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He didn’t need someone to tell him this was a stupid idea. He already knows it is.
The hilarity of the situation is not lost on him—here he stands, an underdressed pauper amid this upscale neighborhood in Busan. Pretty normal. However, if one adds in a half-empty bottle of soju in one hand and his despondent gaze fixated on the disappearing tail lights of the taxi that brought him here, he wouldn’t fault anyone for calling the cops.
Is this a bad decision? Probably.
Is this a sober decision? Fuck no.
‘It’s like I’m in a B-grade romcom ,’ he thinks to himself, snickering as he sways, ‘And I don’t even watch romcoms.’
He slowly turns around—the world around him spins too, how fun—and looks at the gated estate before him. Laughing, he whispers to himself as he sees double, “No going back now, I guess.”
Closing his eyes, he counts to ten. Upon reaching the number, he opens his eyes and is giddy to see that his vision has somewhat settled. Humming, he makes his way around the iron gates, mindlessly counting the cracks on the asphalt as he does so. Before long, he finds himself at a familiar entryway hidden by tall hedges and rose bushes, with cherub statues peeking here and there.
When he sees his favorite statue in the corner, he exclaims, “Wow. Isn’t muscle memory a scary thing?”
“They look scary, hyung. Almost soulless.” He comments, removing his gaze from the stone statues, then following the silhouette of a blond boy shifting through the bushes, mindful of the rose thorns. “I don’t know how you do it.”
Pausing, the older boy turns to look at him, eyes twinkling in amusement, “You scared, Jihoonie?”
“You’re as big of a scaredy-cat as I am!” Jihoon accuses him, tone almost whining.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.” The blond placates before he turns back to searching.
The younger boy lets the blond resume his search and keeps himself occupied by counting the blood-red roses in sight.
One.
Two.
“Ya!”
When he hears an exclamation of surprise, he redirects his attention to the older boy. The blond’s back is still facing him, so Jihoon turns to the object of the blond’s attention instead—a cherub cradling a lamb in a manner that the brunette would describe as loving.
Unable to contain his curiosity, he asks, “You found something, hyung?”
Hyunsuk angles his body towards the younger boy, grinning as he holds up an old, bulky key.
“This is it. I found the key to the back garden!” He exclaims, holding the key up, “It’s a bit dirty, but that’s because no one usually uses this path,” The blond trails off, patting the same statue’s head with his free hand, “It was hidden under this kid all along.”
‘No one. You’re no one.’ His thoughts traitorously whisper, but he shrugs them off in favor of naming the cherub statue. It’s his favorite now. He decides to call it Jinhee.
In a beat, Hyunsuk unlocks the back garden gates and beckons him inside with a tilt of his chin. Wordlessly, he follows. The two weren’t on the property yet, but as Jihoon takes his first step into the garden, heart hammering in his chest, he idly wonders if this is what it felt like to enter the second circle of hell.
Scanning the garden, his eyes search for a particular lamb-cradling statue while taking a swig of soju every now and then. When he spots Jinhee, unmoved and showing no new signs of tear, he approaches the figure, ignoring the increasingly clammy feeling of his hands.
Back then, he found the statues soulless, yet now, he finds himself envying their passivity to anything and everything. If he had that, he wouldn’t be here. If he had that, he wouldn’t need nearly four bottles of soju to build his courage. People do say that alcohol is liquid courage, right? And currently, he needs all the courage he can get.
Approaching the cherub, he nearly begs, “Jinhee-ya, please be kind.”
The question hung in the air—will the key still be there, or had they both fumbled whatever this is (whatever this was) to the point of no return?
It takes two to tango, and boy, did they dance. They danced and danced and danced, learning the curves, lines, and dimples of each other’s bodies like they were their own. He came to know what ticked and tickled the elder and what buttons to push or avoid altogether. Jihoon had allowed himself to be lead, and when the dance came to a crescendo, he had even allowed himself to be dipped—so is it really a question of who fell first?
He inhales. He exhales. Then, as he tries to calm his heart, he tells himself, “It’s now or never, Jihoon-ah. Jinhee-ya, I hope you forgive me for disturbing you again.”
‘Please.’
Squatting, he places the near-empty bottle of soju to his left, grabbing the middle part of the statue as blood rushes through his head, preparing to lift it.
‘Please,’ he pleads again wordlessly to the heavens, whether to a being, an entity, or a god, he couldn’t be bothered to pick. All he hopes for is for the plea to not fall on deaf ears. ‘Just please let it be there.’
If it weren’t, then it’s time to take a bow and accept the final nail in the coffin. It’ll be fine. Jihoon’s familiar with the swooping sensation that comes with falling; thus, he is well acquainted with the bittersweet taste of heartbreak. However, he’d also be lying if he said he was okay with this ending just like that.
‘Please. Just… please. ’
In a split second, he lifts the statue just enough and is greeted by the dull shine of a key that he knew like the back of his hand. Without hesitating, he immediately grabs the key to assure himself that no, he is not dreaming and that yes, this is reality.
“Ha,” Jihoon exhales, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Then, he laughs. He laughs, laughs, and laughs until his vision blurs. “It’s almost anti-climactic.”
Relieved, he collapses like a marionette whose strings have been cut, back hitting the cold walkway. Somehow, the coolness is welcomed as it serves as a contrast to his own body temperature, once again reminding him that he’s not making this up in his tipsy stupor. Throwing an arm over his eyes, he laughs again, not minding that he looks like an actual mess at present.
“Thank you,” he says aloud to no one in particular, sniffing all the same.
After a few moments, he removes his arm and opens his eyes, taking in the sight of a night sky that is sparsely littered with stars. At the view, a single random thought enters his head—
‘Fuck light pollution.’
“You’re lucky to see some stars here, hyung.” An offhand comment leaves his lips as he sits up to look beyond the wide window, letting the sheets slide off his skin. His body protests at the action, but the ache, in his opinion, is pleasant. “I don’t think they’re visible in Seoul. I doubt Seoul even sleeps.”
The timbre of joyous laughter permeates throughout the room. Whether it’s in confirmation or denial, Jihoon has no idea; he just knows it sounds inviting. So, he turns to the source of laughter and is met with the man whose expression is a portrait of contentment despite looking utterly spent. An easy smile rests on the face of the older man, his eyes squinting at Jihoon as though the brunette is a sight for sore eyes. At that, a dangerous notion posits itself in his mind—it’s far too easy and far too tempting to associate Choi Hyunsuk with bliss.
The brunette prods, “Why do you look like that?”
Shrugging, the blond answers, “I just think your back’s a much better view.”
“Over the stars?”
“Over the stars.”
“It’s not your first time to see someone’s back,” The younger one points out plainly, causing the sound of laughter to engulf the room once more.
Somehow, he recognizes that this laugh is different from the first one. Call it an instinct or a hunch, but the younger of the two knows that Hyunsuk only laughed like this if a comment catches him off-guard. Still, Jihoon’s statement isn’t baseless. Even in Busan, the blond’s reputation precedes him. The older boy is infamous for switching partners at nearly the same pace trends came and went. Jihoon ponders whether it’s a byproduct of hailing from a city like Seoul.
“It’s not, but,” Hyunsuk starts, forming a makeshift viewfinder with his fingers and capturing Jihoon within its frame. “Yours has constellations and planets,” A playful wink is directed at him, “It goes without saying that it’s my favorite.”
Favorite.
It’s Jihoon’s turn to laugh now, barely stopping himself from tacking on a ‘for now.’
Had the two of them cut the music early on, they could have still excused it away as a mistake. Yet, both let the music play on and danced to the tempo of heartbeats and stuttered breaths. A single night turned into two, then extended into four, and once it reached eight, Jihoon figured he’d stop counting along the way.
It’s electrifying.
It’s fun.
It’s the best fling Jihoon’s had in ages, and he confides such to his best friend one summer day. The two of them are in his friend’s room, chattering away as the whirring of the electric fan fills the gap with white noise.
“You two… you two are in a snow globe.” Junkyu states plainly, eyes fixated on his computer screen, continuing to type away on his keyboard. There’s no reproach in his tone; instead, there’s something conclusive in it.
Confused, he clarifies, “A snow globe? Like the default souvenir?”
“I’d say the default is a mug or a magnet, but yes, exactly like those.”
“I don’t see it. It’s summer, not winter.”
“Of course, you don’t.” Jihoon hears a smile in Junkyu’s tone, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. The latter, apparently unbothered, continues typing.“You’re in the snow globe. You can’t see it.”
Hugging Junkyu’s pillow, he asks, “Enlighten me, maybe?”
That makes the keyboard clicking halt and causes a pregnant pause to ensue, which can only mean one thing—that Junkyu’s actively mulling over his thoughts, trying to figure out how to soften the blow. Jihoon knows his best friend wouldn’t say anything inherently cruel, yet there’s still a pool of dread forming in the pit of his stomach all the same.
Then, his friend speaks carefully, as though sounding out each and every word, “Snow globes… show scenes frozen in time, right? Like a specific moment in time.” Turning his seat around, Junkyu looks at Jihoon, eyes reflecting an internal struggle. “The world around it continues on, but it depicts just one scene, Jihoon.”
Really, what has he done to deserve a friend like Junkyu?
He laughs out, “You don’t have to worry about my feelings, Kyu. Stop skirting around it. I do want your thoughts on this. You’re my best friend.”
A moment passes.
The sun continues to shine, the electric fan continues to whirr, and the sound of Junkyu’s game plays in the background despite being on pause. The day is as normal as normal can be, even picturesque if one wishes it to be so.
“Summer’s ending.”
Dryly, he replies, “I know. I have a calendar.”
Something flashes in the younger boy’s eyes, but it’s gone before Jihoon could place it. He wants to ask, but Junkyu beats him to the punch, “Jihoonie, summer’s ending .”
Ah. A crack.
“It’s a summer fling,” He trails off, looking at the ceiling, “I know it’ll end.”
“You spend nearly every waking minute with him nowadays.” Junkyu scoffs, “Heck, even every moment you aren’t awake. At this point, you spend more nights at his place over your own. He got you to watch those American superhero movies, and you don’t really watch those. Even the tone of your voice changes when you talk about him.” With frustration evident in his tone, Junkyu stresses, “Jihoonie, I know you. So tell me, is it just a summer fling? Isn’t it—”
“Trust me, Kyu,” He cuts him off, turning to face the wall, “It’s just a summer fling,”
Jihoon hates how weak his voice sounds.
Sniffling, he makes his way through the winding path of the garden, drinking every now and then from his soju bottle until he spots a familiar second-floor window situated to the left of a metal trellis gingerly placed against the house’s stone walls. To a stranger, it made for a rather arresting scene of wealth, but for Jihoon, a single thought rang throughout his mind—
‘He left the window open.’
Breathing out a laugh, he feels a fresh batch of tears building up. Against his better judgment, the bud of hope he tried to kill starts to bloom in his chest. He knows that the logical action would be to nip it in the bud, to pack this all up, haul his ass back to the club, and lose himself in another bottle while belting out the lyrics to Robyn’s Dancing on My Own because that’s how one celebrates heartbreak, isn’t it?
Yet here he stands, a crying fool in the middle of a garden worth more than his entire household. He knows he shouldn’t expect anything, but the window is left open, and what is hope if not an opium for fools?
It’s better not to expect at all, but hope, ever the traitor, coaxes him to whisper—
“What if?” He asks the wind, wondering if it would carry his plea to the boy sleeping beyond the open window.
And, like a prayer answered, a light turns on, cutting through the dark.
The sight is beautiful and gets Jihoon further choked up, but despite his lighthouse beckoning him home, he muses to himself, “This place looks much better during the day.”
“Ah, hyung!” He gripes, rubbing soap all over his arms, attempting to out-stubborn the blue dye staining his skin. “Why didn’t you just get your hair done by a professional?! Look at how messy it became!”
A playful voice reaches his ears, “Isn’t it more fun this way, Hoonie? Now we’re both bluer than blue.”
Blue.
Blue colors the expanse of the sky and the depths of the sea, with the latter, ever-turbulent body of water reflecting the former. Blue is the new color of Hyunsuk’s hair, covering his sunny blond with the representative shade of calm skies. Blue is the color that stains Jihoon’s skin like splotches of the deep, deep sea.
Not missing a beat, he immediately quips, “Are we sadder than sad too, Hyunsuk-hyung?”
“We could be. After all,” Hyunsuk starts singing, “You’re the only light this empty room has ever had. Life without you is gonna be bluer than blue.”
Jihoon is ashamed to admit that his heart stuttered.
Ignoring the heat creeping up his neck and ears, he complains, “Well, if you only sang instead of moving around earlier, we wouldn’t have this problem. Plus, you can afford to get your hair professionally done, but you’d rather see me suffer.”
At that moment, the younger of the two made the fatal mistake of looking at the older boy’s reflection in the mirror. In an instant, his heart is held captive by the sight of a widely grinning, bright-eyed Choi Hyunsuk drying his now blue hair with a towel. That view has no business being that attractive. He even has to remind himself to breathe.
“I can, but I prefer it like this.” Then, a teasing tone enters his voice, “You know I love having your hands in my hair.”
At this point, Jihoon refuses to look at his own reflection. “But it’s messy!”
“What’s life without a mess here and there, right? Besides,” Hyunsuk laughs that laugh, eyes alight with mischief. “Jihoonie, I know you. You don’t mind a mess.”
Feeling his entire face burn, he redirects his attention to the sink. Despite the stubbornness of the dye, some of it still washes off, color mixing in with the water running down the surface of the white marble sink. Wordlessness occurs, with the sound of water and scrubbing skin becoming the ambient noise in the scene. It only takes a few more seconds for Jihoon to finally give up and come to terms with the present—
The blue dye tinting his skin refuses to budge, and the water has already run clear.
So, he shuts the tap off, lifting his head, and meets the pair of eyes looking straight into his own with the aid of the mirror. Jihoon uses all of his might to maintain a neutral expression at the quirk of the elder’s brow. Contrasting to his inner turmoil, he steadily says, “You’re right. I don’t mind a mess.”
“Do you know that you’re a fucking mess?!”
“I thought you liked a mess, hyung,” He sounds out, attempting to put on a brave face yet ultimately ending up with a tearful tone.
“Don’t fucking pin this back on me, Jihoon!”
And he clamps down on his lips—whether to hold back another remark or counteract the sting of his eyes, he’s not entirely sure. He doesn’t even recall how they reached this point.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hyunsuk bellows, “Is it my fault again?! Tell me, is it my fault again?!”
He opens his mouth and then shuts it, racking his brain for any word that could soothe the plain, undeniable hurt reflected in the blue-haired boy’s eyes. Once he realizes that there is none that he could and would say, the consistency knot lodged in his throat metamorphosizes into one that feels as thick as cement yet with the delicateness of a snowflake. He wants—needs to defend himself. He needs to prove Hyunsuk wrong. He needs to save whatever this is, but somehow, he’s frozen still.
The other recognizes this, and in a blink, all the pain in his eyes mutates into disappointment.
Summer’s on the brink of ending—
“I’m not a scarlet letter, Jihoon, and I don’t like being hidden either. If you’re too ashamed to be seeing me, then you better not enter my line of sight again.”
—and as it goes, it seems like so will they.
The older boy walks away, and the younger one lets out a sob, left behind with only misery for company.
He grabs his phone from his pocket with his free hand, trying to ignore its shaking. Due to the sudden dryness of his mouth, he forcibly swallows his saliva, simultaneously attempting to dial the older boy’s number despite the blurriness of the characters.
Jihoon wonders if he could still put the blame on alcohol.
Pressing a contact that seems right, he dials the number up, subsequently situating the receiver next to his ear. Out of habit, he licks his lips, trying not to think about his fading bravery with each ring. Once he hears someone pick up, he doesn’t waste a second, saying, “Hyung, listen well ‘cause I’ll only say this once,” he breathes in, struggling against the stuffiness of his nose, eyes still focused on the open window, “I’m sorry!”
No reply.
Like a dam that opened, he pushes on, “I-I’m scared! I’m scared of the gazes and the whispers, but,” he sobs, “I realized I’m more scared of not seeing you anymore!”
Still no reply.
“So, I’ll try to change! I’ll try to be braver. For you. For us.” He sniffs, “For me . So please,” he pleads, not caring about his appearance anymore, “ Please don’t give up on me, Hyunsuk hyung!”
He uses his sleeve to wipe his eyes, still holding onto his phone like a lifeline. There is no reply on the other end of the line, but somehow, in spite of the decimation of his heart and the familiar tone of bittersweetness that the silence orchestrates, Jihoon feels lighter.
Another moment passes, and he tries to convince himself, thinking, ‘Jihoon-ah, at least you tried.’
Continuing to wipe his tears, he slumps in on himself, suddenly feeling sluggish. As he starts pulling the phone away from his ear, about to give up, a voice calls out, “And you call me a crybaby.”
Upon hearing that, he throws his arm covering his eyes to the side, blinks the fresh batch of tears away, and hones in on the very same pair of eyes that rendered him—
Helpless. That’s what Jihoon is.
Hyunsuk is kissing him. It goes once. Twice. Thrice. Reason and logic leave him; all he is aware of is that he is being kissed, over and over again. In the beginning, it was slow and steady. However, once a moan escaped his lips, the pace changed in a heartbeat. Now, he is being kissed with a dizzying fervor that leaves him clinging to the other.
Amidst that, Jihoon manages to register that the older boy tastes like the way he kisses—he tastes like the smoke born from the aftermath of a wildfire that burned through the dark, decimating anything that dared to stand in its path. It’s suffocating; it’s intoxicating. Hyunsuk is the by-the-book definition of dangerous, but as another whimper is teased from his lips, Jihoon succumbs to the slippery slope as a willing tribute.
“W-wait,” He lets out, pulling away as he catches his breath. He opens his eyes and is treated to the sight of disheveled Choi Hyunsuk.
Jihoon suddenly forgets what he has to say. Instead, he opts to drink in the sight of a man whose blond hair is all over the place, whose clothes are all rumpled, courtesy of hands that mapped him like he was uncharted land, and whose eyes, glazed with a paralyzing mix of sin, are wandering from Jihoon’s eyes to his lips and his neck.
Through the drunken haze, one thing rings with clarity—both will do anything to see the other come undone.
“You taste like whisky,” he says, dazed.
Hyunsuk meets his eyes through the dimmed lights, raises an eyebrow, and catches his breath as he releases a short, measured laugh, looking at Jihoon with an odd glint, “And you taste like beer.”
He senses an inside joke there. Ever the curious man, he wants to ask why, but before he could even begin to ask, he is effectively shut up by a pair of lips brushing against his once more, setting his entire being ablaze. Somewhere along the way, between hands drawing circles on his waist and his own hands running through Hyunsuk’s hair, Jihoon realizes that he might never get enough.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” Hyunsuk questions, leaning his chin on one hand, looks at him with an expectant look in his eyes. Jihoon casually wonders where the older boy’s phone is and if he was left on speaker. Somehow, it doesn’t bother him as much. In the grand scheme of everything, all that matters is that Hyunsuk is here, waiting to hear him out.
‘Jihoon-ah,’ he thinks to himself, heartbeat blaring in his ears, palms turning clammy, ‘It’s now or never.’
The now green-haired boy, seeing his panic, teases, “Did you wake me up for nothing?”
Jihoon opens his mouth and shuts it, somehow not getting the words out. He glances at the bottle of alcohol to his side; to his dismay, it is already empty. The younger boy gulps, liquid courage now out of reach. Compared to their previous argument, he now knows what he should and can say, but he never expected it to be this nerve-wracking.
“We don’t have all day, you know.”
‘Jihoonie, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’
If damning himself by confessing meant going out with an inevitable, ear-shattering, bloody bang, then he would gladly take the gun, pull the trigger, and shatter their illusion of heaven, bearing witness to the broken yet still glittering pieces of it raining down. So, he readies himself, takes a deep breath, looks into Hyunsuk’s eyes, and—
“I love you!” Jihoon screams, voice colored with nearly equal halves of pain and desperation as tears rain down on his cheeks. In that instance, he suddenly hears the dial tone, oddly enough. If something fell on the phone, if Hyunsuk’s dog stepped on it, or if Jihoon couldn’t see Hyunsuk’s arm moving through his tears—he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore. So, he screams, again, Busan accent seeping through, “Ain’t that the worst thing you ever heard?!”
Then, the older boy from Seoul, Choi fucking Hyunsuk, looks at him, grinning like the devil.
Jihoon hates it.
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(He doesn’t.)