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The concert falls on a Thursday.
Sunghoon arrives home that Saturday, and spends his weekend napping like a geriatric cat, slinking downstairs only to scrounge the kitchen for snacks that aren’t his to snack on. His parents don’t bother him, thankfully, but Jay and Heeseung do.
“Let’s get burgers” turns into, “let’s fuck around in our old high school’s parking lot,” turns into, “let’s skip town and start new lives somewhere else.” They never attempt that last one, but they sure do talk about it a lot.
“We could find a decent apartment in Brussels,” Jay says through a mouthful, polished eyebrows furrowed like he’s mentally calculating the flight prices. He very well could be. “And take Riki and Won in the middle of the night.”
“I’m sure their parents would really appreciate that, babe,” huffs Heeseung.
The Five Guys they occupy is hauntingly empty on a Tuesday night. Sunghoon munches quietly on his fries and follows the way Heeseung slings an arm easily over Jay’s shoulders. Snow flurries flutter on and off outside, gentle with an icy breeze.
“Speaking of,” he speaks up. “Their winter concert is this week, right?”
“Oh shit, yeah,” Jay nods furiously. “Totally forgot about that. You’re coming, right?”
“Yeah, I promised Riki I would. He’s got a solo.”
The Sleigh Ride solo. It’s only that one bar, and he has to somehow manipulate his trumpet to sound like a horse’s neigh, but he’s reasonably excited. Before they graduated, it had always gone to Jay, the experienced first chair. Now, it’s Riki’s turn.
“They grow up so fast,” Heeseung sighs wistfully, hand over his heart.
This town never changes, a fact Sunghoon used to find unbearably annoying when it was all he knew. Same restaurants, same library, same handful of places to hang out and drink until sunrise. His teenage years had been tame, comparatively. Now, the consistency warms him from the inside out, like a mug of steaming cider.
It’s good to be home, to be somewhere familiar, especially when Jay Park is paying for your meals.
♫
Stepping into the band room after so long is jarring.
Sunghoon freezes momentarily at the doorway, taking in as much as he can before crossing the threshold and squinting his eyes for a specific head of pink.
“Sunghoon Park,” someone shouts- Sunoo Kim- and soon enough there’s a crowd of his old section mates engulfing him in a suffocating group hug. “You don’t go here anymore.”
“What, you didn’t hear? College is too hard, so they’re sending me back.” Sunghoon pats Sunoo’s head and snickers when he glares. “How are my favorite freaks doing?”
“Better off without you,” Kangmin says a little bit too quickly. Jaehee is quick to set him straight.
“We’re fucked, Sunghoon,” she whines, wide eyed. “Sunoo is the only one who knows how to play the triplets.”
Sunghoon bites back a smile at just how serious she looks. “As long as he plays loud enough-”
“Bad influence,” another voice, familiar, butts in. “Why haven’t you practiced?”
Swiveling around, Sunghoon finds none other than Jake Sim, resident wiseass and, coincidentally, his rival since ever. Funny. He thought separate universities might’ve taken a bit of the edge off.
“We have,” Jaehee groans. “Maybe if Kangmin knew how to run a sectional-”
“Look what you’ve done,” Sunghoon shakes his head, listening idly as Kangmin jumps in to defend himself. “Starting fights right before a concert. Unbelievable.”
Jake laughs and nudges him with an elbow. “It builds character. It did for us, at least.”
“You’re insufferable,” Sunghoon sighs. “Glad nothing’s changed.”
Which isn’t totally true. Quite a lot about Jake has changed. He’s clearly been working out more, toned arms and prominent pecs, and his haircut finally fits him, floppy and soft over his eyebrows. He looks pretty. Prettier than he should.
“You know you missed me,” he pokes Sunghoon right in the chest. “I know I missed you.”
A simple thing to say, really, but it makes Sunghoon blush like crazy, forced to angle his face away so as to not get teased even more. This, of course, is when Riki finds him amongst the crowd.
“I thought you people graduated already,” he groans lightheartedly. Sunghoon squawks when Riki throws an arm around his shoulders and tugs him into his side.
“You’re a giant,” Jake gapes. “Freakishly tall. Unfair.”
Sunghoon snags the opportunity. “Everyone’s tall when you’re the size of an ant.”
Breathing air and teasing Jake go hand in hand- inhale, height joke, exhale, shorty. Sunghoon likes the way his voice pitches when he fights back, impossibly high.
“I am five fucking nine. Above average, Sunghoon,” he fumes, fists clenched petulantly at his sides. He pointedly glances down when he continues. “Not that you would know anything about extra inches.”
“Oh yeah? You wanna bet on that?”
“I am a minor,” Riki shouts with fingers in his ears. “Lalalalala-”
Mr. Min shoos the alumni out of the band room to give a pep talk. Heeseung and Jay, hand in hand, find him and Jake out in the hallway.
Jay says, “Jake fuckin’ Sim,” way too loudly and claps him on the back in typical frat boy fashion, and then they’re catching up on first year shenanigans, filling the space with drunken anecdotes as Sunghoon finds good spots to claim in the auditorium.
Sitting towards the back is imperative. Middle seats, with a decent view of the stage, and enough guaranteed privacy that they probably won’t get chewed out for chattering throughout the boring songs, the songs they too played for four years straight.
Sunghoon finds himself in between Jay and Jake, which could be his biggest mistake of the night. He listens dumbly while they enthuse about soccer, tugging at the loose threads of his ratty sweater, until the lights dim and Mr. Min steps out on stage.
Intermediate and wind ensemble have their own special spots on the left side of the auditorium, something Sunghoon misses, strangely. They are terrible seats, but they were their terrible seats, a slice of the ginormous, intimidating room that felt safe. Sunghoon misses that aspect of high school. Having a niche, being associated with things. Knowing where he belonged.
Concert band, comprised almost entirely of freshmen, sounds about how they expected. Jake leans over in the middle of a piece about clouds and comments on the two lead saxophones and their intonation, how it reminds him of theirs back in the day.
A constant contrast to their own dissonance, Sunghoon and Jake always twined together nicely on paper. Rarely would Mr. Min compliment anything, but he always had pleasant things to say about the saxes being in tune.
They played well together, the two of them. Sunghoon smiles to himself.
Intermediate band passes painfully. Jay grimaces throughout most of it. No one seems to understand the concept of watching the conductor, and it’s easy to pick out which sections don’t know their music, even easier to identify specific players. Sunghoon spots one flautist’s unchanging fingers in the midst of a trill and knows, oh he knows.
Wind ensemble takes their place on stage afterwards, looking and sounding much more confident, warm up impressively coherent compared to the groups before. Jungwon, first chair oboe, tunes the ensemble with big bug eyes.
“I feel like a dad,” Heeseung whispers.
“You oboe raised him,” Jake whispers back.
Sunghoon won’t admit to it, but the first piece makes him cry. He’s fragile from everything- finally able to breathe again after a semester of adjustment after adjustment, first chair to seventh in the span of a summer. Being on top is easy to miss.
Sunoo and Kangmin have assumed their new spots as first and second chair. Those two have never really gotten along, and maybe it bleeds through just a little, a surprising line of dissonance when they trickle into their isolated parts, shared bars of notes sticking out where they shouldn’t.
Weirdly enough, this was never a problem for him and Jake.
Mouthy, sharp swipes at each other nurtured by the gentle twine of their instruments together, rich tones swirling sweetly. They were never really enemies in the same way Jay and Heeseung were never really just friends. Bickering and bonding too often felt synonymous, a seesaw relationship that made things interesting.
Sunghoon liked him. A lot.
Apparently he still does.
Jake’s habits haven’t changed. He still sniffles at inopportune times, continues to clap long after the rest of the auditorium has fallen silent, folds his fingers neatly in his lap during solos. And he still leans on the arm rest he shares with Sunghoon, warm to the touch.
How could anyone ever be his enemy?
Sunoo has a solo, an impressive solo, and once it’s over, Sunghoon wants to comment on how much his tone has improved. So, he does. He turns to crowd closer and speak directly into Jake’s ear, and he forgets that, more often than not, he and Jake share the same brain.
Jake must have something to say as well. All at once, they’re leaning towards each other at the same time, similar words presumably on the tips of their tongues. It takes a second for Sunghoon to realize their noses are only an inch apart.
Close, closer, closest. Sunghoon thinks that blinking might send an anvil right through the thinnest sheet of glass, so he keeps his eyes open wide.
Jake’s lips part. Their surroundings fade like a vignette. Sunghoon flicks his gaze down, down, down, and he feels the light breath that Jake releases, his own gaze trained intently on Sunghoon’s mouth.
Cymbals crash. The climax.
Sunghoon jumps so hard he elbows Jay, who glances at him like he’s been personally wronged. The music continues, never having stopped, and he remembers where he is. The old auditorium, their silver stage, the soil where his first real love began to sprout.
It’s the nostalgia. That cloudiness of reliving, the impossible need to do it all over again. He still likes Jake. He’s always liked Jake.
It’s surprising how unsurprised he is. How did it take this long?
He elbows Jay again. This time, intentionally. “Hey. Did you know I like Jake?”
Jay’s face doesn’t change. He gives Sunghoon a flick of a glance, disinterested, before turning back to watch the stage. “Literature major discovers the concept of critical thinking.”
He doesn’t seem too surprised about this either. Sunghoon frowns.
A winding reel of footage, forgotten flashbacks. Instantly, for whatever reason, a scene from sophomore year populates, demanding his attention.
Sunghoon and Jake, seated beside each other in wind ensemble, third and fourth chair. Eric and Lia, first and second, squabbling beside them about this and that. Mr. Min studying a score on the podium, chatting absentmindedly with the flutes about a specific line.
Jake adjusts their shared sheet music. “You weren’t at jazz this morning.”
Sunghoon remembers opening his mouth a few times. He remembers wanting to tease Jake for noticing. He remembers biting his tongue, desperate to laminate his concern and keep it forever.
“Overslept. I think I need a new alarm clock.”
The sappiness stopped there, but Sunghoon had heard enough. Jake was worried. Jake cared about him. Playful banter could be set aside for something more, and that was exciting.
It meant more than he thought it would. In between rehearsals, classes, in the parking lot after school, Jake and Sunghoon gravitated toward each other, melodically. Their rivalry on stage never ceased- Jake continued to fight him for solos and preferred split parts. He continued to show off in warm ups and exaggerate his vibrato just to piss Sunghoon off.
But sophomore year brought them together more than it split them apart. Jake's mother knew him by name. Outside of school, there was no need to put on a show.
They were friends, the best kind. Sunghoon almost wants to say they still are.
Jake had his plans mapped out for him from the start. A STEM career, no more of this silly saxophone playing, a responsible, respectable future his parents could print on their Christmas cards. While his application to Shenandoah had returned with acceptance, it was never really his choice to make.
So they split ways. Their final performance together: graduation, Amazing Grace. Min had specially written up a duet for them to play together, partly to avoid inevitable bickering about the legendary solo, mostly because he hadn’t heard two high schoolers play so compatibly together in his 14 years of teaching. Sunghoon had faltered on the last line to choke back tears, and Jake had paused just to squeeze his hand.
They’ve always been friends.
Riki crushes his solo, no surprise there. Sunghoon scoops him up once the concert finishes, finding him by his locker, packing up his instrument. Heeseung and Jay swarm Jungwon with praises and Jake nearly bursts a blood vessel complimenting Sunoo’s performance, eyes genuine and wide.
They agree to a late night IHOP run.
“I wanna ride with Sunoo,” Riki whines.
Jungwon latches onto Jay’s arm. “Then I’m riding with them.”
Jake nudges Sunghoon cheekily. “You wanna keep me company?”
Heeseung must’ve parked by Sunoo, the five of them splitting off in the other direction. Sunghoon, feeling awkward, clears his throat.
“How’s school going for you?”
"I'm transferring," Jake blurts, barely giving him enough time to finish his question. His voice wavers a little, not like he's unsure- like he's emotional. "For the spring semester."
"Oh," is the best Sunghoon can come up with.
He's not really sure why Jake hadn’t mentioned this earlier. They don’t talk as much as they used to, caught up in the whirlwind of being first years, but this seems. Important. "Are you- is that a good thing?"
Jake blinks at him in disbelief, but the smile he wears is nothing short of fond. "You're still so fuckin' dense. I'm transferring to Shenandoah."
And maybe Sunghoon forgets how to breathe for a second, but can you blame him? That's where he goes. Shenandoah is his school.
"This is a joke right," Sunghoon laughs a little hysterically, willing his thrumming heart to shut the fuck up. If Jake is messing with him-
"No, I'm serious.” He sounds self-conscious, an endearing frown tugging at the corners of his lips. "I auditioned back in September for the Conservatory and made it into concert band on a whim. The professor told me it was a combination of my talent and their need for a 6th chair-"
"Oh my god," Sunghoon whispers, because he's been hearing about a new guy for months now with no official confirmation. "You're Kai's replacement."
Jake tilts his head, laughs a little awkwardly. "Um. I guess? Is that-"
"You're a chair ahead of me."
A good 30 emotions pass over his face before he ultimately settles on proud.
He teasingly moves closer to Sunghoon's face. "Looks like you might have to step up your game."
Sunghoon kisses him.
It’s a dumb move, in their old high school student lot of all places, Jake on his tippy toes in the middle of Sunghoon's old parking spot (#69. he waited 2 hours in line for that number.)
But Jake kisses back with a smile. Frosty hands cup his face, and the feeling makes Sunghoon shudder, his own lips jumping up in a grin.
"We'll be on the same stage again," Jake says against his lips. "Hope you know I'm fighting you all the way up to the top."
"Or maybe," Sunghoon pulls away, smiling widely. "Maybe we can make it together."
Jake pouts. "But what's the fun in that?"
Sunghoon kisses him again. He finds that they work best this way, in harmony.