showed Johnny her plans for her wedding look when they had dinner together last, flipping through her gallery with her manicured nails on her iPad, describing the silver she was planning to dye her hair to match her heels, the floral arrangements, the cake. Mark watched them with a stupid smile on his face. He’s been besotted by her for years. Nothing has ever made Mark look more handsome than being in love has.
“Don’t worry, you’re beautiful as is,” Johnny said, nudging her with his elbow. That was the other fucking kick in the shin—he adored her. Johnny genuinely adored her, and even if he tried, even if he spent years trying to find reasons to hate Injae, the truth is that it was impossible to do. How could he begrudge the woman that made Mark glow like that? It just couldn’t be done.
--
Johnny tried to tell Mark, once.
But by then it had been too late. Mark already proposed, and Mark already asked Johnny to be his best man.
They were drunk, much too drunk for Johnny’s thirty-eight year old liver to handle. His head was pounding and he was four whiskey shots in when he and Mark found their way to Mark’s balcony overlooking the city, with the rest of their friends back inside the penthouse apartment. It was just the two of them, and Johnny’s heart was broken at his feet.
“You know I love you, right?” was how Johnny said it. But that wasn’t it, was it? That wasn’t what he meant to say.
The alcohol made his tongue heavy in his mouth, made his vision blur in and out of focus, Mark’s smiling face swimming into view before fading. Johnny blinked, unsure that he said the right thing.
“Of course--yo, bro, I love you man,” Mark replied, snaking an arm around Johnny’s bicep like he used to when they were in their early twenties. Before Mark met Injae. Before their group disbanded. Before, when things used to make sense.
Johnny felt too cold, his arms shivering in the autumn chill. The button down he was dressed in wasn’t cutting it, but Mark was warm and smelled like vodka and the Dior perfume Johnny got him for his birthday and Johnny—Johnny wanted to pull away and leave and not have to be here while Mark’s fiancee danced around in their living room with their friends.
“Mark—Mark, I’m—Love you,” Johnny repeated, too scared of a preposition. “Don’t—”
Don’t. Don’t do this, was what he wanted to say. Don’t do this. Leave her. Choose me. I can make you happier than she ever will. I’ve always been right here. I’ve always been your best friend. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.
“Hmm?” Mark asked. Johnny forgot how badly he held his drink, even now at thirty-four. “What was that? Speak up bro, the wind’s too fuckin’ loud haha!”
The wind was too loud. It was too loud out here, and too loud inside, and much too loud inside Johnny’s head. “Mark,” Johnny tried again, and then managed to string together the words in Korean, as if that would make it less incriminating somehow. “너와 사랑에 빠 졋어.”
I am in love with you.
Mark never responded, just laid his head on Johnny’s shoulder and squeezed his bicep again, like they were twenty and twenty-four, and had their lives ahead of them.
Mark never mentioned it the next day, or the day after that.
So neither did Johnny.
--
Yuta arrives in Seoul the week before Mark’s wedding, and Johnny picks him up at the airport amidst raucous noise from fans who have grown up with them. There’s still a lot of fanfare around them. It’s not too surprising, considering that, all modesty aside, Johnny has his face on billboards promoting things like telecom providers and soju, and Yuta—father of two with another little girl on the way—has turned into Japan’s most successful rock star to date.
But the silence in his car, once the photographs have been taken and they’ve driven off to safety, is welcome and comforting.
“Mako is so fucking pissed that she can’t be here,” Yuta laughs after he’s sent a text off to update his wife of his whereabouts. “She nearly kicked her obstetrician, honest to God.”
Johnny feels himself lighten up, straightening in his seat as he drives them back to his place. “I am fucking terrified of your wife, so I’m seriously praying for her doctor.”
Yuta sighs, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest, rolling his eyes fondly. “There was no way she was getting on a plane at eight months, not with her history, and there was no way she was gonna allow Mark to move his wedding date either, so.”
Their conversation drifts to how well Himari, Yuta’s five-year old eldest daughter, is doing in school, and the fact that Ichika has been terrorizing her parents now that she’s two and terrible. It’s safe territory, but Johnny knows Yuta, and true enough, just as they’re ten minutes away, Yuta finally cuts the bullshit and point blank asks him, “How are you, really?”
Johnny’s glad they’re on the road, that he has his hands on the wheel and his eyes focused in front of him because he can feel Yuta’s eyes on him burning a path into the side of his face.
Yuta’s the only one who knows. Two decades of knowing the members and Johnny managed to keep tight-lipped to everyone but one person.
“I’m okay,” Johnny says, because he is. Because he’s had fifteen years to make sense of this, fifteen years to say something, but he never did, and in a week’s time, the love of his life will seal his fate off with someone who is perfect for him. Someone who isn’t him. So Johnny is okay. He has no choice but to be okay.
Yuta tuts, annoyed with Johnny yet again for his bullheadedness. “You know, I’ve wanted to fight you on this for years.”
Johnny rolls his eyes. “You have fought me on this for years, what are you talking about?”
Yuta really has. They had a falling out once that got very heated and had ended with Yuta all but punching Johnny in the gut for being so fucking stubborn. “You’re draining yourself dry and for what?” Yuta said then, pulling Johnny up by the collar while Johnny let himself fall limp. There were tears in Yuta’s eyes. “Why won’t you tell him?”
That was Yuta’s demand. Why couldn’t Johnny tell Mark?
Because Mark was straight, and Mark was happy, and Mark was Johnny’s everything, and if Mark pulled away—if Mark decided that he was too uncomfortable knowing how Johnny felt, if Mark decided that he couldn’t stomach Johnny wanting him… If Mark decided he was done with Johnny, it would kill him.
So Johnny did everything he could to make Mark want to keep him, and he’d done that. He’s done that for most of his life now, it feels like.
They drop the conversation because Johnny knows that Yuta knows this will not lead anywhere. He pulls into the basement and into his parking slot.
They don’t talk about it again that night.
--
Mark won’t stop fidgeting, which is to be expected. He’s nervous, and keeps running over his lines under his breath as if he hasn’t ever brought Madison Square Garden to its knees. Johnny kind of wants to shake him by the shoulders, but the most he can allow himself to do is touch up Mark’s necktie.
“Dude,” Johnny says, his voice hoarse. This is hell. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t have said yes. “Take a deep breath. There’s literally nothing to be nervous about.”
“There are so many things to be nervous about, man, what the fuck?” Mark says a little frantically, and Johnny wants to smother him. Drape himself over Mark like a weighted blanket. It’s an old stray thought. A recurring one. Johnny swallows through it and steps back.
“Injae already said she was gonna spend the rest of her life with your loser ass, dude,” Johnny says, and he prides himself in not stumbling over the words. His facade is fifteen-years’ strong, after all. This is hard-won. He’s iron forged in fire, the way he’s mastered this life of playing pretend. “You’re just making it official.”
There’s so much fucking flurry going around in the hotel room, and it’s almost like they’re backstage in one of the Music Bank dressings rooms again with how rowdy everyone is, even if they’re all in their thirties now—save for Johnny and Taeil. Johnny crossed the threshold into the lines of four nearly two weeks ago. Taeyong and Yuta are still clinging onto their limited days as thirty-nine year-olds.
“You’re right. You’re right.” Mark nods, his black hair impeccable and unmoving the way it always was for them before going onstage. “Fuck. I’m really doing this.”
Johnny swallows. Maybe that way his heart will take its rightful place back in his rib cage. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore.
“You are, Markie. Now come on, let’s get you married,” Johnny says, clapping Mark on the shoulder, and biting the inside of his cheek.
--
Mark’s eyes are the brightest lights in this ballroom. Injae is resplendent next to him with her silver hair in a chignon and the choker her mother lent her for her wedding. Johnny feels sick to his stomach, especially now that he’s got the microphone in his hand.
His heart is racing, and decades of training still never prepared him for this.
“Good evening, everyone,” Johnny starts, willing his voice not to shake. “I’m Johnny Suh, and I have the privilege of being Mark’s best man.”
His eyes sweep the room, and he tells himself to calm down. Take it easy. Remember his training. He’s good at this. He was an idol before he became an actor. He spent his teenage years in front of panel after panel under the scrutiny of people.
Except that none of them ever meant as much as Mark does. None of them terrified Johnny as much as the loss of Mark does.
Johnny fixes his eyes on Mark, and decides that he doesn’t want to look anywhere else.
“Mark barely reached my shoulders when we first met. His voice hadn’t broken yet—that’s how far back we go. It’s a little crazy to think that we’ve known each other this long.”
Johnny pauses to laugh a little, and lap up the appreciative noises scattered through the ballroom.
He laughs but doesn’t mean it. This is all for show.
Just get through this. Just finish this, he tells himself.
“So Mark was this scrawny kid when we first met, and then Mark grew up. Mark grew up and debuted, and debuted, and debuted again, and sold out Madison Square Garden, and he had the world at his feet. And we got to stand alongside him for every new milestone.”
Johnny practiced this speech last night in front of Yuta. He knows it’s airtight. He knows it’s enough that it doesn’t give him away, but honest enough that it doesn’t seem so impersonal.
“Mark will tell you this—I introduced Injae to him, and I knew immediately, five years ago, that that was it. That Injae and Mark were written in the stars. I got to be there to witness that milestone, too,” Johnny continues. “Mark, there is no better man I know in this world. Except maybe Doyoung—“ from the end of the table, Doyoung cheers. “But even he doesn’t come close to you. No one ever has.”
Johnny takes a deep breath, ready to throw the one word he hates the most. “You’re a brother to me, and I am so happy that I get to see you this happy with your forever girl. Congratulations to you both. I’ll always be rooting for you.”
It’s safe. It’s a safe speech.
When people finish toasting and taking their required sips of champagne, Johnny takes his seat, and Yuta squeezes his thigh.
--
“Are you going to do it?” Yuta asks him, his face tucked into Johnny’s neck as they say their goodbyes at the airport, Johnny’s arms wrapped around his closest friend.
Johnny takes a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
“Okay. I’m proud of you, Johnny-ah.” Yuta’s eyes scan his face, and Johnny wonders what he sees there. Wonders if he can see the pain etched into the corners of Johnny’s eyes the way he feels like he’s been carrying for well over a decade.
“Thanks, Yuta.”
--
Dear Mark,
I should have written this letter to you years ago. I should have said this aloud to you years ago. But it doesn’t matter because you’re never going to read this anyway so I might as well be honest.
I don’t remember a time where I didn’t love you in one way or another. You barely reached my shoulders when we first met. Your voice hadn’t broken yet, that’s how far back we go. It’s a little crazy to think that we’ve known each other this long.
You arrived at the company and you were still practicing your Korean, and I had someone to speak in English with again. Someone who reminded me of home and the kids that I grew up with, even if I was on the edge of eighteen and you were thirteen and you were just this scrawny kid when we first met. And then you grew up.
You grew up and debuted, and debuted, and debuted again, and sold out Madison Square Garden, and you had the world at your feet. And I got to stand alongside you for every new milestone.
I used to be jealous of you, you know that? How was this fucking kid who trained for less time than I did turn into the ace and darling of the company? I wanted to hate you so badly, Mark. I really did.
But then somewhere along the way, I realized that there was never anywhere else for you to go but up, and I was lucky that you ignored all of the times I was a huge dick to you, all the times we fought, because the truth of the matter is that I’d be lost without you.
I turned twenty-five and it finally fell into place that what I felt for you was no longer resentment or jealousy. I just wanted to be around you. I wanted to be around you all the fucking time. I wanted you. You have no idea how terrifying that was for me. It still terrifies me.
I’ve kept this secret for years. You’ve asked me over and over why my relationships don’t work out, and you’ve tried to set me up with so many different women, but I could never cough it up and tell you the truth. You were always so eager, especially after I introduced Injae to you.
I knew immediately, five years ago, that that was it. That you and Injae were written in the stars. I got to be there to witness that milestone, too, and I’ve been paying for it every single day since.
Mark, there is no better man I know in this world. No one has come close to you. No one ever has.
I wish I hadn’t been so afraid. Maybe I can come out now. Maybe I’m done with the movies and this life. Maybe I want something quiet. You’re in the best possible hands. No one is like Injae. Even right now, even here, even when I am most desperate for you, I still love her. I love her for you. The life you’ve built together and the future you have ahead of you still are limitless.
Maybe I can move on from you, now that we’re here.
Maybe you can forgive me one day for everything I never said or did. Maybe you can forgive me for leaving. Maybe you can forgive me for being a coward all these years.
Sometimes, in my head, I like to imagine what would have been for us. I imagined it all. Holding your hand. Kissing you. Coming out and dealing with Dispatch together. I imagined coming to your room and begging you for your cock and imagined being on my knees for you. I imagined how you’d feel if I fucked into you. I imagined you desperate for me, too. I think my lowest point was when I started reading the shit fans were writing about us. Do you know how fucking pathetic it is to be getting off to someone else’s fantasy of the two of us? At least in those stories, we got our happy endings. Or, well. I got my happy ending, and you’d be happy in them, too.
I imagined marrying you, maybe in Northbrook. I imagined a quiet life for us. I think I could have made you happy, you know? I like to think I’m good at that.
Anyway. You’re never gonna read this. That’s okay.
I love you anyway.
Johnny.
Johnny takes one long sip from his glass, toggles the cursor over a red icon with a small x, and deletes every trace of the letter.
On a crisp white sheet, with the fountain pen Doyoung gave him for his thirty-ninth birthday, Johnny starts his handwritten letter—an apology.
To my fans, he says. I am writing to tell you about my decision to leave the industry, and to tell you the truth about myself.
He writes well into the night, and after he posts it on his Instagram, he turns his phone off.
It’s time for him to lead a quiet life.