Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s 11:24 AM on a Wednesday. 

A boy skateboards down a boardwalk. 

The wheels jump against the wooden planks, keeping a fast rhythm to music only he can hear. 

The din of the busy beach is carried by sea breeze, but the headphones over his ears are tight enough to render him oblivious. 

They’ve started to hurt. He’s started to grow out of them. 

The boy pushes off the wood again and cuts through the crowd of faceless tourists. 

The early-July air smells like salt and sand, citrus and ice cream and too many people. 

He closes his eyes and it feels like he’s flying through the dark.

He can’t escape the heat. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung doesn’t have much to say about his hometown. It’s warm, congested. Never snows, but often rains. It’s the saturation heavy, artificial teal of summer. 

At this time of the year, it’s full. 

Jisung will leave to clear his head and return with more thoughts than he left with. 

He wonders about every person he sees, their lives and stories and feelings. The girls in the kiosks and the boys surfing the waves, the crowds on the boardwalk. 

The kids in their banana boats, chasing after each other, ice cream cones dripping down their hands. 

That was Jisung, not long ago. But the beach loses its novelty, and youth is fading away. 

He observes himself, an outsider watching a boy’s mood begin to sink. The temperature is hitting mid-90s and Jisung starts to think he should head home. 

Home. 

Jisung has two homes. They’re both loud. 

The first is loud in an empty way, in the way that echoes and pierces through the thin air. It’s dark and draining. Silence is so sparse, yet so common. 

The other is brighter. Bass boosted music and ringing laughter, a bunch of children under one roof pretending to know how to live. 

Jisung hates loud noises, but he’d choose happy discomfort over his parents any day. 

He plants his foot on the boardwalk and the board grinds to a stop. 

Then why is it that he doesn’t want to go home?

Jisung loves his friends like real family, he thinks. 

He feels a pit in his stomach and the sudden dryness of his throat and wonders what the problem is. 

(He knows.)

Jisung really loves his friends. 

He kicks the board up to hold in his hand as he hops down the steps to the sugary beach. The soft push of the sand against Jisung’s sneakers feels just strange enough to be familiar, familiar enough to be comfortable. 

Waves crash to shore, crystalline blue. 

Jisung’s skateboard falls to the ground with the quietest thud, a cloud of sand rising up. 

Sea breeze blows dusty pink hair into Jisung’s eyes. He squints under the sun, watches the light reflect off the water, and walks forward. 

His pace is slow, unsure, until it isn’t. 

Skateboard abandoned on the beach, Jisung jumps unceremoniously into the water and swims out just deep enough to let the blue envelop him. 

He’s fully dressed, and the salt burns his eyes, but it’s right. 

When Jisung comes up to the surface again, he notices he’s drifted out farther than usual. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung opens the door, his clothes and hair dripping. He can feel the water drying on his skin, leaving him sticky with salt. His hair is a stringy maroon, drying messily. 

There’s a small puddle on Renjun’s doorstep, and Jisung is trembling through the heat, but he’s here. 

The water gave him courage, Jisung thinks. The courage he needed to come home. 

Jaemin is the one to open the door. He looks Jisung up and down, a maternal glow flooding his lively eyes. Long lashes paint darkened streaks across his irises, and his lips are slightly downturned. 

Jisung looks at the ground. 

“What the fuck, Jisung? Come in, you’re shaking. What the fuck happened to you?” 

As Jisung steps into the foyer, Renjun calls out an answer from a short distance away. “He went pity diving again, didn’t he?” 

“No shit,” Jaemin calls back. 

Jisung rolls his eyes. “I thought we were going to stop calling it that.” 

“Yeah, because you said you’d stop doing it.” 

Jisung is really cold. Jaemin wraps him in a hug, not minding the wetness or the salt or the chill. He nearly squeezes the life out of Jisung, nearly wrings him dry. 

Somehow, it makes Jisung smile. 

“Go get changed, you numbskull. Chenle and Yangyang are playing Mario Kart, maybe--”

“You’d blue shell your own brother?! ” 

Jaemin sighs. “Yeah. They’re in there.” 

“I thought we had something, bro! What the shit?!”

“Shut your face, heißluftgebläse!”

“Woah, okay, I’m sorry! Jesus!”

Jisung sighs and makes his way down the hallway. 

Not paying the clamor in their room any mind, he grabs a towel and shuffles into the bathroom. 

Jisung’s best thoughts come to him in the shower. 

Lately, however, it seems to be a place for hopeless contemplations; Jisung replays trivial events over and over, scrutinizing and analyzing and searching for answers that he already somewhat has. 

(In less convoluted terms: Jisung Park is having a crisis.) 

Today, as the hot water hits the back of his head and shocks him into alertness, Jisung begins to think he misses school. 

Summer has just barely started, but sophomore year was pure and sweet, and Jisung can confidently say he felt comfortable. 

Sophomore year was quiet, as all others are for Jisung. He went to class, avoided stares and badly hidden glances. He didn’t talk to many people, but Chenle… 

Chenle talked to everyone he could see. Chenle, with his green hair fading quickly to yellow. The very picture of an extrovert in his element, of a teenager loudly finding himself. 

Chenle failed three classes, but always laughed like he hadn’t a care in the world. 

Chenle always made time for Jisung. 

Jisung felt himself be looped into friend groups just through proximity to Chenle, just by the fact that Chenle couldn’t talk for longer than five minutes before casting a glance back to Jisung and asking for his opinion. 

It was new, but it was comfortable. It was busy in a way that felt fulfilling. 

Summer gives Jisung too much time to think. Despite the solid grades he manages and the notes he always writes on his phone, Jisung isn’t too big a fan of thinking. 

Sophomore year left Jisung with too many things to think about. 

After a few minutes, he steps out of the shower, dresses, and quietly journeys out to his room. 

(It’s not his room, really. It’s not anyone’s, but Jisung’d be damned if he and Chenle and Yangyang could be convinced to vacate it.) 

He watches Chenle and Yangyang fight relentlessly, controllers in their hands. Their eyes are glued to the small TV that Renjun quickly replaced once he’d earned enough money. 

Jisung’s entrance comes with no fanfare. He perches on the bed for a moment, just watching them from behind. 

Chenle’s hair is a vibrant carrot orange, and his frustration is evident in the scrunch of his shoulders. His wet hair drips, water streaking down the back of his yellow shirt. 

Yangyang turns around for a split second, looking up at Jisung with his wide, curious eyes, before whipping back around and saying, “How was the beach?” 

He knows the answer. 

Jisung looks at the screen, lets the racing figures and the cheery sound effects blur. 

“Busy.” 

His eyes go back down to Chenle. 

Jisung misses school. 

He thinks he should go home for a while. 

-- ↻ --

It’s 12:09 AM. 

Jisung’s usually a bit of an early sleeper, but today his music keeps him up. 

Music is kind of Jisung’s thing. If Yangyang has his memes and Chenle has his games, if Jaemin has his beachside adventures and Renjun has… whatever he has, Jisung has music. 

He likes the kind of stuff that he can feel. Notes that ring through his brain or rhythms that sync up with the pace of his heartbeat. 

Jisung doesn’t usually care much for the lyrics, but he can appreciate a meaningful line or two. 

Tonight, in the glowing pink light of his small room, in the corner of a house he feels like he lives in on his own, he hears the words. 

Jisung’s window is open, and the summer night’s quiet heat mingles with the stiff, heady air of a room avoided for too long. The sky is a solemn blue, darkened and filled with stars. 

Tonight, Jisung wonders why so many songs are about love. 

As a rule, or maybe by virtue of his strange taste, Jisung’s music usually laments a lack thereof. Soft voices crooning about lost lovers and fever dreams, pining and accepting. 

Jisung hasn’t been in love. He’s never mourned an unrequited feeling, never pined for someone else. 

There is, however, the heavy realization that he might be on his way to that point. 

Maybe he’ll understand these songs. Maybe it’ll be worth it if he can. 

Maybe he won’t be able to. 

Jisung thinks he may need to seek out a new kind of song. 

sungie?

Boys · Hippo Campus

⊚ LP3

-- ↻ --

It’s 2:11 PM on Thursday when Jisung finally manages to open his eyes. He feels the sun streaming into his childhood room, the room he hasn’t lived in in a long time, and decides he has to leave. 

Luckily sadness doesn’t last forever. 

Jisung has no love for summer, no love for the teal beach, but he supposes he likes the town well enough. It’s all narrow streets and pale buildings and intricate molding. Colorful flowers and hanging lights, neat squares of blue sky. 

Jisung likes skateboarding, and he loves music. 

He doesn’t mind how his headphones squeeze his ears and flatten his fading hair, just as long as he has his songs. 

If Jisung lives near the beach, Renjun’s house is closer to the edge of the city. It’s low to the ground and a pristine white, with neat black shutters and a stone doorstep. The minimal yard is covered in overgrown grasses and a few flower bushes Renjun has only recently started to tend. 

Jisung comes home to a familiar kind of chaos. 

“No, Mark, I promise it’s not--yes, yeah. That works. What!? Wait, stop--no! Oh my god, what the fuck. You didn’t. What? Really!?” Renjun is pacing the kitchen yelling into his phone like his poor college friend might be hard of hearing. 

There’s a sound of glass shattering from somewhere down the hallway, followed by an ear-piercing shriek of, “Yerim?!”

Jisung timidly makes it down the hallway, just stepping into his room before something--someone, rather--lands hard on his back, and they go tumbling across the low pile carpet. 

“Shit,” Jisung manages as he feels the inevitable bruises that are bound to form. He opens his eyes and sees Yangyang, uncomfortably close. Their limbs are intertwined and Yangyang’s chocolate hair is falling into Jisung’s face. Jisung can hear his breathing, interspersed between bursts of quiet, disbelieving laughter. 

His smile holds the brightness of several suns. 

Jisung rolls out from under him, lying face down on the floor. 

Yangyang is cute. The lilt of his German accent, the sharpness of his laugh, it’s all terribly endearing. 

“How the fuck did you attach yourself to the ceiling ?”

And yet Jisung has barely one positive feeling for him. 

Yangyang holds up two suction cups that are definitely not meant to hold human weight. “The meme potential was far too great. I am the ultimate.” 

Yangyang is exhausting.

Jisung hears a yell from Chenle, who is in the corner of the room with Yerim, their stray 14 year old who pops in and out seasonally. 

Jisung and Yangyang look at each other for a split second before Yangyang scrambles away.

Yerim is trouble. Her moms run a little boardwalk clothing shop, but Yerim has no interest in such things as fashion and money. 

What she is interested in is bothering older boys. What she is interested in is older boys in general.

It must be too bad for her that all five of them view her as a little sister. Even Jisung must admit to having a bit of a soft spot for her. 

It’s nice to be looked up to, seen as big and brave. It’s nice, because Jisung knows all too well that he is terrified of everything. 

Yerim has broken a wine glass and Chenle is panicking. His face is stricken with pure fear of God (Renjun Huang), and he looks at the glass with horror. 

“What if I die,” he asks incredulously, grasping Yerim by the shoulders and shaking her. “What if he kills me?” 

It’s around this point at which Chenle notices Jisung squirming around on the floor. He directs his terror at the poor worm. 

“Jisung, my man, if I die… please tell my mother and all of my bitches I love them.” 

“What bitches…” Jisung grumbles, effectively slithering his way to the scene of the crime. 

Yerim giggles like she wants to be out of there. 

The glass is now a pile of shards and Jisung just stares at it for a moment before scrambling to his feet. 

It’s nearly comical how he has no idea how to address this. 

There’s a knock at the door and Renjun peeks his head in. 

Chenle, too dedicated to the bit, cowers behind Jisung and grabs his shoulders for support. “Hide me.” 

Jisung stands there. Oh, he certainly stands. There. You’d never seen a person more talented at standing in your life. 

There is not a thought in his mind. 

Renjun surveys the scene silently. 

Yerim slides out the open window. 

Renjun sighs his parental sigh. “Let’s assess the damages, you fools.” 

-- ↻ --

Jaemin returns home in a state. 

He sits on the living room sofa and stares straight forward for what must be 10 minutes without blinking. 

After Renjun releases Chenle and Jisung from their obligatory glass cleaning (No injuries sustained! Applause for Chenle and Jisung!), the pair discovers this scene and they watch Jaemin in silence for a moment or two. 

A moment’s silence is a lot to ask of Chenle Zhong.

At breakneck speed, Chenle hops around the sofa waving his arms and yelling musical variations of Jaemin’s name over and over until he finally gets his acknowledgement: an single shout with no words, just one sharp “AAA.” 

Then Jaemin stands and wordlessly walks away. 

He’s not smooth, Jisung’s come to find out over the years. Jaemin can swap out his awkwardness for charisma easily enough, but get him alone and you’ll find he’s just… really weird. Really weird. 

Chenle, exhausted, collapses on the sofa. He looks up at Jisung directly, something mischievous in his eyes. 

(As poetic as a person Jisung is, he finds that the greatest danger lies in analyzing any aspect of Chenle beyond the surface level.

The most threatening part is his eyes.)

“I think he met a boy.” Chenle states, and that is that. 

“Che--”

“I think he is being a disaster gay around 20 feet away from us right now.” 

On cue, a scream sounds from down the hall. 

“I think,” Chenle leans in conspiratorially, not minding that Jisung is too far away from him for the action to have any impact past dramatics. “I think Jaemin Na is a simp .” 

Jisung sputters like a boiling tea kettle. “Why do you think that, even?”

“Oh come on, Jisungie. Don’t you know your own cousin a little better than that?” 

A fully formulated thought appears in Jisung’s mind, ready to be spoken. 

Instead, what comes out is, “I don’t… know gay stuff.” He sounds a little hesitant, almost scared. 

The door swings shut. Renjun, arms laden with groceries, stares in from the foyer. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” 

And thus the conversation ends.

-- ↻ --

There’s a bit of an elephant in the room. 

Anyone privy to Jisung’s story has likely noticed its presence already. 

Somewhere tangled up with all the friend issues and family issues, the beach and the sky and the July heat, with everything that makes Jisung who he is, there is Chenle Zhong.

Jisung’s first friend. 

There is Chenle Zhong, who can hold conversations with Jisung without ever speaking a word, who Jisung can understand no matter which language he speaks, whose laugh Jisung has memorized. 

And now there’s the distance between them. 

It’s 11:01 PM. 

Yangyang is passed out on his designated orange Yogibo and Jisung is doomed to share the queen-sized bed with Chenle. You know, the way friends do. 

Chenle is on his phone because this is normal. This is all very normal and happens nearly every day, why would it be anything out of the ordinary?

Jisung is overthinking again. 

While Chenle is occupied, AirPods in his ears and the beginnings of a smile playing on his lips, Jisung looks down at the sheets. The nondescript tan of a room made for guests, properly lived in but still clean. 

There are six inches from Chenle’s elbow pressing into the bed to Jisung’s side as he lies still, flat, looking the ceiling fan right in the eye. 

The book he’s holding up is more of a prop now, a dispeller of suspicion. 

His eyes have not moved down the page. 

There’s one sentence bolded in Jisung’s vision, harsh and dark against the soft paper. 

What do you think this is?

There are fourteen inches between Chenle’s face and Jisung’s. 

But Jisung feels for the first time, despite all their years of friendship and all their secrets shared, that they’re miles apart.

He rolls over and tries to fall asleep. 

-- ↻ --

Jaemin loves the beach. 

When he moved here, Jisung was 10. He watched his older cousin, the image of prepubescent maturity, a spontaneous know-it-all of an energetic 12 year old, fall in love with something Jisung was quickly coming to tire of. 

The sea and sky have always been part of Jisung’s life. He’s doven into sheets of dark ice, freezing through the winter, and waded through the salty sweet warmth of early summer. 

The beach is just as much a part of him as his unsure height, his gangly limbs, his soft squinting smile. 

And as with most of his own characteristics, Jisung grew critical of the beach as he grew up. 

He doesn’t know where else he’d rather be, but the beach has grown to be something that only contributes to the lackluster nature of Jisung’s life, drawing swarms of people who seem to trod upon Jisung’s state of inner peace. 

Jaemin is bright. Six years later, he remains the same fidgeting, curious boy. 

And his eyes still light up like they did the first time when he goes out to the shore. 

Once summer starts, Jaemin isn’t at home much. He’s too busy with the beach, trying to uncover its secrets and memorize its details, entranced with its beauty the way a lover is. 

That might be too poetic for Jaemin. 

The next day, at 2 PM sharp, Jaemin bursts through the door wearing the goofiest shit-eating grin you’d ever seen in your life. 

Jisung (barely lucid), Chenle (cranky from not having eaten anything yet), and Yangyang (clinging to the swinging door of the kitchen with his feet hanging off the ground) are all roused from their various states by the sight.

“He’s going to start screaming again,” Yangyang states, and falls off the door. He lands in a heap directly at the feet of a statue-still, grinning Jaemin. 

Renjun emerges from the hallway, takes one look at Jaemin, and deflates like a balloon. “Bet he’s in love. I haven’t seen that look since Donghyuck.” 

This seems to shock Jaemin out of his stupor. “This is not a Donghyuck situation.” He says with great conviction. “That was a dark era in my history and I wish to forget it.”

“This is a Donghyuck situation,” Yangyang repeats into the floor. 

“Don’t do ice cream man a disservice like this.”

Chenle looks up with great fascination. “Ice cream man?” 

Jisung can feel Chenle’s victorious smile beaming rays of orange sunlight directly at him. He sighs and withers under the glow. 

Jaemin lifts a hand. “Ice cream man is all that is pure and kind in this world.” He states like a scientist coming to a great revelation. 

“I bet he’s talked to him five times,” Renjun deadpans. 

“Money’s on two,” Chenle chimes in. 

“Four,” Yangyang contributes. “Respect your elders, Lele.” 

Jisung feels all eyes go to him. “I’m going to say three.” 

Everyone looks at Jaemin expectantly. There’s a faraway kind of look in his sparkling eyes, the midpoint between being lovelorn and absolutely fucking baked. 

His gaze, still starry, moves to Jisung. “My Jisungie is growing up to be so smart.”

Three five dollar bills present themselves to Jisung, who can only roll his eyes. “You never cease to impress.” 

Jaemin strikes a pose. Jisung sometimes thinks his cousin belongs in a comedy anime. “Being gay is an art, my friends, and I am a master.” 

“Yeah, and so is being a fucking idiot apparently,” says Renjun. 

Yangyang begins to slither onto the carpeted floor, allowing Jaemin to step out of the foyer. 

It strikes Jisung as horrifically ironic that Jaemin found the object of his latest infatuation on the beach. Something tells him this is one going to be good. 

They let Jaemin sit down and rant about the poor stranger he met the other day, a quiet, dark haired boy with the prettiest eyes you’d ever seen. 

All four sit and listen, unabashedly attentive. One fact of life in Renjun Huang’s mixed-up household: everyone is a hopeless romantic. 

(Unfortunately, this includes Jisung. Though he much prefers others’ endeavors to his own.)

“What are you going to do?” Yangyang asks. “Seduce him?” 

Yerim, who managed to slip in through the window at some point in the conversation, sits up. “Write him a love letter.” 

“Buy him flowers!” 

“Buy him drugs!”

“Modern romance,” Jisung sighs. He finds himself smiling at this miserable infatuation. 

Jaemin goes a flattering red and gestures for everyone to shut up. “Shut up,” he says helpfully. “For now, I just wanna see him tomorrow.” He pauses, looks down as if thinking, smiles. “Guys, I think I’m gay.” 

“71st time he’s come out in the past three years,” Yangyang says stoically. 

Renjun scoffs at him. “You keep track?”

“I’m just perceptive, baby.” 

“I hate you.” 

“Damn, that hurts almost as much as it did when you first said it 2,109 times ago.”

As a background track to this banter, Chenle begins to quietly fake sob. “Fucking crying RN,” he says, with the RN and everything. “Jaem’s growing up. Being gay. Can’t believe this shit. Great post, OP.”

“Jaemin Na gets bitches?” Jisung performs an almost uncanny mimicry of the surprised Pikachu meme from fucking 2018. “Real footage.” 

“Jaemin, Jisung said a bad word,” Yerim says flatly.

Jaemin’s eyes have gone stoned and adoring again. 

“This is so fucking sad,” Chenle says, suddenly sobering up. He looks at Jisung desperately. “Jisung, when will someone love me?”

“LMAO bitchless,” Jisung shoots back but his soul is fucking dying RN.

Chenle’s eyes go suddenly narrow. “Is it because I’m gay? You hate gay people, Park?” 

“Fuck you, that’s why. CSGO playing, no bitch having, w--”

“Buy me flowers, Jisung.” 

“Wha-at kind?” 

“Tulips. Buy me red tulips.”

“Shouldn’t you save these demands for a… prospective partner?”

(Deep below the surface, Jisung Park is having a solid internal conflict. He can’t even meme anymore. Yangyang would be so disappointed with him were he not too busy trying to kiss Renjun.

Two weeks’ worth of confusion and agony bubble to the surface just for the purpose of joking around with his best fucking friend. 

Jisung thinks whoever’s writing his story must be high as hell.)

“Homophobia.”

Jisung starts sputtering again. He thinks Chenle might simply have that effect. “It’s because no bitches! What the hell, man, I love gay people!” 

It’s right then that conversation comes to a lull. 

Five pairs of eyes go straight to Jisung, who raises a shaking fist. “Ally.” 

“A likely story,” Yerim says snootily. 

“I’m going to call Irene right now, you little dipshit.” 

Yerim flings herself out of the window. 

Jisung’s fist is still raised.

“I also love gay people,” Jaemin says dreamily. 

-- ↻ --

So Jisung can’t sleep too well. 

When chaos subsides and conversation dies down, Jisung is left to his own devices (namely: teenaged poeticism and overanalysis). 

Chenle is passed out, faced down, spread eagled. 

Jisung keeps carefully to his little sliver of available bed space and lets his music do the thinking for him. 

sungie?

Astronomy · Conan Gray

⊚ Astronomy

Lying in this dark room, in this quiet house, drowning in the summer heat and strangled by his thoughts but comforted by his best friend’s presence (or maybe their distance), Jisung feels very 16. 

16 is the explorer’s age. The time for experimenting, for first loves and kisses and sex and a taste of maturity. 

But Jisung’s feelings are purely juvenile. Confused. Heavy.

He blames it, like he blames most things, on the beach.

He feels the water washing over him even now, questions burning his eyes like salt. 

Caring about Chenle is easy. Talking to him, loving him, it’s all easy. It has been since Jisung was seven years old.

So what’s so difficult now?  

-- ↻ --

It’s around 7 AM when Jisung feels the last of his sanity melting away. 

Before 8, he’s skating down the boardwalk with a bouquet of red tulips in hand. His destination is unknown, his logic absent, but today he feels a strange kind of comfort in the morning’s sea breeze. It’s an innocence he hasn’t felt since childhood. 

The sky is dark and gray, the air thin. No one is around. 

Jisung smiles and pushes off the ground again. 

It’s another minute or two before Jisung notices an unnatural color in the washed-out scene, a traffic cone orange that is just barely--

“Jisung Park?!” 

The sound cuts through the air and Jisung jumps. His feet falter on the board and he swerves off to the side, heading full speed towards one of those little benches by the beach. 

The crash sounds with a clang and Jisung falls over the armrest before rolling onto the wood of the boardwalk. His skateboard is slowly sliding away from him, and Jisung’s brain feels like its reverb setting has been increased. 

He hears Chenle’s high pitched laugh, hears his footsteps, and feels a dull thwack against his already ringing head. “Man, please,” he sighs, rolling about on the floor like an overturned bug. “What the fuck are you doing out here?” 

“Shenanigans and tomfoolery,” Chenle says neutrally. In his upside down periphery, Jisung sees Chenle’s gaze go up and forward to the boardwalk. 

Frazzled, he looks in the same direction to discover a tell tale track of flower petals along the boardwalk. Jisung has the presence of mind to look around for his bouquet before the embarrassment sinks in. 

Chenle’s the one to find it under the offending bench. He picks it up and examines it for just long enough for Jisung’s vision to go back to normal. He sits up and feels the warmth rush to his face. 

“What the fuck, Jisung.” 

Jisung can’t interpret tone that well. “Chenle, I--”

To his shock, Chenle starts laughing. It’s partially shocked, partially happy, mostly awed. “I can’t believe you. Christ, now I feel bad for hitting you, you didn’t have to--” His laughter loses some of its energy, melting into an unstable giggle. “What the hell, Jisung, you didn’t have to--I was kidding, wh--”

The embarrassment is far too evident on Jisung’s face now. “Yeah? Who says they’re for you?” 

“You’re not slick, Jisungie.” He reaches out to pinch Jisung’s cheek, which is met with a lot more protesting and an even darker blush. “Thank you, man. That’s actually really nice of you. Bro.”

Jisung thinks he wants to die. “Great, I’m glad, get off me please.” He blinks a few times, tries to calm the racing of his heart. “Chenle, be serious with me--you’re here to find ice cream man, aren’t you?” 

Chenle is now the one sputtering. “I couldn’t sleep, dude, I’m not a creep--”

“Yes or no?” 

“I mean, yeah.” 

Jisung scrambles across the ground to catch his escaping board. “What’s your interest in him?” 

“Purely scientific. Conducting a study to determine Jaemin’s type.”

“If Donghyuck is any evidence, soft boys with very little soul.”

“But ice cream man is pure and kind, bruh.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” 

Jisung has to admit he’s pretty invested too, but Chenle will always outdo him in unabashedness. 

“No one noticed you leaving at 8 in the fucking morning?” 

Chenle makes a face. Morning wind blows the orange hair around his face. “I am capable of being quiet, you know.” 

“News to me.” 

“So funny,” Chenle remarks drily, but Jisung notices his eyes traveling a little bit past him. He whips around and notices the ice cream stall, colored bleakly by the day’s cloudy gloom. 

Past the display case sits a boy with hair dark as night. Jisung whips around to look at Chenle, who is gaping like an idiot. 

“Have some class about it, will you?” He scoffs, waving a hand in front of Chenle’s face. 

“Soft boys. Maybe some soul left.”

Jisung whips around for a split second, just to catch a glimpse of ice cream man placing an open book over his face and leaning back dangerously far in his folding chair. 

Chenle’s wearing a smile that’s halfway dreamy and halfway mischievous. 

Jisung sighs and the breeze blows by again. “Let’s go home.” 

-- ↻ --

The boardwalk isn’t terribly far from Renjun’s place, but it makes for a nice (long) walk. 

The square buildings with their pastel colors and soft molding seem to envelop Jisung and Chenle as they come back in from the sea. 

Today’s morning is dark, and the lights are on. The lampposts seem to puzzle over the time of day, and hung lightbulbs flicker in and out of life. 

Jisung doesn’t think he has anything left to say to Chenle. It’s been almost ten years of ceaseless conversation, of philosophical musings and heated debates. It’s about time to take a break. 

Their silence is happy and without worry. Jisung feels a solid amount of unspoken joy at Chenle’s proximity. 

Even when silent, he exudes the kind of childlike joy Jisung can only miss. From the way he still balances on curbs and smiles to himself every few seconds, Chenle’s zest for life is evident in his every move. 

Jisung thinks he could write a thesis on Chenle Zhong. Maybe a novel. Maybe a weird little romance for his weird little single friend. 

(Maybe Jisung’s role isn’t so removed at all. He could write an autobiography and find Chenle’s name on every page, in every sentence, coloring everything that makes Jisung feel like himself.

That’s a strange little thought, isn’t it? Another for the books. A new Spotify playlist.)

A drop of rain falls directly onto Jisung’s head. He stops short, gazes to the heavens, and another droplet splashes right under his eye. 

Chenle notices this and laughs. “Aw, our Jisungie. What are you crying for?” His gaze follows the raindrop as it runs down Jisung’s cheek.

Jisung just stares at him, unamused. He watches the raindrops fall on Chenle, on the exposed petals of his near-dead tulip bouquet. 

Chenle seems to find great amusement in the continual placement of raindrops on Jisung’s stony face. Wearing his mischievous smile, he reaches out with his free hand to wipe them away with his thumb. 

Jisung is becoming more and more talented at standing there and not thinking any thoughts. 

His lack of thoughts is growing more evident in his speech. “That’s kind of gay, not gonna lie.” 

“I am gay,” Chenle says, affronted. His hand still hovers at the side of Jisung’s face, unsure. 

“Okay, but--” Jisung starts, but cuts himself off. He doesn’t know how to end that sentence. I’m not feels a little too complex a response.

Two weeks’ worth of an existential crisis hang in the air, suspended in a millisecond of silence. Luckily for Jisung, Chenle is always there to fill it. 

“Pansexual is gay, Jisung, we went over this.” 

“I know what pansexual means, you dumb fuck.” 

And he does, though the term had to be painstakingly explained to him at the age of 13.

Now, surrounded by gay people, Jisung thinks these things have become second nature. He knows this kind of stuff better than he knows himself, at this point. Hence the existential crisis.

Well, there’s no use dancing around it anymore.

Park Jisung, age 16, is having a sexuality crisis, and at the center of it all is, uh… 

That can be inferred. 

(We may have to dance around this aspect for a while longer.)

Chenle pats Jisung’s cheek twice with an air of finality. His smile is quiet, tight-lipped, and Jisung can feel the rain soaking through his shirt. He watches Chenle’s orange hair flatten and fall in dark clumps across his face. 

Jisung looks up, watches the light bulbs suspended across this narrow street wash over with rain. 

The pastel stone of these towering buildings begins to darken. The sky is clouded over, and there is not a car in sight. 

Jisung registers the sound of the headphones around his neck turning off. Chenle’s finger is pressed against the button. “What are you doing?” he asks flatly. 

“Why don’t you infer? Use some context clues, I don’t know. I had a D in English.” 

“I remember that, yeah. God, that was impressive. Algebra and Bio I understand, but English? You’re fluent!” 

Chenle’s hand falls from Jisung’s headphones, brushing against his shoulder on its way down. “I’m no good at reading between the lines. Philosophy and analysis, it’s… beyond me. Plus I hate Death of a Salesman and I never learned how to study.” 

Jisung blinks at him. “I could have helped you.”

“Cheat?”

“If you asked, yeah, but with studying too.”

Chenle swats at the air. They’re both drenched in rain, and the air is starting to chill, but neither is bothered to care. “Too much work. I just want to cruise, you know? Not do much.” Something is left unsaid, but with Chenle it’s never for long. “I also didn’t really want to inconvenience you with that shit, knowing I’m kind of a lost cause.” 

“You’re not a lost cause.” 

“Says who?” 

“Says me.” Jisung delivers a dull whack to the side of Chenle’s head. It’s a love language. “Does my opinion not matter anymore? Have my encouragements lost their novelty?” 

“Oh, shut up.” Without any ado, Chenle pulls Jisung’s phone from the pocket of his shorts. He unlocks it (his fingerprint has been in the system for years) and scrolls for a while, doing something Jisung can’t see. Jisung watches the rain splatter against his clear phone case. Quietly, almost preoccupied, Chenle mutters, “You’ll never lose your novelty.” Then he presses play. 

sungie?

Angel Baby · Troye Sivan

⊚ Angel Baby

The storm has colored their pastel town with the murky hue of paint water, a watercolor rinse. Jisung looks skeptically at Chenle and hopes to god that his phone is waterproof. 

“It’s a good rain song,” Chenle says by way of explanation. He’s almost defensive, and Jisung can’t understand why until the lyrics play. 

Slowly, he feels himself smile. “Gay.” 

“Is that an insult?” 

“No, it’s a statement.” 

“Even straight people can appreciate Troye Sivan, Jisung.” 

Jisung can’t even understand why he’s smiling. He turns and continues on his way, pretends not to notice Chenle’s confused gaze on him and the sound of him running through the puddles on the dark ground to catch up. 

I just want to live in this moment forever.  

Jisung’s gaze is forward and down, following the raindrops’ silent descent. Chenle’s gaze is up and to the side, trained directly on Jisung. 

“Why do you look like that?”

He doesn’t know what to say. Maybe I have a chance. Maybe I can entertain this strange little daydream for a moment longer. 

“You like anyone, Chenle?”

Chenle falls very quickly silent. “Why d’you ask?” 

“You don’t tend towards love songs.” 

It’s true. Chenle’s playlists are composed primarily of film soundtracks and 70’s rock, with a mournful Mandarin ballad thrown in here and there. 

“Tend towards,” Chenle repeats, mocking, though with less of his usual snark. “No, I don’t think I do. You?”

Tell me a secret, and baby, I’ll keep it. 

“No, I guess not.”

And maybe we could play house for the weekend.

“I like this song, though.” 

Chenle nods in Jisung’s periphery. “It’s a good song.”

Jisung doesn’t want to say anything until he’s sure. He’s not sure if he wants to say anything at all. He finally looks down at Chenle, meeting his wide, curious eyes, and watches onyx swallow chocolate brown. 

It’s nice, in a way, to feel like this. To wonder and puzzle over the nature of his feelings, to stay up late in a dreamy haze, to fantasize in a gentle, juvenile kind of way. 

Jisung needs to find more songs. 

-- ↻ --

Jaemin only gets to fuss over them, the state of their clothes and hair and the puddles of water on the doorstep, for five minutes before Jisung gets a call. 

He’s grounded. 

Jisung knows he didn’t do anything, that his mother’s demand for him to come home is more of a plea. Her hope remains that his presence will keep the peace. 

Jisung’s not a defiant kid, but he refuses to take responsibility that he does not want. 

He spends the weekend cooped up in his room, not doing too much. 

Music drowns out the empty sounds of a forgotten home. When that’s not enough, there are people to text and notes to write and happy thoughts to think.

Sunday morning, it rains again. The spell lasts half an hour, but Jisung sits by his open window and feels every minute. 

sungie?

Angel Baby · Troye Sivan

⊚ Angel Baby

Sue him. 

Things are quiet. Jisung stays awake and watches the city move, watches it spark to life with the setting of the sun. When he tires of that, the beach pulls at him like an old friend gone astray. 

His falling out with the beach cannot be so easily remedied by his boredom. 

Still, Jisung watches the waves. With every breaking tide, he feels the water up to his head and can’t decide if it's overwhelming or relieving. 

He listens to a lot of music and reads a lot of online forums and comes away confused as before, but he decides that’s okay. 

There are, however, other kinds of confusion. The type Jisung doesn’t like. 

11:02 PM

chnenllnnenoonenn 

idk man

i guess things are fine but like

… theyre not

jisus

wdym? is everyone ok?

chnenllnnenoonenn

physically yeah

you know us 

immune systems of steel

but mentally?? man how tf do i know

the vibes are off and things are quiet and its fucking WEIRD and i am CREEPD THE fuck out

jisus

things are QUIET

bitch u better be joking.

chnenllnnenoonenn

no cuz it feels like a different place

like it may be renjun’s Dark Cloud of School Stress because tbh when has yangyang had a problem ever

plus jaem is always gallivanting on the boardwalk so like.. he cant even contribute to the vibe that much

yerim noticed and that girl has the perception skills of a very small rock

jisus

man renjun… man

boy has literally six patents and probably a mil at the age of 18… 

how come the summer classes bruh how fucking com e

its not like he needs more creds or anything he skipped two years

chnenllnnenoonenn

no also Big Tech are always looking for new shit from him

like dont yall got ?? a billion other scientists who are of age and also not in school

not to mention all his personal shit like… we may never know the details but it doesnt take a genius to know shit is not sunshine and rainbows

jisus

i will never understand how he does it

biomedical AND tech AND mech eng… how is his brain built like that

but that apart like the sheer amount of commitments he has

the sheer number of achievements

if i were him id cry like every day and also cry a lot did i mention

plus he kind of has to provide for us tbh. sometimes i feel bad abt it

we’re like 5.5 teens all kinda housed by one kid

chnenllnnenoonenn

i mean at least most of us got families for the necessities 

well all of us. to varying degrees

so its not like hes raising kids but tbh i understand

i wish i could help him out more but i dont understand any of anything he does ever

plus i like to think we’re not always burdens

he did keep us around for a reason

jisus

based for that one

sorry i will never say those words again

man idk i just hope he knows we care

beyond the general house maintenance activities we do when forced like

idk how else we can show it

chnenllnnenoonenn

im not speaking for him but like

sometimes being there is enough

sometimes you just need a shoulder to cry on (or four)

i know for me thats really important like… its nice to have people there 

(but tbh yeah renjun appreciation club)

jisus

if he is in a Communication Other Than Screaming mode pls tell him i love him in a platonic way

yk

chnenllnnenoonenn

will do king

Here, Chenle stops to type for an alarmingly long time. 

chnenllnnenoonenn

i miss you

bro 

come back pls (at your earliest convenience)

i need a Jisung Hug

Jisung’s heart very suddenly makes its presence known.

jisus

man you know im not a big hugger

chnenllnnenoonenn

the scarcity is what makes it special i think

absence makes the heart grow fonder

or whatever the poets said 

plus you are very tall now and i am in a mood to feel like a small Entity of little consequence with very few thoughts

jisus

is that a regular byproduct of my hugs

no thoughts

chnenllnnenoonenn

a regular byproduct of your presence is no thoughts

interpret that as you will

;)

jisus

ew

you could have just said i deplete you of braincells

quote a yangyang meme or smth

chnenllnnenoonenn

when you come back will you hug me

jisus

this is such a dilemma

if only you had bitches

nay

just one bitch

to keep you warm in my absence

chnenllnnenoonenn

it is July. i need no warmth

plus no bitch could replace my Homie

bros before hoes (whic i do not have because i am a child of god)

jisus

a child of jisus, would you say?

chnenllnnenoonenn

daddy?

jisus

sleep with one eye open.

chnenllnnenoonenn

ok i wanna push the joke a lil further but i am too young to die

again i miss you and also i forgot to say this but i hope all is well at the Park Household

well i hope not everything is bad 

i hope you are holding up alright 

jisus

i’m okay

just more of the usual yk

im glad u said that tho it means a lot

Jisung watches the waves in the dark and feels the seafoam on his skin. Just a little courage. 

jisus

i miss you too

in a weird way

chnenllnnenoonenn

in a weird way??

???

jisus

i miss you the most

chnenllnnenoonenn

am i ur favorite <3

jisus

well

chnenllnnenoonenn

answer wisely i have a knife

jisus

well yeah

ive known you since i was 7 i thought it was obvious

chnenllnnenoonenn

time doesn’t guarantee anything 

jisus

i guess not

i can blame it all on you then

chnenllnnenoonenn

so sorry for being hot and sexy and cool

so sorry for making you love me actually

will never happen again

jisus

yeah it better fucking not

anyways ive considered it and ive decided i’ll give you a hug

chnenllnnenoonenn

yeah? considered the pros and cons?

jisus

dont you dare make fun of my pro con lists

i should be back tuesday

chnenllnnenoonenn

good 

i think we need emotional support and you are

very supportive

emotionally 

(we love u sungie)

jisus

damn thanks

chnenllnnenoonenn

yeah yeah

for rn try n get some sleep 

its past ur bedtime </3

jisus

shush

you go to sleep as well

you need ur beauty sleep

chnenllnnenoonenn

u saying im ugly?

jisus

gn!

chnenllnnenoonenn

jisung park.

your days are numbered. 

(gn man)

-- ↻ --

Jisung escapes Tuesday afternoon, as promised.

Skateboard under his arm and headphones around his neck, Jisung feels like a fresh person. The summery glow around his pastel town, the birds chirping, it’s rejuvenating. 

He drops his board to the concrete and heads on his way.

It’s almost subconsciously that he makes a wrong turn, that he veers away from Renjun’s street and instead makes his way to the boardwalk. 

He skids to a halt right as the path turns to wood planks, right at the edge of the crowd. Keeping a safe distance, Jisung watches the crystal waves catch sunrays. He watches the water inch closer to shore before drawing back, deliberate. 

Jisung’s eyes glaze over. The sun is beating down on his head, drawing color from hazy pink. 

He’s happy today. 

Jisung turns around and continues on his way home. 

Renjun’s house comes into view, small but welcoming. He hops up to the top doorstep with one leap (Jisung’s sudden growth spurt seems to have granted him some unlikely advantages) and knocks at the door. 

Six beats. Short, long, long long, short, short, short. It’s Morse code for JS, a system he and Chenle created several years back for a purpose both of them have forgotten now. 

It’s habitual. Jisung doesn’t know any Morse code, but he could tap out this rhythm in his sleep. 

Chenle is the one to open the door. He smiles with his lips pressed together. It’s happy, genuine, but tired. His orange hair is filled with static, but it's clear that he’s been awake. 

Wordlessly, he lets Jisung in and watches quietly as he kicks off his shoes and discards his board by the door. 

Jisung can feel the air. It’s thick, almost electric, unmoving. Most alarmingly, it’s quiet. “Chenle,” Jisung says, glancing around. His voice is just barely above a whisper, as he doesn’t dare disturb the silence. “What the fuck is going on in here?” 

Chenle shrugs. “Yangyang’s home for a few days,” He starts. The dialogue is an excuse for him to meet Jisung’s eyes, and Jisung can sense something unfamiliar in his gaze. 

He just doesn’t know what it is. God, Chenle’s eyes are really dangerous. 

“H-His parents are back?” 

“Yeah, but not for long. You know how it is.”

Jisung does know. He knows that, in a day or two, Yangyang will return with handfuls of German candy and an even stronger glow to his already iridescent smile. Jisung almost smiles thinking of it. 

“Renjun and Jaemin?” 

Chenle just shrugs again. He hasn’t broken eye contact yet, and Jisung gets the unsettling feeling that there’s a message to be received from it. “I don’t even know anymore. I’m too scared to open the door lest Renjun release his full wrath in my direction.” 

“Lest,” Jisung repeats without thinking. “You been reading books, dude?” 

At this, Chenle blows a strand of hair away from his face. “Wouldn’t be caught dead. I’ve gotta stick to my himbo agenda, you know?” 

This is the most intense unspoken staring contest Jisung has ever engaged in. His heart is doing panicked somersaults and cursing and shit. 

“Being this stupid is a talent--oof!” 

That’s the sound of Chenle receiving the full impact of Jisung effectively body slamming him in preparation for what has to be the most aggressive hug in all of human history. 

Jisung didn’t really think this one through (at all), but now he’s squeezing Chenle like one might a teddy bear, and his chin is on Chenle’s shoulder, and he doesn’t really regret it. 

Chenle remains stock-still for what feels like six hours before his arms move slowly to wrap around Jisung. It’s at this moment that Jisung realizes how fucking tall he is. 

“What happened to not being a big hugger?” Chenle asks, Despite his brazen tone, the words come out a little suffocated. 

Jisung doesn’t really have the mental fortitude to process that and lighten up. All he says is, “I make good on my promises, don’t I?” 

Chenle smells sweet in a weird, light way, like whipped cream or something. “That you do, I guess,” he says, and sue Jisung for noticing the way his voice physically reverberates. 

Maybe hugs are something he should do more often. 

He feels Chenle’s hand quickly move up to his hair and mess it up with no warning. Jisung leans away, puzzled. “What’s that for?”

“Just felt like it.” He looks up, amused, but doesn’t retract his hand. 

Jisung swats at him and fusses over his hair, feigning offense. “Gee, thanks.” 

“Anytime.” Chenle goes quiet for a minute, just watching with a kind of half-smile that makes Jisung feel terribly unsafe. “You wanna play Valorant?” 

“I’d rather die.” 

“Minecraft?” 

“Fine. Just let me chill with my farm animals, though. I want no part of your dragon-slaying.” 

“You’re no fun.” 

“I just like small creatures.”

“They’re animated blocks , Jisung.” 

(In the end, it’s Chenle who gives up on the Ender Dragon and decides to fill his entire inventory with kelp for the hell of it.

Jisung just tends to his bees and doesn’t say a word.)

-- ↻ --

The evening is weird. 

Renjun emerges from his room to order delivery and Jaemin pays when Renjun glances away. 

Jisung thinks they’re like a married couple in a platonic way. 

He and Chenle are engaged in an animated game of shootout, two kids in a schoolyard even now. That’s kind of how Jisung manages to miss whatever makes Jaemin’s voice drop with an unfamiliar kind of urgency, whatever makes Renjun tense up behind him. 

It’s evident in the air. Chenle freezes with his hands out in finger guns, and Jisung turns around with his arms crossed over his chest in defense. He and Chenle are on the living room floor, and Renjun and Jaemin are in the kitchen. 

From where he sits, Jisung can only see Renjun’s face. His eyes are wide, confused, caught. There’s a plea written somewhere on his face, but Jisung can’t pick up on where or why. 

Renjun’s gaze goes from Jaemin to Jisung, and all four parties are suddenly very still. 

Then Renjun switches languages and Jisung knows something is very wrong. All he says to Jaemin in Korean is, “The kids…”

And Jisung realizes his two homes might be more similar than he thought. It would be a little funny if Jisung weren’t so concerned.

Jisung is torn between standing up, insisting that they’re not kids, and just grabbing Chenle’s hand and running out because he can’t deal with this kind of shit anymore. 

But neither of them really has anywhere to go, so he just looks Renjun dead in the eye and asks what’s wrong in Korean. 

It’s evident in Jaemin’s gaze that he forgot Jisung and Chenle were there. Maybe he didn’t know in the first place. When he turns to look at them, it’s the way a parent does before sharing bad news. 

The doorbell rings. 

No one really moves to address it. 

“Why are we all looking at Jisung?” Asks Chenle, frenzied. “What did he say?” 

Not responding, Jisung stands, opens the door, and brings the food in. He drops it on the kitchen table with no fanfare, though his eyes dart down to where Jaemin has a grip on Renjun’s sleeve.

It’s suddenly unclear who are the kids, and who are the adults. 

Jisung is too tired of caring. 

“Come on,” he says to Chenle in Korean before catching himself. The language switch is smooth in his mind. “Let’s go out, Chenle.” 

And far be it from Chenle to detect anything beyond an invitation. 

-- ↻ --

The night is soft and blue, like watered down ink. 

Standing on the doorstep, Chenle gazes out at the rows of buildings, the maze of streets and alleys. There’s something pensive in his eyes, but it’s too unfamiliar for Jisung to make any sense of it. 

“I’m hungry,” is what Chenle finally says. 

Jisung looks at him carefully. “How much money d’you think we can scrounge up between us?” 

The answer is, well, not much. 

“Six bucks and a dream,” Chenle chirps as he drags Jisung down the narrow sidewalk. “We’ll be totally fine.” 

Jisung, still sullen, barely acknowledges the feeling of his arm being pulled out of its socket and travels down the sidewalk in protesting half-steps, like an especially upset horse. 

Quietly, Chenle leads them away from the boardwalk and far from home, to some place only he seems to know. 

Stars begin to pop up in the darkening sky, gazing down at the two of them. The sparse streetlamps are the only light, until Chenle drops Jisung’s hand and looks up. 

The heart of town is closer to the nearby city than it is to the beach. It’s filled with short buildings and glowing neon signs, faded words and bold color. Jisung remembers how the small restaurants and shops became something of a designated after-school destination back when they were in middle school. 

The sudden memory of a smaller version of himself and a smaller version of Chenle seated on a nearby curb somehow springs to mind, and Jisung feels quite old. 

Things seem to have changed in the past few years. Cautiously following Chenle around, Jisung notices traces of modernity under the 1950’s glow. A simple boba shop next to an old-timey diner, a CVS by the ice cream parlor. It’s cohesive in a strange way.

Chenle hops off the sidewalk and walks into the center of the street which divides the rows of shops. There’s not a car in sight, and the stars are hanging low in the steadily darkening sky. 

“What are you doing?” Jisung asks, trying to relay his exhaustion through his tone. Unsurprisingly, his words come out far sunnier than intended. 

Chenle turns around to look blankly at Jisung, and his dark eyes reflect the neon. “It’s your turn.” 

“My turn for what?” 

“Choose a song.” 

“I wasn’t aware this was a thing we did.” Jisung pauses, but his hand is already hovering over his pocket. ”Didn’t you say you were hungry?”

“I just wanted to get you to move, honestly. You looked fucking gone.”

I was , Jisung nearly says. I am . 

The blank look on Chenle’s face melts into a smile, and the colored lights in his eyes dance. “C’mon, Jisungie. The stars are out and it’s not sweltering hot for once and there’s no cars out here. Things are good. Things are, in fact, top tier.” 

Jisung scoffs. “You’re ridiculous.”

“ You’re ridiculous! Look at the lights,” Chenle drawls. “Look at the stars ‘n shit. Hell, look at me.”

“What good is that gonna do me?”

“Look how happy I am.” Chenle flaps his arms like a penguin. “Maybe if you look at me long enough, I can transfer some of that to you.”

Jisung doesn’t say anything, just lets Chenle think about that statement for a moment longer. 

“Okay, maybe that’s dumb.” 

“It’s definitely dumb.” 

Ever the drama queen, Chenle collapses on his back in the middle of the empty street. Jisung, still on the sidewalk, watches with badly disguised amusement. 

Moths dance in the sparse street lamp glow, but somehow the most of the light falls on Chenle. It’s almost theatrical.

“Just play me a fuckin’ song, Jisung Park.” 

Jisung sighs, but sits on the curb and unlocks his phone. “What are we feeling?” 

“Aaaa,” Chenle states, soft and without inflection. 

Jisung would be inclined to agree. 

sungie?

Euphoria · Elephant Castle

⊚ Euphoria

Chenle starts laughing at the first note. “This is perfect.” When the lyrics start, he just starts laughing harder. 

Jisung watches, equal parts confused and exasperated. Then again, he can’t be upset for too long. 

“This has to be the fuckin’... weirdest love song ever. The dorkiest. Nay! The goofiest. And I have heard some goofy love songs in my time.” 

“Not many, evidently. This is a perfectly normal song,” Jisung says, almost defensively. 

“The guy sounds so sad,” Chenle turns his head to look at Jisung sideways, and his orange hair flattens against the black. 

“Shut up and listen to the guitar.” 

The guitar comes in, and Chenle just stares at Jisung the way a small dog looks up at a stranger. He stays that way until the short song is over. “I’ll say it’s not a bad song.” 

“I wouldn’t have played it if it were, genius.” 

“Love seems to have the capability to cloud our judgements.” 

Jisung stammers for a good long moment before his thoughts explode in a cry of, “What the fuck does that mean? Who said I was in fucking love?” 

Chenle remains frustratingly calm. “I’m simply reversing your argument from the other day. You’re not much of a love song person either--if I remember correctly, most of your songs rotate around the theme of ‘Oh, I am so terribly upset, I get absolutely no bitches’, et cetera.” 

“Your point being?!” 

“I don’t believe that you don’t like anyone.” 

Jisung takes a rest from his panicking to roll his eyes. “Of course that’s it. I swear on my fucking life, Chenle, I don’t like anyone.” 

It’s not technically a lie. 

Chenle blinks at him. “Ah, right, who am I kidding? You haven’t spoken to a girl our age since school got out.” 

It’s an obvious dig at Jisung, and the part of him that is clinging desperately onto heterosexuality--probably somewhere around 65% of him now--takes great and genuine offense to this (true) assumption. “How the hell would you know that?”  

“I can just tell.” 

“Absolute bullshit.” 

“I am god.” 

“You’ve spent too much time with Yangyang.” 

“That is very true. Let’s get boba.” 

Jisung’s brain is still a few steps behind. “Sorry?” 

Chenle scrambles off the ground and skips towards Jisung, grabbing his arm again to drag him a few feet down the sidewalk to the miniscule entrance of a nondescript tea shop. It is all black, a stark contrast to its surroundings.

“Chenle, you realize…” Jisung looks at the door for a second. “We can’t afford two.” 

“No big. We can Weightlifting-Fairy-Kim-Bok-Joo it.” 

Jisung is in sheer awe of the extensive title Chenle just managed to verbify. He looks over at the expressionless boy. “What the fuck is that? Another of your K-dramas?” 

“Your fucking mom, is what it is.” 

“Oh, does it also have… the guy?”

Chenle looks caught. Jisung 1, Chenle 0. “What guy?”

“Nam whatever. The one you’re in love with.” 

“I’m not in love with him, he’s 28 years old!” 

“So he is in that one!”

“What’s it to you?”

Jisung laughs in Chenle’s face. “Simp. I bet you’ve watched all the dramas that motherfucker is in.”

“What the fuck is it to you?!”

“Gay!”

“Fuck you, Mr. Ally. Fuck you. Buy me boba to apologize.”

“It’s our six bucks, not my six bucks.”  

Chenle pushes open the door to the shop, grumbling. The inside of the place is quite like the outside: nondescript, minimalist, with dark stone and crisp lighting. Behind the counter is a sole guy, probably college age, and Chenle takes one look at him and promptly chokes on air. 

This startles poor Bubble Tea Boy out of his stupor. His wide doe eyes travel first to Chenle, then to Jisung, then to Chenle again. 

Jisung watches his friend hack and cough and die, turning a violent red. “You good?” 

“Does it look like I’m good?” Wheezes Chenle. 

“Does he need water?” The boy asks Jisung first, perplexed and panicked. “Do you need water?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Chenle responds quickly.

“I won’t charge you for it!” 

“Thank you, it’s okay.” With a gasping breath, Chenle resurfaces. His cheeks are blush pink. He clears his throat and blinks at Bubble Tea Boy, who seems to shrink a little under Chenle’s gaze. 

He’s taller than both of them, looks stronger too, but his soft features seem to have frozen in an expression of shock. Jisung’s gaze flickers down to a small badge on his black shirt which reads, ‘Soobin - He/Him’. “Wh-what can I get for you?”

Chenle stutters out an order that Jisung doesn’t quite catch, mostly because he’s too busy (subtly) staring at Soobin - He/Him to try and figure out what caused Chenle’s asphyxiation. 

The guy is good looking, yes, sure, but there’s something familiar about him… 

While poor Soobin counts out change, Chenle whips out his phone at the speed of light, types something up and hands the phone wordlessly to Jisung. 

What Jisung is met with is a Google Image search for “nam joohycu”, complete with the typo and everything. He stares blankly at the results before looking up at the painfully concentrated barista and then down at the phone again. 

Then he looks at Chenle. It takes every single ounce of willpower in Jisung’s body to not burst out laughing. 

Chenle takes his money and his drink, thanks poor Soobin, and runs. 

Jisung, unable to hide his grin, follows not far behind.

They make it across the street to the parallel curb before Chenle collapses on the sidewalk, curled up in the fetal position against the concrete. “I’m terrible.” 

Jisung does a great job of pretending to understand. “No, for real. C’mon, Chenle, not every Asian person looks like one of your K-drama boys. Stereotyping? In the year of our lord, 2022?” 

He’s joking, but Chenle looks up at him with great offense. “ I’m Asian! Jisung, you’re Asian! Neither of us look like Nam Joohyuk!” 

Jisung lifts a hand to his face like a model might, putting on a pensive expression. “I’m probably better looking and more talented and get more bitches.” 

“None of those things are true.” 

“None of those things are true.” Jisung sits down beside his curled-up friend and reaches for the forgotten cup of bubble tea. He notices two straws, one orange and one pink, on the ground next to it. “Hey, what’s this you say about… weightlifting…” 

Chenle sits up, finally. His orange hair is flattened, but with a shake of his head it returns to normal. Their colors are muted by night, but Jisung sees Chenle bright as ever. “Weightlifting?”

“Your stupid simp K-drama.” 

“Oh.” Chenle looks down at the tea in Jisung’s hand, and then to the straws. “Oh.” He shrugs and snatches the cup away. “I wasn’t gonna do this, so it’s your fault for reminding me.” 

He stabs the pink straw into the tea with little ado, then puts the orange one in a solid two inches away from it. 

Jisung looks down apprehensively. “At least you got a large,” he says with no emotion to his voice. 

“At least it’s not an indirect kiss,” Chenle says reasonably, then lifts the boba to take a sip from the orange straw.

“They match our hair,” Jisung says, and takes it from his outstretched hand. 

A car passes by, and the headlights flash across Chenle’s face. His expression is unreadable. 

“Chenle,” Jisung says, chewing around six pearls at once, “We’ve shared drinks about a billion times before. Why are you killing the environment like this?” 

“It’s one extra straw. Plus I thought it would be funny.”

“Funny how?” 

Jisung lifts the straw to his lips just as Chenle leans forward to take a sip. He finds the orange straw easily and then moves about an inch to the left, causing him to bang foreheads with Jisung, who promptly starts choking on a boba pearl, which makes Chenle start choking. The cup ends up on the ground as they both cough like drowning people come back to the surface.

“I have to admit,” Jisung gasps out after a solid five minutes, “That was kind of funny.” 

Chenle’s laughter becomes interspersed with his hacking and dying. 

“Is it funny in the drama too?” 

With a final swallow, Chenle’s coughing ceases. “Nope. The guy leans in and the girl stares at him and he goes,” He clears his throat to do his best impression of Nam Joohyuk, “‘Is your heart racing?’ And she goes,” His voice shoots up an octave, “‘No! Why would my heart be racing, you idiot! Fuck you!’ Et cetera.” 

“The industry will never tire of the tsundere trope,” Jisung says listlessly. 

“I think it was more of an attempt to make the female audience’s hearts race. Or, well, the male-attracted audience.” 

“Well, did it work?”

Chenle looks at Jisung like he’s stupid. 

“Did it?” 

“C’mon, Jisung. It takes more than that to get to me.” 

Jisung doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just blinks at Chenle a few times. 

Chenle raises only one corner of his lip, giving Jisung a strange compromise between a textbook smirk and a tired smile. He lifts the cup up to his mouth again, silent, and Jisung has a very long lapse of judgement. 

He moves forward with far more deliberation and care than Chenle had, finding his straw and tilting his head to the right the way people in movies do when they kiss or whatever. 

He feels Chenle exhale unthinkingly against his skin and goes very, very still. 

At that point, Jisung kind of forgets what straws do so he kind of just sits there with the thing in his mouth, staring at the ground past Chenle’s ear. He’s forgotten his intention, if there was any at all. 

Chenle doesn’t move either. Jisung is pretty sure he has also forgotten what straws do. 

They stay like that for what feels like a year and a half before Chenle very slowly puts the cup on the ground and seemingly tries to look down, but just hits his head against Jisung’s again. 

They both spring back like they’ve realized all of a sudden where they are. 

The cup is half empty. 

Jisung’s lapse of judgement never seems to end. “Is your heart racing?” He asks in the dumbest sounding voice possible. 

Chenle whacks him across the head. “So funny. I definitely laughed.”

Jisung swats at his intruding hand. “You finish the rest. I don’t wanna do that again.”  

“Why?” 

“Fuck you mean why?” 

“Is your heart racing?” 

“Give me one reason why it would.” 

Chenle lifts the tea again. “A fair point. Maybe if I were Nam Joohyuk.” 

Jisung rolls his eyes. “Nam Joohyuk isn’t the standard for attractiveness to everyone , you know.” 

“Oh yeah.” Chenle gulps. “I forgot you liked girls.” 

Jisung did too, for a second. 

“Jisung,” Chenle starts pensively, and Jisung starts to dread the completion of that sentence. “Did you ever have a straight awakening?” 

“A straight awakening? No, I guess not. I just. Am here.” Jisung looks everywhere but at Chenle. “Did you have a pan awakening?” 

“No, I just learned the word for it.” 

They fall silent. Before long, Jisung is sliding his phone over to Chenle. He sees the time on the lockscreen, and they both glance at each other with pure fear in their eyes. 

Chenle has the sense to play a song as they walk to their respective homes. 

sungie?

One Last Time· Summer Salt

⊚ Favorite Holiday, Vol. 1

-- ↻ --

The day is inconsequential. The night, however…

It’s almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Renjun’s house that Jisung finally returns, spurred on by numerous text messages and promises of food.

Jaemin opens the door before he can ring the bell, and wordlessly holds Jisung’s face in his hands in a strange, motherly fashion. There’s a leatherbound book tucked under his arm, and his expression is pure excitement disguised as situation-appropriate sentimentality. 

Jisung can’t even bring himself to be alarmed by any aspect of it. “Where are you headed to?” 

“Beach. Got things to return, people to see, so on and so forth.” 

“He’s got a date!” Comes a yell from inside that Jisung quickly identifies as Chenle. 

“Shut up!” Jaemin yelps back into the house. The nighttime glow highlights the two blue streaks in his blonde hair. “Nothing is guaranteed,” he informs absolutely no one, his eyebrows raised and hands out in a professor-like fashion. Then he hops down the steps and, with a two fingered salute, takes off running down the alley. 

Jisung steps into the house, greeted by Renjun’s exasperated sigh of, “He’s not even going to the fucking beach. He’s going to his fucking house to get his fucking car and drive to the fucking beach.” 

Chenle gasps from his place on the couch. “The creamsicle car! No way, why?” 

“He said, and I quote, ‘I just have a feeling it might come in handy.’ It’s a fucking car, of course it’ll come in handy!” Renjun very passionately pipes frosting onto a cupcake. The entire house smells like miscellaneous baking. 

“I want to drive the creamsicle car. One day I will steal it and then Jaemin will cry at me and I will laugh in his face,” Chenle muses. 

Jisung feels utterly disoriented. After last night, the urge to inquire about the State of Affairs in the house is sort of taking over. “What’s happening?”

“Can’t you guess?” Chenle says. 

“No, I mean…” He flops back onto the couch next to Chenle. “What is the current political climate of the Huang Household?” 

Renjun seems to understand. “Partly sunny. We got all our crying and confused warbling for the year over with, it’s only smooth sailing from here.” 

“Might I ask about what?” 

“Nope!” 

“It was worth a try.” 

Chenle glances at his phone. “I should go home.” 

Things are suddenly quiet. Chenle going home is a rare thing, mostly because it usually finds him alone. 

“I just got here,” Jisung complains. 

“Yeah? You want to come to my house?”

“Your mom scares me.” 

“My mom scares me too.” Chenle smiles at Jisung for a moment too long, then turns on his heel, steals a cupcake from a protesting Renjun, and hops out the door. 

Jisung finds himself staring at the closed door. He spends the next twenty minutes or so looking blankly at his phone and being force fed all sorts of mysterious concoctions by Renjun before he decides he’s in a mood. 

This particular mood is the type that has him skating through the clear summer air, watching the sky. Cloud cover smudges the moon’s glow, and there isn’t a star in the sky. 

Jisung doesn’t want to think about much. 

sungie?

1901 · Phoenix

⊚ Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

He flies through streets he’s come to know like the back of his hand, and soon he’s back. 

The heart of town greets Jisung yet again, with glowing, faded color against the black of the summer night. 

He skids to a stop, and just looks around. The air smells different today, like gasoline and warmth rather than yesterday’s fresh, cool breeze and soft sweetness. 

Maybe the sweetness wasn’t in the air. 

Warily, Jisung looks at the tiny boba shop and wonders if Soobin is in tonight. 

He decides he’d rather not check for himself. 

Jisung closes his eyes and breathes in the quiet humidity of this summer night. Then he tries to cross the road and nearly dies. 

The car, which had seemed to come out of nowhere, comes to an abrupt halt about a foot away from Jisung, who freezes with a hand up to his face and stares through the glare of harsh headlights to see… Jaemin? 

The creamsicle car holds not one but two today, and Jisung just barely recognizes the dark haired boy in the passenger’s seat as the ice cream man himself. 

It’s quiet for a second save for the whir of the car engine, and Jisung is barely moving to breathe. His limbs seem to have frozen fully in place. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s Jaemin, squinting through the windshield, who breaks the silence. “Jesus Christ, Jisung, I could have killed you!” 

Jisung’s gaze goes to Jaemin. His heart is still kind of hammering in his chest. “Yeah, sorry--” His voice cracks most inopportunely, and the hand before him flies to cover his mouth.

Jaemin’s the one to switch languages, starting to launch a generic complaint at him before giving up halfway and bursting into badly hidden laughter. 

“Ah, hyung !” Jisung’s brain is still in Korean mode, but his annoyance flips the switch. “I swear to god…” 

“Sorry, sorry... Please just go home before someone actually runs you over.” Jaemin puts on his best exasperated frown, but Jisung sees straight through it. 

“Ugh, fine.” He hasn’t had his fun yet. Jisung’s eyes sort of involuntarily dart to the quiet boy in the passenger’s seat. “Who are you?” 

“Jisung! You can’t just ask people who they are.” 

Jisung makes a face at Jaemin. 

The boy looks alarmed, as if he hadn’t realized he could be seen by other people. “I’d tell you if I knew the answer myself,” he quips in a quiet, low voice. 

Jisung doesn’t know what to make of it. He smiles politely before shifting his gaze back over to Jaemin and switching to Korean to ask, “This is all that’s pure and kind in th--”

“Alright, enough. Please go home.” 

Jisung shrugs, smiles again, and skates away. 

When he gets back to Renjun’s, he’ll immediately text Chenle. 

jisus

CHENL EHCNEL YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT JUST HAPPEND

GUESS WHO I JUST FUCJN SAW

Then he’ll wait for a reply for a few minutes before remembering where Chenle is. His excitement will wane and he’ll stare at his screen a moment longer, feeling a strange kind of absence. It’s like a missing limb or something. 

Then Jisung will toss his phone to the side, flop back on the bed he has to himself tonight, and, with a wordless exclamation of pure frustration, close his eyes. 

Then he’ll find a new song. 

sungie?

August· Flipturn

⊚ Citrona

And, suddenly, he’ll realize he no longer really likes being alone. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung is woken up at 4:30 PM by the feeling of a weight cast over his torso. The sun is harsh and white through the open blinds, and Jisung’s eyes are dry and tired. He struggles a little to look down and take notice of the offending arm over his body. 

Gently, he rolls over and sees Chenle knocked the fuck out, his orange hair filled with static. 

They’re face to face now, though Chenle appears not to have the slightest sense of his surroundings. 

Jisung wonders to himself when he might have gotten back, what he might have done. 

Chenle sleeps like a kid, his eyelids fluttering in dreams, mumbling strange incoherencies he can’t remember in the morning. Jisung has known him to speak Chinese, carrying on hushed conversations on his own. 

Jisung himself usually snores through it all, but today the sun and the warmth and Chenle have woken him up. The room is quiet for a few moments--there’s no Yangyang in sight, no one alert enough to speak until Chenle murmurs something, more a movement of his lips rather than audible sound. As per usual, Jisung can’t comprehend it. 

He rolls onto his back, Chenle’s arm still cast over him like a belt strapping him into place. 

Jisung feels like he should be thinking about something, but he can’t figure out what to think about at all. 

Unsettled by the blankness of his mind, Jisung reaches feebly for his phone on the nightstand to his left, only to feel Chenle’s hold sort of tightening around him. 

Jisung freezes, looks down at the offending arm now pressing his back to Chenle’s chest, and suddenly finds his problem remedied. 

There’s quite a lot to think about. 

Chenle’s not sentient right now, so Jisung has to excuse him for this one. Right? Yeah. 

But Chenle’s hold grows tighter still and after a point Jisung can’t tell where he ends and where Chenle begins. Chenle’s forehead is against his shoulder and their legs are kind of tangled up and Jisung is greatly distressed. 

The summer heat does very little to ease his suffering. 

Maybe he should say something. Maybe Chenle’s too asleep to hear him. 

Another pseudo-Chinese mumble is felt against the thin fabric of Jisung’s shirt. It brings Jisung a moment’s relief, a reminder that Chenle is really just out cold and fumbling about in sleep, until he hears, well, his name. 

It’s not part of a sentence, not an incomprehensible mumble. It’s just “Jisung”, clear as day. Not a command, not an address. A statement. 

Jisung springs away with surprising ease, startled out of his sunny stupor. He overestimates the width of the bed and slides quickly off the side onto the carpeted floor with a reverberating thud. He doesn’t even feel it. 

It’s at this point that Chenle wakes up. His eyes shoot open like he’s just risen from a nightmare, his arms still outstretched in front of him. 

Jisung peeks hesitantly over the edge of the bed. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t say anything, just fucking looks at Chenle looking at him. 

Chenle says, “Did you fall?” and a smile starts to set itself in his eyes. 

No, Jisung almost says. I jumped . “Yeah.” 

Chenle rolls his eyes. 

“Were you dreaming?” Jisung blurts. 

“Just now?”

“Yeah.”

“I think so. Why?”

“Oh, you were just… talking. What did you dream about?”

Chenle just blinks at him a few times. “I can’t remember. I think you were in it, though?”

“Was it… good or bad?”

“Well, if you were in it, it was probably a nightmare.” Chenle winks and rolls out of bed on the other side.

It’s abundantly clear to Jisung that he has absolutely no memory of whatever just happened. 

-- ↻ --

“So you got grounded for… what, exactly?” Renjun holds up his hands in front of a distraught Yerim. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, fuck you.” 

“Woah, strong language!” Chenle says around his microwave tteokbokki. His lips are a shade darker than his hair. 

Jisung furrows his brow. “If you’re grounded, how…? What are you doing here?”

Yerim whips around to give Jisung a sickly-sweet, Jolly Rancher colored smile. 

Renjun looks up with the fear of God Herself in his eyes. It’s not a common sight. His eyebrows knit under his curtain of purplish hair. “Yerim…” 

“Please don’t do this, anything but--”

The door slams shut, and Na Jaemin stands triumphantly before it. What he’s celebrating, no one knows. He looks at all of them neutrally for a moment before directing his attention to Yerim. “Ah, Yeri, your mother is looking for you.” 

Renjun swears in Chinese. 

“Oh yeah?” Yerim puts on her best innocent look. “How was she?”

“How… was she?”

“How did she sound?”

“Yeah. How did she… seem?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Like herself?” 

Yerim blanches. 

Renjun clicks his tongue. “You dug your own grave, kid.” 

“So it seems,” Yerim says forlornly, and slides out the window.

Renjun now turns back to Jaemin, who stands with his hands on his hips, staring into space. “And you, casanova? Where’ve you been?” 

“Oh, out and about.” He smiles cordially. 

Chenle sighs. “Sure you have.”

Jisung suddenly remembers his text from last night. His eyes go to Chenle as a couple of new questions pop up in his mind. Instead of vocalizing them, he watches the smile bloom on Chenle’s face and effectively tunes out of ten seconds’ worth of the conversation (a good, solid amount).

“I don’t need to know someone’s entire life story to know I like them!”

“‘Like’ is not an objective term. You can understand whether your impression of someone is net positive or negative, but where they fall on the like-to-dislike spectrum takes some time to figure out, you have to admit.” 

“I don’t know, guys,” Chenle sighs. “Renjun just obliterated every hopeless romantic alive, so I’m feeling kind of defeated.

“Is this kind of thing not different for everyone?” Jisung blurts. 

“How do you know?” Jaemin asks, horrified. 

Jisung makes a face at him. “Nothing about love or romance or liking anyone is objective. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.” 

Jaemin just swats at him. 

“Our wise Sungie has spoken,” Renjun deadpans. 

Jisung feels just a trace of irritation. Am I too young to even guess what love feels like ?

Sixteen feels stranger and stranger with every passing day.

“Maybe that’s the case,” Jaemin shrugs. “But I know myself best, and there is something going on in that area.” 

And that’s all to be said about that. 

“Now I’m in the mood to cook. Maybe lightly char the kitchen while I’m at it. My demons have taken over me.” Jaemin slaps his knees like someone’s dad and stands. 

Renjun’s eyebrows knit. He looks between Chenle and Jisung and sighs. “One second, guys.” 

-- ↻ --

Chenle is in a mood. 

After dinner, he closes the blinds in their room and looks back to Jisung expectantly. 

Jisung becomes very confused very quickly. “Why are you looking at me like that? Why is it dark?” He jumps back, belatedly startled at the change, and lifts his feet off the ground as if something might jump out from under the bed. “Chenle?”

Chenle doesn’t even laugh. Instead, he moves past Jisung with a little twirl and falls back spread-eagled on the bed beside him. 

“What’s wrong, Chenle?” 

“Head hurts.”

“Migraine?”

“Dunno. Can’t tell.” He falls silent for a moment. “Gimme the ue.” 

“Weh?” 

“UE Boom 2 in blue. Ue ue ue, sounds of crying.” 

Jisung just stares at him. 

“The speaker, Jisungie.” 

“Oh.” Jisung dutifully reaches for the (yes, blue) speaker on his nightstand and tosses it absentmindedly in Chenle’s direction. 

It lands with a quiet thud and a groan from Chenle. “You fucking could have killed me. My sternum. I took a screenshot just now.” 

“What’s the picture looking like?”

“Dark.”

They laugh like two perfectly choreographed Shakespearean fools. 

Chenle turns the speaker on. A light at the top flickers to life with a joyful beeping noise and a little tune to signify its automatic connection. 

“It’ll connect to my phone,” Jisung says.

“Then give me your phone. I can’t figure this techy shit out right now.” 

Jisung obliges. The screen lights up Chenle’s face, and the whole room seems to glow blue for a second. 

Then sound begins to diffuse out into the still air. 

sungie?

Very, Slowly · BIBI

⊚ Twenty-Five Twenty-One OST Part 3

The song is quiet and airy, like autumn leaves fluttering to the ground. 

“Is this a K-drama OST?”

“How come you seem to know so much about love?” 

“What?” 

Chenle looks over and makes dead eye contact with Jisung. “What you said before, all that. Actually everything. Whenever we talk about this kind of stuff, you seem so… This isn’t all based on that girl you liked in 8th grade, right?”

Jisung cringes. “No, God no. I don’t even know much, it just seems… logical? No. I don’t know.” He actually doesn’t. “Some stuff makes sense. But also who cares enough to spend time analyzing all this? Why do we all? The world is so amatonormative.”

“... What?” 

“Can’t we just not deal with all this? Romantic love is weird and gross and requires way too much thought.”

“Jisung, are you aro?”

“No, it’s just… it’s just… I’m confused, is all. Isn’t this the time to be, you know, figuring things out?” 

“Oh.” Chenle says shortly. “If you ever need to talk, I’m--”

“But I’m not that kind of confused. Life is weird. Life is just generally confusing right now.” 

“Jisung--”

“How am I meant to know things when it comes to myself? I read books and watch movies and see stupid little Reddit love stories of people who love each other so much and so obviously and it seems so simple, but--” 

Jisung stops here, mouth falling quickly shut. Color floods to his cheeks in the dark, and he leans back against the headboard in silence. 

Chenle blinks a few times. Stares, not at all subtly. “This is a K-drama OST. This song.” 

Jisung clears his throat. “Which drama?” His voice sounds low and unusual to himself. 

“You wouldn’t know it if I told you.” 

“Still, tell me. What’s it about?” 

“There’s this girl, and she’s a fencer, and there’s this guy and he’s a paperboy but then he isn’t anymore, and there’s this other girl and she’s really pretty and like… Then the first girl goes to, like, school… well, a diff--wait, I can’t say that, that’s a spoiler--but there’s these two other kids and one of them is the class topper and the other is… Why am I still talking?” 

The song ends. 

“I don’t mind. I just ranted about absolutely nothing.” 

Maybe Jisung is also in a mood. 

“What’s confusing you, Jisung?” 

Jisung slides down the headboard until he’s right next to Chenle. They both stare up at the ceiling in heavy silence. 

“Myself, I guess.” 

Jisung sees the flicker of his phone screen in his periphery. 

sungie?

Into It · Chase Atlantic 

⊚ Chase Atlantic 

“Oh, fuck, fuck ! Wrong song, shit!” 

Despite himself, Jisung starts laughing and can’t find it within himself to stop for another 30 seconds. “Keep it, keep it,” he manages. 

He knows Chenle is watching him lose his fucking mind. “You know, you don’t have to be confused if you don’t want to be.” 

Jisung resurfaces, still grinning. “Is that so, genius?” 

“If you don’t wanna do something, then just do not.” 

“Wise.”

“I know.” 

He rolls over just a little to show Chenle his expression. He sees the smile on Chenle’s face, the hair covering his eyes. 

“Is the opposite true?” 

Jisung decides he is not in a mood. He is in a state . 

And he can’t decide what it entails, whether he likes it or not. 

“The opposite?” Chenle repeats. 

Jisung swallows. Their room is near silent, save for the Chase Atlantic song blending into the background. The summer night brushes its hand lightly over the two of them, a fleeting touch and mild breeze. 

They are alone in the world, and the only light Jisung can see is the quiet glow, the soft white’s of Chenle’s eyes, shimmering like twin stars. 

“Yeah. If I want to do something, do I just do it with as much abandon?”

“‘Abandon.’” The mockery is subtle, but evident. “I guess that depends.”

“On what?” 

“On you.” Chenle pauses. “I, personally, am a big proponent of acting without thinking. Spontaneity, y’know? Brings spice to life.” 

“Has the potential to bring with it a whole lot of unnecessary embarrassment.” 

“Oh, c’mon. You already get embarrassed at every little thing, Jisungie. My logic is, if it has to happen, why not make it worthwhile?” 

“Are you saying my embarrassment isn’t worthwhile?”

“I’m saying it’s flat out unnecessary.”

Jisung scoffs, shocked. 

“So, if you have to be embarrassed either way--” Chenle raises his eyebrows. “Why not just take the leap?”

“What--what leap?”

“Whatever you were thinking about when we started talking about this. Just do it.”

Jisung nearly does it. 

He really nearly does. 

Then Chenle turns over to lie flat on his back and stare up at the ceiling, and Jisung is, as predicted, the one who feels his face warm and flush with color. 

“Ah, this is confusing. Let’s talk about something deep and unimportant like--I don’t know. Life, death, identity, emotion. Love.” 

Jisung physically cannot protest. He still feels like the wind has been knocked out of his lungs, though. “And which of those ideas is most pressing to you right now?” 

“Love ain’t bad, but we may have exhausted that one.” 

Jisung wishes. “Well, we haven’t heard what you’ve got to say.” 

Chenle blinks and then shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Why?”

“I’m too scared.” 

“Of me ?” Jisung squeaks. 

A beat. 

“No.” 

Jisung says nothing, but the question hangs in the air between them. 

“I, dear Jisung, am a strong proponent of never saying anything until I’m sure. I know you are too.” 

“What do I have to do with anything?” With love ?

Chenle shrugs again. The quiet rustling of his shirt against the starchy sheets sounds like waves at low tide. 

“Maybe we should just stay quiet for now.” 

-- ↻ --

Jisung wakes up to the sound of Chenle screaming in the distance. He’s lived here long enough to know it’s no sign of distress, and that Chenle is in the very specific mood where he feels the great need to break a wine glass. He stumbles out of bed to wash up. 

By the time he’s out of the bathroom, there’s a knock at the door. It sounds nothing like Jaemin or Yangyang, who are both united by the fact that they sound like they’re trying to break the door down. Something about making an entrance. 

Jisung ventures cautiously out into the hall, carding his fingers through his hair, when his attention is diverted by the sound of a ringing phone in Renjun and Jaemin’s room. 

He steps in cautiously, the way someone prone to seasickness might walk onto a boat. The phone is Renjun’s, a downturned Samsung with a blood red back. Galaxy boy. 

Jisung picks it up and looks at the caller ID. 

MARK FROM CIRCUITS , it reads. A funny way to save one’s best friend. 

He really doesn’t want to pick up. 

“Renjun!” He calls. His voice cracks. “Mark’s on the phone!” 

The ringing doesn’t cease. Jisung concedes and decides he might as well swipe, but not without a final, desperate call of Renjun’s name. 

“H-hello?” 

Jisung has no problem with Mark. None at all. 

He’s just so… worried all the time. It fucks with Jisung’s head a little bit. 

“Hey--Jisung?”

“Yeah, that’s me alright.”

“Hey, kid. Listen, d’you know where Renjun’s at? It’s kinda… urgent.” 

“I can, uh, find him.” Jisung covers the speaker. “He says it’s urgent!” He yells to anyone who will hear him. 

“Just talk to him for a second!” Comes the greatly muffled reply.

“What do I say?” Jisung yelps back.

“I don’t know--” Is all Jisung hears. He sighs and lifts the phone to his ear. 

“Yeah, he’s, um... on his way.” 

“Is everything okay?” 

Jisung thinks it's a bit comical that Mark should be asking that, given that he sounds like he’s never breathed oxygen in his life before now. 

“Yeah, we’re all--”

The door bursts open. 

Renjun looks like he’s having a fucking stroke. “Thanks, Sungie. I’ll take that from you.” 

Jisung throws the phone without another word and watches Renjun rush back into the hallway. Cautiously, he follows. 

As soon as he reaches the living room, he realizes two things. 

1. Jaemin is nowhere to be found. 
2. Ice cream man himself is standing in the fucking foyer, also looking like he’s having a stroke. 

And then he realizes a third. 

1. Chenle is trying so fucking hard not to laugh right now. 

Perplexed, Jisung starts to smile too. 

-- ↻ --

The explanation is simple enough, but Jisung seems to have more pent up energy than usual because he cannot stop fucking pacing around the living room. 

The man of the hour--Jeno, they’d quickly learned--is perched stiffly on the couch. He looks as though he’s afraid to break something. 

Jisung, Renjun, and Chenle have all spent the past 20 minutes subtly scrutinizing this unsuspecting creature in their house; one look at Chenle tells Jisung that they’ve all reached the same conclusion. 

Jeno is an angel. And he is terrified of them. 

The sound of Renjun’s phone ringing again startles Jisung out of his thoughts. 

Renjun, seated on the table, picks it up and gives it a fleeting glance before directing his gaze to Jisung. “It’s Mark again.” Then he tosses it at Chenle. 

“He has anxiety, cut him some slack,” Jisung sighs. He catches the phone from Chenle and unthinkingly throws it to the only person in the room who hasn’t had their turn yet. 

Jeno looks startled, his irises round and dark like boba pearls, and hands it carefully back to Chenle, who sighs and rushes towards the hallway. 

Chenle and Mark communicate in a language that Jisung can’t understand. They nod and nudge each other and laugh to communicate full thoughts, and look like absolute airheads in the process. 

Then again, Mark hasn’t been over for a while. Jisung wonders how their language will translate over the phone. 

“Please don’t make him cry,” Renjun calls.

“That was one time!” 

They are left in sudden silence. Jisung blinks a few times, eyes darting between Renjun and Jeno who are now flat out staring at each other. 

“So!” Jisung starts, more out of reflex than anything. He claps his hands together. “Jeno!”

Soon, he’ll get to wondering where his hatred of silence came from.

“Y-Yes?”

“How do you know Jaemin?” 

Renjun looks at Jisung like he’s fucking insane. 

The silence grows impossibly more tense, until Chenle--dear, sweet Chenle--interrupts from the hall with a wailing laugh and several expletives long-distance hurled at Mark Lee. 

Jisung takes this as his opportunity to run under the guise of checking on his friend and unapologetically makes a beeline for his room. 

There, he sees Chenle seated expectantly on the bed, legs crossed. Renjun’s phone is sitting on top of the squat little TV right by the door. 

Jisung looks between the phone and Chenle a few times and closes the door. 

“... What did he want?”

Now Jisung sees the full power of Chenle’s textbook smirk. “He wanted me to tell Renjun to check his email, that he’d sent along some CAD blueprints.”

Jisung stares. “That… That’s it?”

“The second you start resorting to small talk, Jisungie, I know something is, how you say, amiss.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

Chenle raises his eyebrows, still grinning. “Aren’t you going to thank me?” 

“Thank… you,” Jisung says carefully. 

Chenle looks ever so slightly surprised that Jisung actually complied, leaving Jisung yet another window of opportunity. 

He clutches at his chest. “My savior,” he gasps.

Chenle rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Shut up.” He’s quiet for half a second, regarding Jisung with pure mischief in his bright eyes. “Thoughts on Jeno?” 

“Keep your voice down, dipshit.”

“Let’s have a fucking Socratic seminar. I’m in the mood to ramble.” He sits up, crossing his legs and clasping his hands together. 

Jisung launches himself onto the Yogibo beside the bed. “Ramble then. Let’s hear it.” 

At this sudden attention, Chenle shrinks back. “Maybe I will not.” 

Jisung keeps winning today. “I’ve seen Jeno before, idiot.” 

The look on Chenle’s face is terribly comical. He sputters for a while. “And you never thought to tell me?!”

“Oh, but I did, dear Chenle. I texted you. You simply did not reply to me.” 

“That’s still your fault!”

“How the fuck is it my fault?” 

“It’s your stupid habit of splitting things that could be one message into, like, sixty-six.”

“I literally don’t do that. Sometimes I split messages into two or three for suspense--”

“It’s still your fault, because you didn’t say jack shit of substance to me.” Chenle whips out his phone in search of receipts. When he finds their chat, he shoves the screen into Jisung’s face so closely that Jisung can only see a few blurs. 

He looks from the blurs to Chenle’s eyes, which look almost betrayed despite the smile on his lips. For once, Jisung isn't sure if it’s part of his jest, and feels a sudden guilt. 

“You could have asked me about it.” Jisung knows he looks like a kicked puppy right now. His face betrays most everything. “We live together, Chenle.” 

Chenle visibly falters, his smile melting into something akin to a frown, but not quite there. He retracts the phone slowly. “Why do you look sad?” 

“I’m not sad.” 

“You look sad.” 

Jisung thinks back to when he sent Chenle those frantic, typo-laden texts. He remembers how his excitement waned. “I’m not sad.” 

I’ve started missing you all the time . 

Chenle looks suddenly quite sober. “Did I do something wrong?” 

“Nah, you didn’t do anything.” 

I kind of miss you even now . 

“Ji sung ,” Chenle groans. “Talk to me. Tell me things. You look sad a lot of the time lately.”

“I’m just thinking,” Jisung says honestly. “I’m a pensive person.”

“What the fuck you been pensing about all the damn time?”

“You.” 

Chenle’s mouth falls closed. 

Shit.

Play it cool, play it cool, Jisung .

“What does that mean?” 

Jisung is not feeling very cool right now. His heart is going to leave his body. “I’m hungry,” he says hurriedly, and Usain-Bolt-sprints out of the room to find the house empty. 

He is not that fast of a runner. Chenle catches up about three paces into the hallway and wraps his hand around Jisung’s wrist, only to be dragged around the entire house twice as Jisung runs around like an elementary school kid playing a very heated game of tag. 

Several expletives of varying creativity escape Chenle’s mouth in the meantime. “What the fuck do you mean, shithead? What’s fuckin’ there to think about?” He pauses to choke out a laugh. “If you’re fucking thinkin’ about me all the fucking time you should have at least come to one fuckin’ conclusion! You love me? You hate me? What the fuck is there?” 

Jisung trips over the leg of the coffee table and Chenle lets go of his wrist just in time. “Oh-!” 

Jisung falls to his death, the corner of the table stabbing him right at his sternum. He slides to the ground the way a pool noodle might. “You’ve all but killed me. Chenle, you let me die.” He rolls around on the floor. 

“Deserved,” Chenle says with the air of someone who’s just now realized their victory. He reaches into his back pocket and reveals his hand formed into a finger gun. “You’re not dying fast enough, though.” He grasps it with his other hand and aims it at Jisung. 

“What the fuck, man.” Jisung scrambles to a sitting position. His hands fly into surrender position almost involuntarily. “Can I live? Please?” 

In that moment, three things become abundantly clear to Jisung Park:

1. Despite long limbs and deep thoughts and sudden realizations, neither of them have quite grown up.
2. 16 brings no magic, no new news, no instant gratification. 16 is like all the other years, though maybe with an ounce more self-awareness. 
3. The juvenility of Jisung’s feelings have nothing to do with the beach, and everything to do with his best friend, Chenle Zhong. 

Jisung watches Chenle furrow his brow and aim his weapon, and comes to realize he’s been struck already. He drops his hands. 

Chenle, funnily enough, looks disarmed. Jisung looks up at him, smiles, and soon Chenle’s arms come to rest by his sides. “What?”

“Why’d you put your gun down?” Jisung asks, trying to sound as earnest as possible. 

Chenle looks like he forgot about the gun in the first place. “I can’t shoot someone who’s already surrendered?” He almost asks. He senses some significance to Jisung’s words, some kind of deeper meaning, but doesn’t know what to make of it. 

Jisung watches this conflict play out in Chenle’s eyes. They’re like movie screens.

Chenle’d had a D in English, after all. Maybe that wouldn’t have been the case if he’d asked for help back then, if he’d noticed Jisung’s offers when they were first silently outstretched. 

If he’d believed he was worth it. 

“It’s okay,” Jisung says. “I surrendered because the damage was already done.” Then he reaches out to Chenle for a hand up. 

Jisung has always delighted in silent poetics, but he’s delighting in the look on Chenle’s face right now a bit more. 

He wonders if this is wrong, if he’s doing what shitposts and novels call “playing with someone’s feelings”. Then again, Jisung supposes there must first be feelings to be played with. 

What is life if not a game? What is Chenle if not a willing competitor? 

Chenle looks between Jisung’s hand and his face several times before helping him up. His grasp on Jisung’s hand feels like a challenge accepted. “I don’t know what to make of you right now, you know that?” 

“Just make of me what you always have.” 

They go quiet as Jisung unceremoniously falls back onto the couch. Chenle is the one to follow, this time, taking a careful seat beside him. 

Silence is a hated thing, but Jisung believes he’s made it clear enough that he has nothing more to say. He clears his throat. “Go on then.”

Chenle looks up as if to say, “me?”. “‘Bout what?”

“Jeno.”

There are a few heavy moments, a few moments where Chenle’s thoughts get confused with his words, but it wears off. Luckily for Jisung, it never takes long for Chenle to get excited again. 

Unluckily for them both, the door opens just as soon as Chenle begins to lay out the logistics of his master plan to set Jaemin up with this poor, unsuspecting stranger. 

“Intervene in what?” Asks Renjun from the doorway, and Jisung watches the life drain from Chenle’s eyes. 

Movie screens flashing to black. 

“Yeah, Chenle. Intervene in what?” Jisung mocks. His voice comes out a bit louder than intended. 

Before anyone can reply, there’s a telltale creak from the kitchen. 

Jeno tries to warn Renjun, but is quickly cut off. 

“Jesus Christ , Yangyang, how long have you been there?” 

Joy . 

Jisung turns around to see Yangyang step out of a cupboard and brush himself off like nothing happened. He wonders how the fuck he got in there. 

He wonders when the fuck he got in there. 

A sudden, silent panic washes over Jisung. 

Does that mean he heard… whatever that was? Would he even understand if he did? 

Jisung’s gaze glazes over, trained somewhere in the distance, just as Chenle seems to notice the party and leaves Jisung for the kitchen. 

Then he hears, “I’m about to expose your bitchass,” and the reflexes kind of take over. 

“Please don’t,” he calls back, not entirely sure what Yangyang is about to “expose”. 

A second’s attention to the conversation tells Jisung Yangyang is far more interested in Chenle’s ridiculous need to set Jaemin and Jeno up. Today, he is safe. 

Chenle, however, is not. 

Jisung looks back into the kitchen for a second and meets Yangyang’s eyes. 

They’re not nearly as easy to read as Chenle’s, but Jisung sees a flicker of something that’s not just mischief. 

Yangyang’s knowing look is a terrifying thing. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung spends most of the rest of the day in a confused, horrified haze. 

It’s like when you do something embarrassing and keep reliving it again and again for years, except Jisung is sure this is only embarrassing to himself. 

Chenle carries on as usual, talking and laughing and layering onto the chaos of the Huang household. His thoughts fade in volume, distracted. 

Somewhere within it all is Jeno, lost puppy, learning the lay of the land. 

Jisung takes periodic breaks from his contemplation to pay a bit of attention to Jeno. 

His features are all soft and too indicative of his thoughts. His eyes are dark and impossibly deep. Not at all easy to read, not like Chenle’s. 

They’re like a night sky, dotted with stars whenever… well, whenever he looks at Jaemin. 

Obvious. 

Jisung starts to think they’re alike in some strange way. 

Then he goes back to cringing at his own poetics, his bursts of confidence, his thoughts. 

It’s close to dinnertime when Jisung realizes he’s done very little to contribute to the atmosphere, the frenzied induction of Jeno into their little group. The chaos has been carrying on around Jisung, who sits and remains a still figure. 

That’s no way to live life. 

Flames dance in Chenle’s eyes at something said, and Jisung decides he should cook. 

Renjun, predictably, loses his shit. “Jisung Park, you are not allowed to step foot in my kitchen for any purpose whatsoever. I thought we already talked about this--”

“But I haven’t done anything all day!” Jisung protests. 

“And that’s my fault... How?” 

“Just let him do something. Make a microwave dinner. He’ll feel useful.” Chenle says neutrally. 

Jisung nods, overeager. 

“Lord, Chenle, you’re willing to let your boyfriend do whatever he’d like at the expense of my kitchen?” Renjun crosses his arms. “My goddamn property?” 

Jisung instantly gives up on cooking and sinks down in his chair. 

Boyfriend.

Boyfriend?

Boyfriend?!

It’s not like this is a rare utterance from Renjun. He’ll launch the gay little insults at any deserving combination of them (save for, of course, Jisung and Jaemin who have relative buff), but Jisung has never heard this one. 

His face colors like a flower in bloom. 

“Jisung isn’t allowed to have a boyfriend.” Jaemin tuts, waving a finger at anyone who’ll pay him any mind. “Not until he’s 15.” 

Jisung rolls his eyes. Despite his lack of inclination to carry on the conversation, something in Jaemin’s voice ticks him off. “I’m 16, hyung .” He says with calculated bite. 

So it’s because he’s too young that he’s never been subject to these jokes. Interesting. 

“Wh--that doesn’t make sense.” Jaemin pauses to count on his fingers before stopping and shrugging. “Either way, you’re not allowed to have a boyfriend.” 

Jeno’s in the corner badly stifling his laughter. His eyes are curved into crescents.  

Obvious. 

Jisung notices eyes on him. “Uh…” What’s the right response to this? On any other day, he’d be able to shoot a retort back at Jaemin within seconds. 

Chenle raises an eyebrow at him. What’s difficult now?

Jisung blinks at him before looking back at Jaemin. Not until I’m sure. Maybe if he says it, he’ll believe it. “Hate to break it to you, but… I’m not into guys.”

There’s a shift in Jisung’s periphery. 

Chenle sits a little lower in his chair, and Jisung silently asks him to look over, to give him a hint with those glowing eyes. 

It feels like it takes ten minutes. 

Ten minutes of conversation faded into the background, of Jisung staring at Chenle, ten minutes of Chenle looking away. 

Then he turns, slightly, but with no hesitation. They lock eyes, and Jisung hears the cartoonish click of something falling into place. 

Only, for the first time in nine years, Chenle’s gaze is impossible to read. 

That in itself is a message sent. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung is sweating for the entirety of the ride to McDonald’s. 

He missed the decision and reasoning to go there, but he supposes it’s as good a reason as any to break out Renjun’s minivan and soar down the moonlit streets.

Renjun loves driving. Summer and work means he doesn’t get to do much of it, but Jisung knows something about the wind and the music and the view is therapeutic to him. 

Jisung hasn’t gotten around to talking to his parents about getting his own license yet. He supposes he doesn’t need it. 

Streetlamps and illuminated trees and purple clouds rush by. Jisung is pressed against the window, with Jeno sitting stiffly next to him. Jaemin’s on the other side, and Yangyang is stuck in the sole seat halfway into the trunk. 

Such is the sort of thing that happens when Renjun drives. 

Chenle’s in the passenger seat. Jisung is glad. 

He’s sweating. He wonders what Chenle knows, what he plans to do, where things go from here. 

He’s going insane . 

Life is starting to feel like a bad fanfiction plot, and barely anything’s even happened yet. 

He watches his town move rapidly past until it’s something he barely recognizes. 

The sky seems to hang lower than usual, taunting and murky purple over the illuminated trees. There’s no moon in sight. 

Renjun is blaring Agust D, and Chenle and Yangyang are engaged in a rap battle from opposite sides of the car. Jeno and Jaemin are sharing a hushed conversation that Jisung is honestly rather glad he can’t hear. 

This is the closest thing to a quiet moment Jisung thinks he could get with this bunch. He takes a second to close his eyes and think critically, and the world begins to fade into white noise. 

He mentally records a few things he knows about his current situation. 

1. Jisung’s feelings towards Chenle are nothing new. They remain as they always have been--amiable, fond, and immovable--though recent clarity means a bit of a fade in the line that separates “platonic” from “romantic”. It’d be a lie if Jisung were to say that he knows the difference with any certainty even now, but there are a few plausible things that set these feelings apart from any other he’s felt before. 
1. He doesn’t know how to compose himself around Chenle anymore. Every word spoken, every action has behind it the quiet urge to impress, the need to communicate, “I want you to care,” which is all very funny when Jisung knows full well that Chenle cares about him more than he could ever understand. For this reason, Jisung’s motivations often fade into nothingness, and the quiet dynamic of their nine year friendship returns to fill Jisung with immeasurable comfort.
2. Chenle glows. In neon lights, under shining sun, in pitch darkness. 
3. Jisung’s soul seems to flutter.
4. In 16 years of life, Jisung has never once been made to question his straightness by anyone of any proximity to him. Until, of course, now. Jisung is, by nature, a bit stubborn, and has thus resorted to putting a bit of an emotional distance between himself and Chenle for the past week or so. It’s proving very difficult. It’s just making Jisung more sad and more… enamored… which, you know, sucks. 
5. The thought of Chenle liking someone else fills Jisung with an unwelcome and sudden worry
6. Jisung thinks he wouldn’t mind marrying Chenle someday
2. Now, Chenle knows some part of this to some extent. At the very least, he’s bound to have an inkling. He may be confused. This goes beyond Jisung’s knowledge. 
3. Chenle is yet to react with distaste or disgust or disbelief, which Jisung thinks is a premature win. 
4. In a moment of panic, Jisung seems to have left his sexuality up for grabs. It’s… like he’s started a game. A funny little competition. The straight 65% of Jisung’s being vs. Chenle Zhong.
5. As the very last dregs of Jisung’s confidence wear off, he remembers why he never starts games with Chenle. He never wins. 
6. YANGYANG MAY KNOW SOME PART OF THIS TO SOME EXTENT AS WELL. 
7. jisung is completely and utterly fucbked 
8. what is he even to do if say chenle returned his feelings what would he do dating is weird and 16 feels like 12 in a different font
9. WHAT IS HE TO DO IF cHENLE DOENS’T
10. THIS IS HIS BEST FRIND IN THE ROWLRD WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
11. maybe he should focus on not dying for now that sounds good omg samwich !!!!!! <333333333

Jisung finally snaps out of this daydream and finds himself bathed in the white-hot lights of the design masterpiece that is a McDonald’s interior. 

He’s chewing forlornly on a McSpicy Chicken as the world around him carries on, loud as ever. Yangyang is building the McNugget Burj Khalifa on his left, and Chenle is on his right, looking similarly spaced out. He’s got a cup of Pepsi held tightly in his hand, moving it every now and then in the same patterns he usually moves his hands in when speaking. 

Chenle’s eyes are completely and totally glazed over, which startles Jisung a bit when he notices. He grabs the nearest weapon (a limp french fry) and weakly slaps Chenle with it. 

It’s Chenle’s turn to startle. They stare at each other in silence for a second, Jisung still clutching his sad excuse for a fry. 

“Uh… Chenle, you good?” 

“Me?” Chenle asks, but he’s looking Jisung dead in the eye. It’s different from the sharp, unreadable look he had on an hour ago. It’s softer, glinting under the artificial light. It’s vulnerable. 

It’s caught. 

“Yeah, I’m great. I’m wonderful.” He cracks a very toothy, very strained grin, and Jisung smiles back because what the fuck else is he meant to do. 

He’d sell his right arm to know what Chenle was thinking just then. 

Well. Maybe not his right. Maybe his left. Yeah. 

Jisung glances away for half a second and sees NoRenMin all seated with the exact posture, all in a row, all staring directly at Jisung. Or maybe at Chenle. 

Jisung wants to die. He looks back at blissfully unaware Yangyang for a moment, and then back at Chenle for reasons that have to do with his own peace of mind. The grin has halfway melted off Chenle’s face. 

With a quick raise of his eyebrows, Jisung silently asks what’s on his mind. 

Chenle now gives him a tight-lipped smile--far more natural. The soft glint in his eyes starts to look like the smooth edge of a blade. He winks. You’ll never know . 

Jisung knows he looks unimpressed as hell. He starts to feel another shot of confidence coursing through his veins, like seawater under his skin. He looks down, then back up to Chenle’s eyes. Is this payback for what I said before?

Chenle furrows his brow. Which part?

Jisung looks at him blankly. 

Is there something you’ve said that’s meant to have bothered me?

Of course, Jisung is never one to play games alone.

A lie, perhaps?

What’s there to lie about? Who said I was ever lying?

I just did. 

Jisung blinks. Chenle did do that. Blankly, he reaches out and grabs Chenle’s Pepsi. He takes a generous sip, chewing at the straw a little, and looks back at Chenle. 

You’ve lied to me at least once in the past week. Twice is looking like a better number. Thrice might just be wishful thinking. 

Jisung pauses, wondering how Chenle managed to convey so complex a message with only his eyes. As if responding, he rolls them. “I’m talking to you, cupcake.” 

“Oh.” How much did Jisung say out loud? 

“You haven’t said anything damning yet, don’t worry.” Chenle mutters and snatches his Pepsi back. “I don’t get how you can tune out like that.”

“It’s a gift.” 

“Regardless, I’m contacting you externally,” He motions between the two of them, eyes widened. He’s never one to let a joke go. “To let you know that two can play at that.” 

“At what?” 

“Keeping secrets.” 

Jisung is losing hope. His odds in this game are not looking too good. “C’mon, Chenle. We’ve told each other everything ever for nine years.”

“Right, then tell me what you meant when you said you were thinking of me.” Chenle keeps his tone light, like he’s discussing the weather or something. “ All the time too.” At this, he smiles. 

“What makes you think it’s… like that?”

“Tell me, Jisung. D’you hate me?” 

“No.”

“D’you like me?”

“As a friend, yes!” 

Chenle simply tilts his head. “Great. So we’re leaning towards ‘like’. Now when you add ‘thinking all the time’... it sounds a little further down the spectrum.” 

Jisung sputters. “Why do we think romantic love is more love than platonic shit?! This society is so amatonorma--”

“Okay, yes , you’ve said this before. However, you should address the accusations.” 

This is exactly what Chenle did when Jisung liked that girl in the 8th grade. He drilled and interrogated until he finally got the truth out. 

Now Jisung is older, wiser(?), harder to crack (or so he thinks). Plus, his friendship is kind of on the line here. 

Why is Chenle… so calm? 

“Chenle Zhong, are you trying to get me to admit that I like you?” 

Chenle shrugs. “Things are simpler when they’re all out on the table. And I wouldn’t blame you, I’m pretty hot.” 

Jisung is going to drive his head through the elaborately painted McDonald’s wall. Hot hadn’t even factored in. “Chenle, I’m straight.”

“I know how you sound when you lie.” 

“Why do you know that? I’m not a frequent liar.” 

“I just notice these things about you.” Chenle shrugs like he’s not saying much of substance.” I pay attention, y’know.” 

Jisung, unable to process, says what he’ll come to regard as the stupidest thing he’s ever said in his life. “Chenle, do you like me ?” 

Chenle looks at Jisung 50% like he thinks Jisung is crazy, and 50% like he’s seen a ghost. 

Confidence (McDonald’s Pepsi) makes its way to Jisung’s brain and bounces around and screams and shit. Like, agagbabgabagbaggaggabaga . “Are you…” He points at himself, incredulous. “Projecting onto me right now?”

Now, you may ask: what evidence does Jisung have of this? 

Jisung would, in turn, ask you: What evidence does Chenle have of me liking him?

(More. The answer is more. We don’t need to discuss that, though.) 

Listen. If Jisung’s half-baked floaty feelings have to be pulled into the limelight right now, he’s going to do whatever it fucking takes to keep them protected. Let them fully bake, so to speak. 

Not until I’m sure . 

And if Jisung’s not fucking calm, Chenle shouldn’t be either. 

They’re best friends. They should be on equal footing. 

You know, according to the law. 

Chenle takes a careful sip of his Pepsi and looks straight into Jisung’s eyes. 

Danger. 

Jisung doesn’t know who looks away first. 

-- ↻ --

sungie?

Neptune · Sleeping at Last

⊚ Atlas: I

Jeno left at 11:30, emanating joy and satisfaction, ensuring them about forty times that no, they weren’t too loud or messy. That they were perfect. 

Jisung isn’t feeling too perfect right now. He can’t sleep, and it’s too hot, and he hasn’t so much as set foot in his room because, after that string of accusations, what if things are… weird ? Jisung can’t deal with weird. 

Now that Jisung’s brain has come down from its momentary little sugar high, it becomes abundantly clear to Jisung that Chenle was joking. 

He was joking . 

Of course? What reason would Chenle have to take Jisung seriously? What reason would there be to suspect that Jisung could be anything other than… amicable? 

A friendship of nine years seems to leave a bit of a mark. 

For Jisung, it’s what cushioned his fall. For Chenle, it’s… well, it’s forever. 

Jisung looks out the living room window, watches the obsidian waves fall against ash-like sand. 

Without a second thought, Jisung grabs his skateboard and unlocks the door. 

Jisung can’t remember a time when the whole “pity diving” thing didn’t exist. With seawater up to his ears, it feels like no earthly problem of his really matters. 

The salt stings and his chest tightens and life feels ridiculous. How can something so easily threatened weigh so heavily on Jisung’s mind? How can something so fleeting matter to anyone? 

(Our boy isn’t suicidal anymore, don’t worry. He’s confined such thoughts back to the seventh grade.) 

Jisung is strictly a scaredy-cat, afraid of roller coasters and loud sounds and pain and worry, but there’s something about the ocean. It coaxes him back, wraps its arms around him, silently traps him. 

The ocean calls Jisung back like a bitter old lover, and Jisung is quite artless when it comes to love. 

“Where the fuck are you going at 2:30 in the fucking morning?” 

Jaemin--older, smarter, better versed in such things--knows how to keep Jisung safe. He stands, hands on his hips, the faded purple of this cloudy night painting his features. The stray blue of his bangs is almost black. 

Jisung, standing in the foyer, turns to look back at him and freezes. He knows caught is in his eyes, and the water leaves his lungs. 

“Breathe, Jisungie. It’s just me.” 

That’s the problem. 

Still, Jisung loosens his grip on his board and allows his shoulders to fall. 

Without another word, Jaemin reaches out towards him. 

Jisung points blankly at his outstretched hands. “What’s this for?”

“Ah, you little numbskull.” Jaemin says, unbelievably fond, and wraps Jisung in a hug. It’s almost maternal, how he reaches up to card his fingers through Jisung’s hair. It’s almost reminiscent of a little kid, how Jisung drops his board and reflexively buries his face in Jaemin’s shoulder. “You’re worse off than I thought.” 

Jisung makes a noncommittal noise. 

Jaemin breaks away but keeps Jisung’s hands clutched within his own. Jisung notices how Jaemin has to look up at him now. “What’s wrong, kid?” 

“Would it be bad if I said I didn’t know?” 

“I’d be more surprised if you did.”

“Do I look that dumb?”

“You look confused.” 

Jisung looks at the floor. “I guess you’re right about that.”

Jaemin hums. “Tell me, does it have something to do with Chenle?”

They go silent. 

“Now wh-why would you think that?”

“You’ve been off the whole day, Sungie. You stared into space for hours, took a break to talk to Chenle, stared into space, stared at Chenle, took a break to--”

“Okay, I get it, I get the point.” Jisung knows he looks sheepish as all hell as Jaemin drags him back into the house. Sheepish is never a good look on him. “I’d thought you were too absorbed with Jeno to pay me any mind.” 

“A funny little crush will never be all that matters to me,” Jaemin says, almost obnoxiously knowledgeable. “The world is far too big for me to focus in on something so small.”

The agabagaba part of Jisung’s brain wakes up, echoing previous sentiments on amatonormativity. “You sounded so wise just now, hyung.” 

“Yeah? How so?” 

Jaemin receives no reply and purses his lips.

“You’re like my little brother, Jisung. You can talk about stuff with me.” 

“Jaemin, a funny little crush has taken over my entire life ,” Jisung blurts. Words start flying out of his mouth before he can really remember what they mean. It’s the Chenle Zhong Effect. “And I don’t even think it’s a crush crush, because it feels different from that, but it feels different from… just liking someone as a friend? I’m floating, hyung, I’m floating.”

“Floating?”

“I don’t know where I stand, and it’s like I’m being pushed from all sides to figure out the word for… it.” 

“Ah…”

“But more importantly, it is taking over my life. I can’t even think about anything anymore. How are you so calm, man? How do you… think?” Overwhelmed by his thoughts, Jisung holds his head in his hands. “Why the fuck can’t I?”

To his surprise, he receives no scolding for his language. Jaemin doesn’t move forward to hug Jisung close the way he always does, doesn’t shift at all. 

Jisung lifts his head a little, and Jaemin’s voice makes its way through the silence. It’s deep, earnest, something not often heard. “You’re 16, Jisungie. You have been for months.” Suddenly, a smile filters into his voice. “But to me, this is the first indication that you’ve changed since you were 10.” 

Too young.

Silence takes over again. 

Jisung doesn’t get angry often. He lacks the energy for it. Chenle’s always the one to speak up for him when it’s important. 

He’s alone now. The first flame of his displeasure flickers out without kindling. 

“Your point being?” 

“My point being that this is the most childish you’ve ever seemed.” 

At this, Jisung looks up completely. 

Jaemin’s smile is almost self-satisfied, but something in his gaze betrays his pride. “Jisung, when I say you haven’t changed since 10, it’s because you’ve been a perfect adult since then. You’re exponentially more mature, more rational than all the rest of us. Consistently.”

Jisung all but sees himself reflected in the dark galaxies of Jaemin’s eyes. 

“We tease you, calling you innocent and young and cute because we know . We know how thoughtful, how critical, how perceptive you’ve always been. You’re taller than all of us, Jisung. This baby face of yours and those irrational fears are all that betrays your age. And I guess your lack of common sense, but that kind of runs in the family.” Jaemin grins. “So all that you’ve just said just confirms that 16 is the youngest of all ages.”

“The youngest?”

“At 16, one thing can become your whole world so easily, because your whole world is so small. You have more passion than you did at 15, but less perspective than you will at 17.” 

“That’s a… thing? Like an actual thing?” 

“In my experience. Even ask Renjun, he’ll tell you all the stupid stuff he did his freshman year of uni.” 

Jisung almost laughs at the idea of a slightly younger Renjun stumbling about campus, lovelorn and lost as himself. 

“Now that my sappiness is out of the way, let’s get to work.” Jaemin clasps his hands together, and Jisung’s sense of familial comfort begins to waver. 

“Work…?”

“Jisung, are you straight?” 

Jisung stares at Jaemin, betrayed and experiencing emotional whiplash. Unable to formulate an answer, he yelps out a single syllable. “AA!” 

“Too true.” 

“Hyung, I’m just… Aaaaaa, you know? Like, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” 

Jaemin nods, pressing his lips together like Jisung has said something particularly moving. “Absolutely. Absolutely. Unfortunately, ‘aaaa’ing is a gateway drug to liking men.” 

“I don’t like men.” 

“Whatever you say, aegiya.” 

Jaemin looks with great intensity into Jisung’s eyes. Nay, into his very soul . 

Jisung begins to consider suicide again. “I’m totally straight, like fully, but I’ve been starting to think I may like men a little bit.” 

“A Zhong Chenle sized little bit?”

“Cut the fucking cameras,” Jisung says shakily. “Why would you fucking say that?”

“Why am I fucking right, though?” Jaemin mimics not only Jisung’s uneven tone of voice, but the wide-eyed, horrified look on his face. 

Jisung immediately realizes how stupid he looks and makes a conscious (futile) attempt to school his expression. “Why do I even talk to you?” 

“I’m your favorite cousin and second best friend, obviously.” Jaemin clears his throat. “So we’ve established that you are, a) not straight but fully in denial--it’s okay, happens to the best of us--and b) have a grand old case of floaty feelings for our own Mr. Chenle.”

“Keep your voice down, old man.” 

“Wow, and no understanding of the age hierarchy. No respect. Ah, these kids.” 

“I should’ve just left when I had the chance,” Jisung sighs, though he only half believes it. “Who asked you to wake up at 2:30 AM and stop me?” 

“I was awake, stupid. I was watching the fucking Perks of Being a Wallflower .” At this, Jaemin has to fight a smile. “You’re lucky the fuckin’ truth or dare scene came up at such an opportune time.” He pauses, and the smile melts as quickly as it arrived. “And where the fuck were you going?”

Jisung sinks down in his seat. 

Jaemin raises both eyebrows at him. “Pity diving at this time? You could fucking drown, Jisung.” 

“I can swim!”

“No, you fucking can’t.” 

Fun fact: Jisung actually fucking can’t. 

“I can try valiantly, but I think the ocean rejects my attempts.” 

Jaemin gestures wildly, screaming with the sound off. “What the fuck does that mean?” 

“It hates me,” Jisung says bitterly. “I’m not suited for this place.” 

“Where the fuck would you rather be?” 

He receives no reply. 

“Jisung-ah, you can’t swim because you don’t know how. It’s not the ocean’s fault, you dimwit.” Jaemin makes a ‘tch’ sound. “Why am I surrounded by people who hate it here?”

Jisung raises his eyebrows. “Surrounded?” 

“Jeno,” Jaemin says simply. Jisung watches his eyes travel. “He’s tired of it.” He shrugs. “For him, I understand. The ocean and the tourists and summer are so loud, and he was near mute when we first met. But for you?”

It’s at this moment that Jisung realizes he hasn’t much of an explanation. He just… doesn’t like where he is. He loves skating and music and the quiet of the town and the company of his friends, but everything a bit closer to the horizon feels suffocating. “I think it’s the people.” 

Jaemin waits expectantly for elaboration. Jisung comes to the realization that he’s done something akin to insulting Jaemin’s lifeblood. 

Jaemin Na was born with salt in his fucking veins. 

“It’s the people.” 

“You used to love the ocean, Jisung.” 

“The people are so happy.” Jisung swallows and looks back, back, past the window’s glass and fluttering netting, past the empty streets and the moths under the lampposts and the little rectangular buildings, just like their own mismatched home, to the boardwalk. The shops with their signs off. The waves under the moon, carrying on like always, oblivious to it all. 

“The sun is so bright, and the air is so sweet, and they’re everywhere . Laughing, hugging, talking like they haven’t a care in the world. It’s pure joy shoved in my face all the time. I think, why am I not as happy as they are? Why am I immune to the beach? Such things.” 

Jaemin looks at him carefully. Jisung can feel his gaze even as his own is trained somewhere far away. “You think it left you behind?” 

“What?” 

“The ocean has no qualms, Jisungie. No prejudices. You can’t scapegoat something that doesn’t know you exist.” 

“I know it’s my own fault if I’m unhappy--”

“It’s not. You’re growing up, my little idiot. Everyone’s unhappy at this age. All of us in this house are.”

At this, Jisung looks back. Jaemin seems to have no expression at all, but his eyes betray something. Quiet. It’s a rare sight. 

“We’re all sad and angry and upset for our own reasons. Maybe for no reason at all. I know I barely ever have reasons for my unhappiness, but I’m not a rational guy. Rationality goes against my values.” Jaemin suddenly grins, and his eyes glint like normal. “Nevertheless, you become happy when something out of the ordinary happens. The beach is nothing new, so you’re kind of… numb to it. It makes sense.” 

“You’re not numb to it.” 

“My default is happiness, Park Jisung. My default is love and joy for everything. Any feeling other than that is… hard.” 

Jisung remembers the day Jaemin and Renjun fought, or cried, or whatever it was they did while he and Chenle were seeking something out of the ordinary. Some small joy. He remembers the hurt in Jaemin’s eyes, yes, but he also remembers the confusion that swallowed it. 

“Empathy,” Jaemin says simply, and Jisung gets it. 

“Is Renjun okay?” 

Jaemin’s eyes betray him. 

“Hyung?” 

“He’ll be fine. He’s fine.”

Jisung’s lower lip suddenly stings, and he realizes he’s been kind of chewing at it the whole time. “You’d tell me if things were… bad, right?”

Jaemin’s smile is a bit crooked. “For all your emotional maturity, Jisung, we all need you for a different reason.”

“So that’s a… no?”

“You’re the only innocent thing left in our family.” 

Jisung quite suddenly believes he’s going to cry, which is funny because he has absolutely no clue what Jaemin is saying to him right now. “What does that mean ?”

“We know you’re not, but sometimes we need to pretend. Growing up is hard.” 

“I know.” 

Jaemin sniffs and looks up in alarm. “Ah, I made it about myself again. We were here to discuss more important matters, weren’t we?” 

The tears seem to spontaneously evaporate from Jisung’s lashes. “No, actually, we were here--”

“I think you have a chance with Chenle Zhong.”

“Shut up!” 

“Bruh? Age hierarchy?!”

“Shut up, hyung-nim! I don’t want to talk about this anymore! I am deeply uncomfortable with this subject matter!” 

“At least give your poor old hyung the rundown of the fuckin’ situation, will you?” 

“What fuckin’ situation?” Comes a third voice from the darkness of the hallway, like a message from the fucking divine. 

Jisung jumps so high he nearly hits the ceiling and lands in Jaemin’s lap. 

Chenle Zhong himself, blurred by distant shadows washing over his unimposing figure, looks on with great wonder. His face betrays no trace of sleep, no grogginess or interrupted exasperation. “One of you idiots was screaming.” 

Jisung and Jaemin make a second’s eye contact. “Who was screaming?”

“No one was screaming, Chenle.”

“You must be hearing things.” 

“Maybe there’s a ghost.”

Chenle blinks. “Am I being double gaslit right now? Wow, your family is bad news.” And then he says something in Korean that Jisung dare not repeat and disappears into the kitchen.

“Yah! Zhong Chenle!” Jaemin yelps, and it’s at this moment that Jisung realizes he’s still on Jaemin’s lap. He scrambles away. “Where the hell did you learn that?” 

The kitchen light flicks on and Chenle’s unsuspecting doe eyes peek out from the doorway. His orange hair is full of static and standing on end. “You think I’ve been asleep this whole time? I’m on episode 7 of Vincenzo . They curse like fuckin’ maniacs.” 

Jisung vaguely remembers seeing the show on his Netflix recommendations. “Abandoned Nam Joohyuk, have we?” 

At this, Chenle emerges from the kitchen fully. He’s still dressed in what he wore for the entirety of the day, and his eyes are wide and alert. There’s no indication on his person of it being 2:40 AM at all. He pops what looks like a pink Starburst into his mouth and takes a moment of silence. 

Jisung blinks a few times. “That wasn’t the last one, was it?” In case it is not common knowledge, the pink Starbursts are the best. 

Chenle shrugs, unapologetic, and shoots another cheeky wink at Jisung. 

It becomes clear that Jisung was worried for nothing. Chenle embraces--no, he exudes weird vibes. He is at home with weird vibes. He’ll readily enhance them if the situation begs it. 

And it seems this “fuckin’ situation” does. 

Jisung lives with a bunch of freaks. 

Jisung is kind of a freak himself. He loves all of these people a bit too much not to be.  

“Nam Joohyuk is still the love of my life,” Chenle states, chewing almost obnoxiously. “Song Joongki is just… cute in a dilfy way. 9/10 would smash.” 

Jaemin is vibrating with laughter. “Song Joongki looks almost exactly like Renjun.” 

Chenle stops chewing. 

Jisung covers his face with a hand. “Why…”

“Why?!” Chenle shrieks. “How?! How the hell have you managed to make my attraction to some 36 year old Korean rando borderline incestuous?” 

“I’m talented like that.” 

“How do I finish this show now?” 

“Don’t bother. There’s a 90% chance your favorite character dies.” 

Jisung looks up. “You’ve seen it?” 

“Chenle missed the hype. It was everywhere in 2021.” 

“I don’t need hype ,” Chenle mocks. “I’m just here for a good time.” 

“Wow, so quirky,” Jisung says flatly. “You’re truly one of a kind.” 

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” 

Jisung burrows in Jaemin’s shoulder. “I didn’t like that one.” 

“Get used to it, loverboy.”

“Simmer down, young one.” 

“Suck it, Jaem.” 

“Kinda gay.” 

Jisung makes a sound of great distress and feels Jaemin’s hand come up to his hair. 

“Don’t spook Jisungie.”

“Jisung is afraid of gay people?” 

Jaemin has officially screwed Jisung over. 

“I’m n--”

“If Jisung is scared of gay people, I have some bad news about mirrors.”

“Don’t be mean to me, Chenle.” He lifts his head and sees Chenle seated in the chair next to them, legs crossed. Even now, he’s glowing pink. “You suck.” 

“You swallow.”

Jisung begins to fake sob. 

“Ayo, what the fuck?” Jaemin says, but Jisung can feel him shaking with laughter. Betrayal. 

There’s a moment of silence as Jaemin collects himself. Jisung’s eyes dart about in the darkness, trained on the gap between Jaemin’s shoulder and the fabric of the sofa. 

“Jisung,” Chenle says, too quiet to be sudden. 

“Hmm?” 

“I love youuu…”

Nothing more than an apology. Nothing less. 

Jisung makes a great show of sighing and lifting his head. There are pink streaks in his vision. “Love you too.” 

-- ↻ --

The sun is glowing through the blinds, hot on Jisung’s skin. He feels just about as sticky as he would have if he’d dove last night. The recent memories weigh his body down, warm and heavy. 

The first thing Jisung hears upon waking, at 3:09 PM, is Renjun screaming. 

“Na Jaemin, I am not in the mood to see your dick today!”

He falls off the sofa and lands with a thud on the carpet. “What?” Jisung says groggily to no one in particular, blinking sleep from his eyes and craning his neck up to see whatever is going on in the hall. 

Jaemin emerges, twirling like a ballerina, one towel wrapped tightly around his waist and one covering his head and shoulders like a veil. He dances about with very little coordination, colliding with walls. Water droplets land on the carpet. 

Renjun rushes out after him, clutching a set of very neatly folded clothes and barking his protests the way a small rat dog might. 

Jisung doesn’t have one fucking clue where he is. “G-Guys?”

“Don’t rain on my fucking parade, Renjun Huang!” Jaemin sings. “It’s 93 degrees and I had six dreams and I am going to go to the beach and cause chaoooooooooooooooo--”

“Not in your current state, you aren’t.” Renjun grabs Jaemin’s arm and pulls him back. 

Jisung wriggles about on the floor, army crawling to the scene of the crime once more. Jaemin stills to watch him struggle. “Good morning, Jisungie! The sun is shining, and--”

Renjun claps a hand over his mouth. “Will you shut up?” 

“Silence Jaemin voices,” Jisung cheers weakly and curls up on the carpet before them. 

There’s half a second’s silence before Renjun yelps and retracts his hand. Jaemin grins down innocently. “It’s a wonderful day, Sungie. I am going to do it today.”

At this, Jisung lifts his face off the carpet. “Do what?”

“ It ,” Renjun barks at him. 

Jisung jolts. “What?!” 

Jaemin dances about a bit more. He really does move like an anime protagonist. The blonde guy from that show Chenle made Jisung watch in 7th grade… “Today, I ask Jeno out.”

“Out where?” Jisung asks, dazed. 

“I give it…” Renjun glances at his watch-less wrist. “Say, three hours before the sugar high fades and he chickens out.”

“Haha! So funny and also original, Renjun!”

Renjun looks up flatly, gaze fixing a bit past Jisung. “I wasn’t joking.” 

“It’s too early in the morning for romance.” 

“You can say that again.” Yangyang materializes in the hallway with a sleep-ridden Chenle trailing after him. 

“Can I go back to sleep?” Jisung groans. 

He’s out before anyone can respond, shouts and laughter as his lullaby.

-- ↻ --

He wakes up in his bed, Chenle sitting pensively by his side the way an agonizing lover might by a hospital cot. 

It’s 4:59 when sleep becomes unbearable. 

“What are you doing here?”

Chenle looks down at Jisung, his lips pressed together. His eyes, telling as always, betray his sudden and quiet joy. “I live here too.”

“Not technically.” 

“I live here just as you do.” 

“Better.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Now get up, you doofus. I’ve been going insane without anyone to direct my energy at.”

Jisung sighs. “What does that even mean?” 

Chenle smiles, finally, conspiratorially. 

Jisung’s brain might be a bit too hazy still for any objectivity, but he figures there has to be something universally different about Chenle’s smile. 

To Jisung it’s a snapshot of all his happiest memories compiled into one. It’s the sudden deepening of his heartbeat, sea salt drying under the sun. It’s all the poetic things Jisung hates himself for thinking up. 

But even if he were not himself, if he were not Chenle’s best fucking friend , Jisung cannot imagine a life in which Chenle’s smile was not as infectious and annoyingly beautiful as it is to him now. 

These are the thoughts that float around the vacant, sleepy emptiness of Jisung’s mid-afternoon mind, like paper boats on a lazy stream. 

“It means I get to pick the music this time.”

Five minutes spent staring at himself in the mirror, one unnecessarily long shower, and three small crises later, Jisung stumbles out of the bathroom and is forcibly looped into Chenle’s breakdown. 

The blinds are drawn, the volume on Jisung’s speaker all the way up, and Chenle’s hands are warm as they grasp Jisung’s arms and drag him about. Suddenly Jisung hasn’t the presence of mind to ask where everyone is, to wonder what the fuck it is that’s weighing on Chenle’s mind to this extent. 

If Jisung has his sad indie music, Chenle has his mindless games. If Jisung has pity diving, Chenle has the thrum of bass, swallowing his heartbeat. 

If Renjun were here now, he’d use two of his fancy words, two Jisung quite likes: analogous and contradictory . 

When in combination, what do they become? Complimentary , like the colors he uses when he paints his quiet little masterpieces? 

Maybe pink and orange are too close to be complimentary. Maybe they can just be as they are. 

Jisung’s still not quite awake, but the music, a song he doesn’t recognize, is loud enough that he feels the bass through the floor, beating in conjunction with the blood pumping through his veins. Chenle’s touch, his eyes, his everything feels to Jisung like flames. 

“What song is this?” He asks weakly. 

“I’m using your Spotify account, doofus.” Loudness is natural for Chenle. 

“Why?!”

“Why would I get my own when you’re right here?” 

Jisung narrows his eyes. “I’m not gonna be here forever.”

Chenle’s gaze is a challenge, like everything else about him. “Says who?” 

“Says me!”

“Sure, Jisungie. Like you’d ever leave me.” 

sungie?

Holding Back · BANKS

⊚ Holding Back

Jisung feels his face flush. It’s honestly sad how easily his embarrassment displays itself. It’s even sadder how easily he is embarrassed. “Why did you say it like that?”

“How did I say it?” 

“With subtext .” 

Chenle’s eyes go wide, and his grip on Jisung’s wrists seems to loosen. Quickly, though, his hands travel to Jisung’s. “Is that a crime? After all that, I can’t speak with fuckin’ subtext?” He can only hold three of Jisung’s fingers in his grasp. “You’re the one who started this in the first place, my Jisungie. It’s your fault for thinking of me all the time.”

This is an obvious dig at Jisung, and he’s not in quite the right mood to concede as usual. He grits his teeth and speaks before his mind can tell him otherwise. “It’s your fault for giving me so much to think about.” 

With a few pleading beeps, Jisung’s speaker runs out of battery and falls too quickly (and almost comically) silent. Jisung’s ears are ringing. 

It’s too damn quiet. 

Chenle’s expression has not shifted, and Jisung thinks he should very quickly change the subject. Their words come out simultaneously. 

“I still don’t know what to make of that.”

“Why are you doing this, Chenle?” 

They stare at each other in something akin to shock. 

“Doing what?” 

“Make of what?” 

A beat.

“Jinx. Onetwothreefourfivesix--”

“What are you, twelve? Pickle! Fuck you.” 

“You owe me… let’s see.” 

“Can we just go with a soda? I don’t have the funds for much else.”

“Buy me more boba. Please.” 

“That I can do.” 

Jisung sighs, looking down at their half-interlocked hands. “I meant it, though. Why the breakdown routine now?” 

“Why were you trying to leave last night?” 

Jisung’s heart stills. “You heard all that?” 

Chenle looks at him like he’s trying to figure out how to answer. The calculating expression quickly fades and his eyes convey his concession. “I didn’t hear much, but I think I might be getting better at context clues. Reading between the lines. My skills are improving.”

“Without my help?” Jisung quips. The threat has been eliminated.

“Because of you, stupid.” Chenle wrinkles up his face immediately after the words leave his mouth. “Now that sounded strange.”

“Subtext,” Jisung hums almost triumphantly. For a second he forgets that this isn’t some elaborate gag or bit to be turned off and on at his own will. He forgets that, while this all may be an awkward feel or gentle taunt to Chenle, it is disgustingly real to Jisung. 

It’s a bit easier to play along this way. 

Chenle rolls his eyes, and he drops Jisung’s hands. “Whatever. Seeing as your our resident hetero, I feel like this whole vibe should have been subdued by now.”

That hits like a slap to the face, but Jisung merely raises his eyebrows like he hasn’t a clue what Chenle is saying. “If I buy you boba to compensate for your troubles?”

Chenle just shoots him a look, and Jisung wonders if he’s trivializing something. 

Maybe he’s really in the wrong.

Jisung’s face begins to fall at the thought, but Chenle doesn’t see it. He looks away and mutters, barely loud enough for Jisung to hear, “There were never any troubles.” 

-- ↻ --

Soobin isn’t in today. The orange-haired girl in his place rings up Chenle’s order with a look of intense confusion. Jisung, deciding to have mercy on her, orders a simple tea and counts out exact change. 

She gives him a familiar but forever indecipherable look, reminiscent of freshmen girls in school and strangers on the boardwalk. He notices, always, but never understands. 

Jisung understands, likes, only Chenle’s meaningful glances. He gets too many of those to count as they walk today, catching the last of the day’s sunlight and navigating their home streets with no destination in mind. 

It’s not long before the beach comes into view, and Chenle leads them forward to the boardwalk. Jisung is without his board and his music, but he supposes Chenle dragging him along counts for something. 

They’re not dressed for sand or water, but, seeking refuge from the heat, they park just by the shore. That unique kind of beachside din fills the air and Jisung’s mind. 

The sky is insanely blue. Jisung feels like cursing at it. 

So he does. “Fucking hell.”

“What the fuck, Jisung.” 

Condensation numbs Jisung’s skin, and he watches the waves come in inches away from his sneakered feet. Chenle chews his neon green straw pensively, eyebrows raised. A seagull caws, a child begins to laugh, and Chenle’s hair is blown by wind. It falls covering his eyes. 

“Jisung?” 

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

Jisung looks up and thinks he could say a million things, but when he opens his mouth nothing comes out. 

Somehow it becomes easy to look at the beach as something new. 

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Chenle looks away at this, eyes moving down to the low tide. He sets his drink down and cups his hands as the water rushes in, catching a handful of seafoam. It’s thick and soft and white, but melts too quickly and seeps back down to the sand. 

Jisung watches this, caught somewhere between enthralled and befuddled. 

“You never answered my question,” Chenle says, level. 

“Which?” 

“Why were you trying to dive last night?”

Jisung can only shrug. “Lots of thoughts.”

Chenle scrunches up his face as he looks up at the horizon, shaking the water from his hands. “What about?” 

“Lots of things.” 

“And the time before that?” 

Jisung blinks at him. “You remember that?” 

“I was playing Mario Kart, not in a different fucking world.”

You didn’t acknowledge me. 

Chenle looks directly at Jisung now. I still saw you. I always do. 

Jisung swallows what feels like a mouthful of seawater, on a path straight to his lungs. 

“I was scared.” 

“Of what?” Chenle looks back out to the ocean again. “If you say me again, I’ll kill you.”

“Well, you’re the answer again.”

“How could I ever scare you?”

“Because I’ve never--” Jisung bites down on his tongue and it hurts like hell. 

Chenle just looks out, seemingly not at all alarmed by this answer (or lack thereof), but Jisung watches him blink like he’s trying to get something out of his eyes and worry at the inside of his cheek with his teeth. 

And then both their phones ring at the same time. 

It’s a frenzied few seconds, both of them fumbling in the sand to stop the noise, their previous conversation momentarily forgotten. 

(That’s an exaggeration; when you’re Jisung, you don’t seem to be able to forget much.) 

It’s Yangyang blowing up both their phones simultaneously. Jisung tosses his into the sand and hits the green button on Chenle’s screen. 

With a happy ding, a motion-blurred image of something unrecognizable sparks to life. The lag is impressive and the sun dims the screen down to a point at which neither Chenle nor Jisung have any clue what they’re seeing. 

Despite the delayed images, Yangyang’s voice filters through Chenle’s speakers, clear as ever. “Get in the car, you lil’ bitches. We’re going to Costco.”

Chenle looks unamused. “What the hell, man.”

“What’s even there to do at Costco?”

“Your mom.” 

“Die.”

“Not yet. I am too legendary and too young and too good-looking.” Finally the screen settles on a similarly motion-blurred still of half of Yangyang’s grinning face. “I’m right at the end of the boardwalk.”

Chenle sputters. “How did you know we were here?” 

“What else is there to do around these parts?” 

Jisung nods. “Fair.” Then he looks up at Chenle, who only shrugs. “We’ll be there in a sec.” 

-- ↻ --

Yangyang’s Spotify premium subscription glitches out and gets stuck playing George Michael’s Careless Whisper for an hour. 

Chenle thinks it’s hilarious for the first 20; Jisung starts to lose it after 10. Yangyang sings along to the saxophone for the whole duration of the car ride. 

“So why are we going to Costco?” Chenle asks around the 6 minute mark. 

Jisung watches Yangyang shrug from the backseat. He and Chenle were both banished to the back, with Yangyang citing (justified) worries for their safety. 

Not only did Yangyang steal Renjun’s van, but he seems to insist on driving like a maniac. Jisung keeps his right hand wrapped tightly on the panic handle above the window all throughout. 

“I’m just in the mood for wholesale.” 

Jisung swallows. “Do you actually need to… buy anything?” 

Yangyang gives Jisung a glance in the rearview before swerving to the left. “Why would I need to?”

“I’m never gonna dance again,” Chenle warbles. “Guilty feet have got-no-rhy-thm…” 

“Last question, I promise.” Picking at his fingers, Jisung directs his gaze away from Yangyang. “What do you need us for?” 

“Tonight the music seems so lo-oud, I wish that we could lose this crowd,” Yangyang sings back, very obviously dodging the question. 

Chenle, oblivious as ever, slaps his hand to his chest. “Maybeee, it’s better this way--we’d hurt each other with the things we wanna say…” 

“We could have been so good together,” they chorus, quite suddenly and simultaneously looking at Jisung--Chenle turning and directing his laments to him, Yangyang grinning in the rearview mirror. “We could have lived this dance foreverrrr…” 

Jisung sighs, making a great show of casting a hand over his face like a photoshoot model. His idiocy manifests itself differently every day. “But nowwww , who’s gonna dance with me?” His voice cracks on the high note in a most exquisite manner. “Pleeeease, stay…” 

Chenle gives him a short round of applause before he and Yangyang launch back into the refrain. This time around, Jisung supplies the instrumentals. 

He doesn’t get the answer to his question until they’re actually in the store, shivering in the solid air. 

They’re glaringly lacking both a cart and a membership card (Yangyang quickly finagles them out of that one), and the muted spring palette of their hair colors sets them apart from the middle aged couples and sprinting children everywhere. The place is vast and vaguely reminiscent of a shipping container, with thin metal walls and beams across the ceiling, hollow pop-rock filtering through invisible speakers. 

“I brought you guys here because I’m bored,” Yangyang says simply after a few minutes of aimless wandering. The trio stands in a small triangle at the back corner of one of those startlingly industrial aisles with the spray-paint orange racks of coffee makers and water bottles and whatever the fuck else. 

Chenle dances across the gray linoleum with his hands in his pockets, the soles of his Chuck Taylors squeaking out an unidentifiable rhythm. 

“I’m bored, and there’s a discussion to be had here.” 

The squeaking stops. 

Jisung cocks his head. “About what?” His throat has started to dry, which he quickly decides to attribute to the A/C. 

Chenle mutters something in Chinese, most probably a remark directed at Yangyang, but the boy in question just looks up blankly. It seems spending years in foreign countries has something of an impact on one’s fluency in their mother tongue. 

“Something is up with you two,” Yangyang says casually, fluffing his hair with a hand. “And while I have very little interest in the details--”

“Me when I lie,” Chenle coughs. 

“--I’m just saying the vibes are odd and it’s kind of fun.” 

Jisung is surrounded by weirdos. “What does that even--”

“Nothing’s up ,” Chenle says, like this is a new implication. There’s no trace of offense in his tone, only genuine confusion. “Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about.”

He never seems to miss a beat. 

Jisung just blinks a few times. “Yeah,” he says out of obligation. It occurs to him that he’s never really… talked to Chenle about anything that could be considered “up”. That he has no idea where Chenle stands. 

Fuck that. Jisung still doesn’t know where he stands. 

Why do they even need to stand somewhere?!

“You sure?” 

“A hundred percent.” 

Jisung feels a sudden, quiet rush of frustration like blood to the head. 

Maybe it’s the unassuming look on Chenle’s face, or Yangyang’s skeptical smile, or just how fucking cold it is in the fucking Costco, but something is driving Jisung very close to the edge.

The sad little indie singer in his mind begins to lament something or the other. Can’t things just be simple for once?

Yangyang and Chenle are back to barking either insults or quips at each other (Jisung can’t tell), settling into a familiar rhythm. Chenle has this kind of a rhythm with everyone--fast, sharp, hard-hitting. Only with Jisung is it ever a beat softer. 

Jisung starts to feel like George Michael. He leans back against a rack of miscellaneous consequences of the industrial revolution for a while, absently cracking his knuckles. 

Closing his eyes, Jisung decides today is the day he figures things out. 

What do I want from all this?

Unthinkingly, he shuffles away. 

What do I want?

The linoleum has Jisung dragging his feet along. He looks around at the clothing, tacky dresses of sheerest cotton dangling above the ground, and the books on tables sitting comfortably at knee height, the fans and the vast displays of patio furniture and everything in bulk. It’s all a bit too much for him. 

He wonders, aimlessly, if he might one day have a family that begs wholesale purchases. 

A memory bubbles to the surface, pushing to the forefront of Jisung’s preoccupied teenage mind. He thinks he was eight or nine when he came here last, clinging to his mother’s arm as his father wandered off to look at books. 

Seven, eight, and nine blur in Jisung’s memory. Maybe some years before that. Most of his childhood. 

He comes to a stop in the middle of a wide aisle. It’s like standing in the middle of a road, right on the yellow dashed line, as cars rush past on either side.

Of all the people moving around him, pushing their carts, Jisung feels the tallest. 

He freezes where he is for a moment, waiting for the traffic to pass him by, and carries on.

Jisung wanders without purpose for a while, narrowly avoiding certain death by shopping cart collision about five times. He takes a minute’s rest surrounded by tables of cheap books. Mystery, romance, fiction, teen lit, cookbooks, self-help, comics. 

He stares at the smiling face of a cardboard cartoon character, and then watches the picture book slide off the edge of the table. 

Jisung wonders for a minute if he’s hallucinating and jams his hands into his pockets while shuffling to the other side of the table. Standing there is the smallest child Jisung has probably ever seen walking. She clutches the picture book to her chest--it’s half her size. 

Jisung blinks down at her. He never learned how to interact with children, but she stares up at him curiously. Her short, dark hair is in twin pigtails. 

“Are you lost?” 

She gapes at him for a moment longer, fluorescent lights reflected in her wide eyes, and skips away without a word. 

Jisung just nods to himself as she disappears from view and figures he’s going to start crying. 

He purses his lips, exasperated with the sting in his eyes. 

What do I want?

Fuck you, that’s what. 

Thoughts of Chenle and Yangyang and the industrial revolution float back up to the surface, and Jisung wishes he were just a little kid again. He doesn’t think this is where he belongs, wondering and analyzing and falling. 

He turns and continues on his walk, sans destination. He’s been expecting to cry for the past three days or so, just because it’s overdue. 

Jisung thinks it might be kind of funny that he’s stumbling around a fucking Costco Wholesale, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand, freezing in the middle of summer. He doesn’t even know what’s there to cry about. He just knows he’s tired. 

Poetics seem to take a harsher toll on those not yet accustomed to them. 

Jisung shuffles his way to the back of the store, where barren furniture sits on the spray-painted racks. He bangs his head on a metal bar on his way to a small loveseat with a price tag reading $1,200 dangling under it. 

He collapses there on the cold, dark leather, and covers his face with his hands. 

For what feels like an hour, Jisung sits there and cries, silent. He jumps between trains of thoughts, trying to wring every last tear from his body. 

He thinks of his earliest memories, of his parents, of his loud first home. He thinks of youth and the beach and Jaemin and Renjun and Yangyang and Chenle, Chenle, Chenle, god, why is Jisung so stupid? 

What was there to be gained from pretending? From lying? 

There’s a lot more to be lost from the truth .

They call it the truth because it’s undeniable. 

Jisung Park is 16 years old. His sexuality is unconfirmed. He is in love with his best friend, Chenle Zhong. He probably has been for years, but there’s something about being 16 that makes these things feel a bit more obvious. 

That’s all. 

Usually, Jisung is quite a fan of crying, but today, he is without the catharsis he was anticipating. 

What do I want?

To not look sad anymore. 

He hears footsteps and wonders for a moment if he’s going to be told to move, but whoever’s beyond the dark wall of his hands just carries on, unbothered. 

For some reason that makes him cry harder, which is both a success and a loss. 

What do you want?

To not be alone.

The loveseat dips under a new weight to Jisung’s left. His shaking suddenly ceases. 

“It’s been half an hour, dickhead. Yangyang thought you died.”

God. 

Jisung tries to arrange his features into a stony expression behind his hands before peeking out. 

Chenle is an orange blur, dimmed by the shadow of the metal above them. He sustains an unimpressed expression, though a single shred of relief floats in the onyx of his eyes. When Jisung finally drops his hands, something changes. 

“What the hell, Jisung?” Chenle mutters, gaze darting around Jisung’s face. 

Jisung doesn’t even want to think about how he looks right now. He whips his head around to face the other direction, only to be turned back around as Chenle’s hand drags him by the ear. 

Jisung scowls and slaps the offending hand away. 

“You look a fucking mess.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you?” 

“Sorry,” Chenle says quietly, and somehow he sounds like he means it. “Why are you crying?”

Jisung is silent. He sniffles a few times and brings his hands to his cheeks, only to feel that his tear tracks are already starting to dry against his skin. 

Chenle watches this in silence, wearing an uncharacteristic frown. His hair is getting too long, Jisung notices numbly. “If you say it’s me again, I’ll be sad.” 

“It’s not you.” Jisung pauses. “Not really.” 

“Then what?”

“A lot of things.” 

Chenle presses his lips together. “All those thoughts in your head.” He taps Jisung’s forehead with two fingers. “Don’t you want to share your burden sometimes?” 

“Sometimes.”

“Then why don’t you?” 

“That just makes two sad people instead of one.” 

While Jisung considers his argument to be valid, he refrains from mentioning that most of his recent “burden” consists of his own private overthinking. And a lot of thoughts of Chenle as well. 

Chenle gives him an awkward smile, and Jisung knows he’s about to say something stupid. “I feel like I’ve heard this exact conversation in a K-Drama before.”

“What happens to the characters?” Jisung’s smile is just barely there. 

“They break up.” 

“Fun.” 

“Not fun. I cried for an hour. Looked almost as bad as you do now.” At this, Chenle holds his hand to Jisung’s cheek for half a second before swallowing and drawing it quickly back. 

It’s warm. 

Jisung wants to cry again. 

Chenle’s eyes fly wide open. “Ayo, don’t start crying again. Hey, don’t--I’m sorry? I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry?!” 

Jisung begins to wail into his hands a second time. 

“Hey, what the fuck, can we not, I don’t know how to--” Chenle’s hands are on Jisung’s shoulders, dragging him closer. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to--” His arms wrap tightly around Jisung’s shaking frame, and Jisung lets his head fall against Chenle’s shoulder. 

Chenle is stiff, panicked, hesitant, when he starts to whisper incoherencies into Jisung’s hair. “You’re okay, you’re good, it’s okay, I’m here, I know that’s probably not much consolation, but I’m here. You’re safe.” He blows out an exhalation. “I love you, Jisungie.”

Jisungn simply will not stop crying. His eyes are dry, but his throat contracts and his body continues to shake with violent sobs. Chenle’s arms are warm and Jisung feels small. 

Jisung feels small.

“I love you, Jisung, I love you.”

The sun has disappeared behind the horizon. 70 miles away from home, two boys sit huddled in the back of a warehouse store and let out whatever’s pent up. Whatever’s been kept quiet until now. 

“I’m here, I’m always here, you’re okay, I’ll always be here--”

“I love you too,” Jisung whispers back, and slowly, his sobs begin to quiet. 

-- ↻ --

It’s not Yangyang but Jaemin Na who finds them first. He pulls Chenle and Jisung (both tear-streaked and red-eyed and intertwined like knit thread) out of their dark corner and hugs them gently. He smells like sea salt.

Explanations are avoided and tears are wiped away before they find that Yangyang is the one who’s really lost. Ten minutes worth of FaceTime calls, four wrong turns, and six slices of famed Costco pizza later, the four of them are out in the blue, neutral air of the summer night.

As Yangyang and Jaemin bicker (Jaemin complaining about being pulled away from something important, Yangyang grinning and asking increasingly uncomfortable questions), Jisung closes his eyes and inhales the stars floating in the sky, the street lamps and headlights and glowing fireflies, the neon glow of store signs. The fresh air of evening. 

A breeze blows hair across his face, and Jisung moves to put his hands in his pockets. Chenle stumbles, and Jisung realizes now that their fingers are interlocked. 

He looks at their joined hands, to the glassy sheen over Chenle’s movie screen eyes, to the unfamiliar blush of his cheeks. 

Cliched as it is, that’s all Jisung can see. 

Jaemin in his creamsicle car tails Yangyang all the way home. 

Chenle and Jisung sit in the backseat, listening to Yangyang’s curious selection of J. Cole and keshi songs and staring out their respective windows. 

Their hands, now somewhat clammy, lay together on the empty seat between them. Neither wants to let go first, Jisung knows.

This is strange. 

He watches cars and lights and summer stars pass by. 

This is strange. 

Even when they get home it’s strange. Even after Jisung has splashed water on his face six times and brushed his teeth until mint feels repulsive, after Jaemin yanks Yangyang out of the room to bicker some more, after Chenle emerges from the bathroom, twirling his fingers in his damp hair to see if it’ll curl. 

Jisung swears he sees color in the hollow lamplight, stars in the charged air. He lies flat on his back on his side of the bed, legs crossed. 

The window is open. The view is nothing but a darkened frame of beachtown bliss, but the air is fresh and cool. Clean. 

His blue speaker hums something full with static and sparkles. 

sungie?

Do Not Wait · Wallows

⊚ Nothing Happens

Chenle makes his way around the bed before falling back onto the orange beanbag, looking up at Jisung. “Are you alright?”

Jisung nods. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” 

“What was it about? Really?”

A beat. 

“It didn’t have anything to do with what Yangyang said?” It doesn’t even sound much like a question. 

“What did Yangyang say?”

Chenle blinks at him. “That he noticed something off about us.”

Jisung finally looks down. Chenle’s gaze is earnest. 

“Is something off about us?” He asks, barely loud enough for Chenle to hear. 

With a sigh, Chenle forces himself up into a seated position. “Depends what you mean by off. If that means different, then yes. If that means bad, then no.” 

“What’s different?” 

“Everything and nothing.” Chenle shrugs like this doesn’t mean much. “We’ve been friends for nine years, things are bound to change.”

Jisung chews at his lower lip. “Give me an example of one thing that’s changed.” 

“I think I will not.” 

The music swells and then falls back to emptiness. 

“I hate change,” Jisung says flatly.

“I know.”

“I don’t want us to change.” 

“We don’t have to.” 

“But--”

“But?”

“Never mind.” 

Jisung’s heart seems to miss a beat or two. It’s not an abrupt stop, but a quiet fade. 

What do I want?

Chenle reaches forward to run a hand through Jisung’s hair, almost preoccupied. 

I don’t think I’ll ever know. 

“Thank you for… whatever that was. Sitting with me. Letting me wail at you. Et cetera.”

At this, Chenle smiles. “What else could I have done?” 

“I’m sure there were other options. Ones that didn’t involve you crying too, probably.” 

“I was guaranteed to cry. I always cry when I see you cry.” 

“And vice versa.” 

They discovered this three years ago. It was Chenle who cried first, Jisung who followed. 

They were thirteen. Too young for loss, but when has the world cared? 

At least they were never too young for friendship. Jisung was there, was there every year following, will be there every year to come. 

“You didn’t have to keep talking nonsense to get me to shut up,” Jisung remarks idly. 

Chenle’s hand stills by Jisung’s head. “It wasn’t nonsense.”

“I’ve never heard you say you love me except in apologies.” 

They’re quiet enough to blend into the breeze. 

“That’s my fault, then.” 

“Hmm?”

“I do love you,” Chenle says with no fanfare. Without his dramatics and his usual volume, he is something unprotected. Something that can be hurt. “I love you more than I’ve conveyed, I think.” 

Jisung’s thoughts begin to stutter. “H-How do you love me?” 

Chenle doesn’t seem at all alarmed by the question. “The way I always have.” A bit of a teasing lilt sneaks its way into his voice, now. 

Just make of me what you always have . 

“Which is?” 

“In a way that I don’t have a vocabulary extensive enough to define.” 

They go silent. The tips of Chenle’s ears go red. 

“Chenle, what does that even mean?”

He stands. “I’m going home for the night.”

“Okay, but--”

“It’s already late. My mom’s gonna kill me.” 

“Chen--” 

“What would you like me to say, Jisung?” Chenle stops right by the door and looks back without expression. 

His eyes reveal everything left unsaid. 

Jisung’s chest feels heavy with something different from sadness. He swallows, lets his eyes wander Chenle’s blank face. “I would like you to say all that you mean in whatever messy terms you have. I can translate them into something that makes sense on my own.” 

Chenle’s smile is tight-lipped, but real. “If you’re so good at English, why don’t you just use your little context clues and figure me out yourself?” 

Jisung stares at him. His only movement is the rise and fall of his chest, taking in air which suddenly feels sparse. 

Chenle closes the door gently behind him. 

-- ↻ --

sungie?

Mind Over Matter · Young The Giant

⊚ Mind over Matter

It’s almost 2 AM. Obviously, Jisung can’t sleep. 

Words, thoughts, implicit meanings are no longer coming very easily to him. 

Jisung takes in great heaving breaths of the unpolluted summer air from outside his open window, tries to force the pink tint from the warm lamplight. 

In mindless silence, he watches the fireflies dance. 

I’m a young man built to fall…

He needs courage. 

Jisung stands quite suddenly. His limbs are heavy, as though unused until this moment. His movements lack intention, despite all that his mind seems to have. 

He stumbles halfway to the door when it bursts open to reveal a grinning Yangyang. 

Before he can get a word out, Jisung sighs. “Whatever it is, I’m not in the right state to deal with it.” His voice is uneven, shaking like jelly. 

“You can, you can, I’m sure.” Yangyang is all but vibrating. 

The song crests into its chorus and, begrudgingly, Jisung allows himself to be distracted from his weak analysis. 

“Jeno and Jaemin,” He says breathlessly. His hair is a chocolate colored curtain over glittering hazelnut eyes. “I bet you twenty bucks they’re dating before the end of the week.” 

Wordlessly, tirelessly, Jisung ushers Yangyang in. He watches him jump back onto the bed, occupying Chenle’s untouched half. Yangyang crosses his legs and looks back up to Jisung. “Jeno fucking blocked me.” 

Jisung raises a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. It’s equal parts for the drama and to genuinely offset a headache. “How does that prove anything?” 

“Naturally, I texted him to bother him about Jaemin.” 

“Yangyang, are you fucking serio--”

“Y’all were making a whole plan and everything. They’re already sad little gay people in love. Things are lining up perfectly.”

Jisung allows himself a sheer moment to entertain Yangyang’s delusion. He imagines Jeno fully absorbed into their group. 

He wonders if Jeno would lose that curious quality in his eyes after a few weeks with them. 

Jisung loves his friends, but they exhaust him. Jeno is the type to be exhausted too, he knows. But only after his tireless curiosity is sated. 

There are many questions to be asked about them. 

“Where’s Chenle?”

Jisung presses his lips together. “Home. He’s at home.” 

Yangyang groans theatrically. “So I have to be excited all on my own?”

“I’m here.”

“You have literally no soul to speak of.” 

“Fair.” 

Yangyang cocks his head. “D’you think there’d be some kind of issue if they were to… be… y’know, a thing?” 

Jisung has discovered there’s no graceful way to describe teenage love. “What do you mean, issue?” 

“I dunno. You just look worried, is all.” 

The opportunity has presented itself for Jisung to dispel suspicion. 

Chenle’s voice in his head preemptively calls him a liar. 

You know, you’re on my mind.

Jisung would much rather lie than admit that he’s not even present in the conversation, but instead lingering on something long past. On something so fucking fleeting, anyone else would have moved on by now. 

There are some things Jisung can’t admit to the world just yet. 

Pause and play. 

“Do you think we’d have to explain our whole backstory to him?” 

Yangyang shifts on the bed, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting concern, I guess. Do you think he’d even want to know?” 

“We’re not a regular old family unit, or even remotely close. Anyone would.”

A moment’s pause has Jisung trying to figure out the least time consuming explanation of their mismatched union. 

Yangyang watches Jisung puzzle for a second like he can read his thoughts. “We can all just explain ourselves as needed, I guess.” 

“I suppose.” It’s been a while since they took in a new addition, and Yerim (their most recent) has no interest in anything of substance or sentimentality. 

Now fully distracted, Jisung wonders how he’d explain himself. 

Hi again. I’m Jisung. I wound up here because my parents hate each other. 

Actually, Jaemin’s family moved here because his mom wanted to stop her sister--my mom--from killing herself. She’s still somewhat alive. 

I’m also 90% sure my dad hates me. It’s probably because I’m never at home and never talk to him. I’m a bad son. 

I have no siblings, no pets, one best friend. Chenle wound up with us a couple years ago because he couldn’t bear to be alone at home with just his mom, but he always used to say it was because I was here. That he liked being around me. 

Maybe that’s too much detail. 

Hi. I’m Jisung. I wound up here because I don’t really have a family other than these three. 

Better. 

Yangyang hums aimlessly along with the song. “At least my story’s easy.” 

Hi again. I’m Yangyang. My parents had to go off to work in Germany and left me with my aunt who scares me. They thought I shouldn’t move in the middle of high school. I was also in all of Jaemin’s classes. 

That’s all. 

“Hi, I’m Yangyang, I’m here because I hate being alone,” Yangyang shrugs. “Can’t get much easier than that.” 

“I’m sure Jeno wouldn’t pry. He seems like a respectful dude.” 

“W.” 

“Did you just say… Never mind.” 

“What about it, dipshit?”

“You’re the dipshit here.” 

“Suck my massive dick, Jisung.” 

“I’d rather not.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Yangyang stands from the bed and takes a few steps forward, eyes glinting. He looks dead at Jisung. “Forgot.” 

Then he walks out. 

Jisung stands there, stunned, for possibly ten minutes. “Forgot what?” 

Summer nights are silent. Fluttering moths’ wings, the quiet chirping of crickets. Somehow, silent. 

“Forgot what?!”

-- ↻ --

Jisung doesn’t usually dream, but tonight he dreams something fantastical. 

It’s brightly colored and warm and sweet on his tongue. It’s unbearably real. 

It’s a mess of things, really; golden light streaming through a window, filtering through the sheer curtains and painting streaks across a far wall in a room that isn’t his, a home that isn’t his, colored with the pastelly sorbet hues of a tropical sunset on a city skyline. 

Waking up in his dream is like being in a video game. The floor is soft and the air is still and his movement is slow, careful. He stumbles out of a bed quite like the one he’s sleeping in now, though bathed in colored light. 

It’s like an oil painting, color thick and deep. 

Jisung opens a door, slow, cautious. Beyond a small patch of grass lies a sidewalk, and a busy road that must be 14 lanes across just past it. The whole city is bursting with the colors of a sunset. Maybe a sunrise. 

He steps onto the sidewalk, looks back. The place he woke up is gone, replaced by another row of shops and small buildings. 

Jisung stumbles across the concrete, disoriented, looking for anything to tie him to reality. He carries on this way until reaching the edge of this path at an intersection, crosswalks forming a square between two perpendicular streets. 

A light breeze blows around Jisung, but he can’t feel it. 

He stares, waits for something to happen. Cars continue to pass, unyielding, speeding, and then something catches his eye. Diagonal from him, standing at the edge of yet another sidewalk, Jisung sees a person. 

A curiously orange haired person. 

“Chenle!” 

It’s like talking into a pillow. Jisung feels static and warmth, watches Chenle look up with great confusion.

His eyes finally find Jisung’s after a moment, and he smiles carefully as though greeting a stranger. 

Jisung knows he’s dreaming. In this universe of his mind’s creation, this may be their first meeting. Probably their last. 

Equal parts relief and quiet betrayal. Mostly shock. 

They both stand, silent, separated by the traffic, trying to keep their gazes fixed on each other. 

Chenle hits the walk button and looks up, away from Jisung, waiting for the sign to change. His hair is haphazard brush marks of carrot orange, his skin a carefully mixed alabaster. As the marker beeps, he takes his first step. 

Jisung hears music coming from somewhere and looks back. He searches in silence for a moment before looking back to the intersection, where he now stands alone. 

There’s no trace of life other than the whir of engines, the quiet beating of Jisung’s heart. 

No one else. 

That’s about when Jisung wakes up, drowning in sweat and the confusion he hadn’t been given time to feel. He jolts upright, hitting his head on the headboard. 

“Jesus. Morning, Jisung.” 

The blinds are drawn, but the remnants of daylight stream through the gaps. Chenle looks back and up from his place in front of the bed. In his hand is a controller, and the old beat up TV glows with the clunky graphics of Apex Legends. 

It’s muted. 

Jisung stares down at him, eyes wide. 

“It’s 6:47, but I’m sure it’s morning somewhere in the world.” 

Finally, Jisung lets himself sink back into the uncomfortable warmth of his bed. “Just you today?” 

“Disappointed?” Chenle turns back around and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Renjun’s at the lab, Jaemin’s on the beach, Yerim’s at Kumon, Yangyang’s at GameStop trying to shoplift a PS5. How’d you sleep?”

“Bad.”

“Aw.” 

“Had a dream.”

“That’s new.” Chenle’s avatar shoots the shit out of something in the distance Jisung can’t even see. “Anything fun?” 

“Nothing like yours, I’m sure.” 

Jisung watches the dark silhouette of Chenle’s shoulders rise and fall. He tends towards frequent, vivid, sometimes jarring dreams. 

He always seems to be running from something, kicking Jisung in his sleep and muttering protests. 

Jisung wonders what Chenle’s running from, but never asks. 

“What happened?” 

“... I was there, and you were there, and then…” Jisung strains, trying to remember. “You weren’t there anymore.”

“That’s all?” Chenle makes a disgruntled sound, and his avatar dies. “Not interesting at all.” 

Jisung swallows. “You were in it, so I guess it was okay.” 

A match summary flickers across the screen, and Chenle’s hands are still on the controller.

“God, I feel like shit,” Jisung says candidly, and slides out of bed before making his way to the bathroom. 

-- ↻ --

Jaemin goes home. 

His parents are around every now and again; just enough that Jaemin hasn’t the proper amount of time to miss them, just enough that he’s never pulled away from really living, or whatever they think he does with the other boys. 

Jisung’s aunt and uncle are kind, genuine, caring. Present. They make an effort to be. 

Jisung used to be jealous, but he’s made his peace by now. 

Tonight, Jaemin is home, and Renjun is…

Well, Renjun doesn’t seem to get angry much lately. Instead, he becomes cross . He burns with a more subdued rage, one that settles in the knit of his eyebrows and the curve of his jaw. One that just barely scratches an edge into the smooth timbre of his voice. 

It manifests when he’s with Yangyang, mainly, because Yangyang never knows when to make himself scarce. 

But to Yangyang, everything is a joke. He cracks a gummy smile, rests his hands on Renjun’s shoulders, and seems to draw something out of him. 

If anyone else tried this, Renjun would have their head--but Renjun loses his shit at Yangyang too much for trivial things. He hasn’t any energy left to deal with the big ones. 

Chenle and Jisung watch from the end of the hallway as Renjun grows cross, with himself more than anyone else. They see him start to relax at Yangyang’s feather light touch, at his sudden quietness. They watch the emotion drain out of him, seemingly wrapping like thin fibers around Yangyang’s ready hands, see him hang his head low in his usual mix of regret, shame, exhaustion, frustration. 

They wonder what’s plagued him for so long, but they know expecting answers is futile.

Chenle stands and closes the door. Jisung sits lazily on the floor, his hands pressed against the low carpet behind him. 

“Why do you pity dive?” Chenle asks from his place right before the door. 

Jisung looks up at him. “It’s in the name,” he says. He’s a bit too tired to explain himself. 

“It’s a misnomer.” 

It’s so like Chenle to understand something halfway. To find the pieces of text containing the evidence, but not know what he’s trying to prove. 

“So it is.” 

“What do you gain from it?” 

There’s something about salt on his skin, seafoam in his hair. Something about the ocean. 

“Courage.” 

Chenle nods, his gaze going to the ground before him. “D’you reckon Renjun gets courage from somewhere?” 

“I always thought he was just born with it,” Jisung says. It could be funny, but his face is blank. “And you?” 

“Me?”

“Where do you get it from?” 

Jisung always figured it was distraction: music and darkness, falling into games.

“I’m gonna be honest,” Chenle says with a mild smile, “I don’t have much.” 

-- ↻ --

They sit on their darkened curb in the heart of the city with Subway, this time, because it’s readily available and scarily cheap. 

Renjun likes to be left alone when he’s like this, and Chenle and Jisung figured they’d be bored out of their minds alone in their room. 

Yangyang’s location remains happily unknown. Or so they pretend. 

“Did you know Jaemin calls us ChenJi?” Chenle asks Jisung, taking a sip of his Sprite.

Jisung has long since abandoned his sandwich. Something about Subway is unnerving to him. “No.” He blinks. “Why do you know that?”

“I steal his phone sometimes.” 

“Why?”

“‘Cuz I’m a nosy bitch and he’s getting the most action out of any of us.” 

Jisung smiles and looks away. “Fair.” 

Neon signs, dark pavement, empty sky. 

“Of course Jaemin’s a love at first sight kind of gay.” A beat. “Guy. I meant guy.” 

“Sure you did,” Jisung laughs. There’s a peaceful vibe about this moment. “I wouldn’t have expected it of anyone else, honestly.”

Chenle looks at Jisung. His are the muted colors of an oil painting, just like in Jisung’s dream, though darkened and mellowed by the cloudless sky. “You don’t believe in that shit?” 

“I think…” Jisung formulates his response carefully. He can see little wavers in the brush strokes of Chenle’s face. Unsure, maybe imperfect, but something to be admired all the same. “I think it takes longer than that to really love someone.” 

“How long?” 

Today, Chenle’s movie screen eyes reflect galaxies. There’s not a star in the sky. 

Nine years. 

It takes nine years. 

“Depends on the person, I guess.” 

Maybe just a few minutes. 

Chenle nods like he’s considering this, looking off at something Jisung can’t see. Then he wordlessly reaches out a hand. 

Jisung stares at his palm for a second, wondering what to do. Should he…? 

“Your phone.” 

Oh. Right. 

Yeah. 

Jisung hands it over. 

There’s silence as Chenle clicks through, silence as Jisung watches him. 

sungie?

Darling · flipturn

⊚ Darling 

Will you love me? 

It’s quiet, still, but never silent for long with Chenle. He hums as the instrumentals kick in, as the vocalist with their honeyed voice pleads for… something. 

“Oh, these guys!” Jisung perks up with belated recognition. He remembers the night Chenle was away, the night he saw Jeno first, the sound of that song. 

“You know ‘em?” 

“I guess.” 

Chenle smiles privately. “Look at you, so indie.” He mocks. 

“You’re the one playing their song.” 

“It’s just a good song.” 

Darling, I am bound to fall. Will you still love me then? 

“What’s it about?” 

“I dunno. Drugs. Depression, maybe. Whatever it is the indie kids sing about.” 

Jisung fails to mention that indie kids are the most lovelorn of them all. 

“I’m not usually a lyrics kind of guy,” Chenle shrugs, and Jisung smiles because he knows how Chenle has to look up the words to everything he hears. 

The song climaxes into a mess of instruments, the singer’s continued cries. It should be discordant, loud, but it feels like fresh fruit and sunlight and love. 

“Liar.” 

“Hey. I don’t take such accusations lightly.” 

Jisung just shakes his head, feigning annoyance, but reaches up to card a hand through Chenle’s hair. 

That’s more of Chenle’s thing, really, so Jisung doesn’t know quite what to do. 

Forever afraid of tenderness, he messes it up entirely. 

It stands, a lopsided orange shock that Chenle rushes to smooth. He slaps Jisung’s hand away in the process, but he’s smiling. “Hey, what color should I do next?” 

“Your hair?” 

“Uh huh.” 

Jisung hasn’t thought that far into the future. He figured he’d just let his own grow out and try to revitalize it as best he can. Chenle’s hair is already fried to the point of extreme fluffiness. 

“Do black and keep me company.” 

“Sounds good.”

Jisung hadn’t expected agreement, but that’s that. 

The song’s been playing on loop. They only notice when they fall briefly silent. 

“Jisung?” Chenle starts after a moment. 

“Yeah?” 

“How did you get to be so good at English?” 

“I’m not always that great, I just pretend--”

“How?” 

Jisung watches Chenle with a confused expression. 

Chenle looks ahead, oblivious. 

“I paid attention.” 

Movie screen eyes start to waver. They dart around, searching for something to display. 

Jisung’s reflection, a multitude of stars. 

“Hmm. Let’s go home.”

-- ↻ --

It’s half past noon--early--when Jisung wakes up to find that he’s tangled up with Chenle. 

Chenle’s head rests against Jisung’s chest, and Jisung’s arms are wrapped limply around him. 

It’s familiar, yes, but the rush of blood to Jisung’s heart and the feeling of Chenle’s soft exhalations against his skin are not. 

He wonders if Chenle can feel his heartbeat. 

The sun streaming through the blinds, the sound of distant laughter and private conversation, the warmth of the morning. Jisung tries to distract himself in other sensations, but it's futile. 

It’s futile, because Chenle breathes Jisung’s name again, and this time he can feel it. 

He’s going to have a stroke. He swallows, tries to collect himself. 

Jisung hopes Chenle’s is dreaming of something nice, but he holds him impossibly closer just in case he’s not. 

With his chin resting against Chenle’s head, his hand in Chenle’s hair, Jisung slowly drifts back to sleep. 

He knows they won’t acknowledge it when they wake up. 

-- ↻ --

They don’t. 

Chenle’s the first to untangle himself. He freshens up and grins down at Jisung, still in bed, like someone who’s never felt this level of invigoration. “I’m gonna drive.” 

“No, you’re not.” 

Chenle has his permit, yes, but no car and no sense of self-preservation. Jisung doesn’t know how he passed the test.

“I want to.” His grin is calculated, meant to fill Jisung with guilt, but this trick of his is also quite overused. 

“Whose car?” 

“... Renjun’s?”

“No. No. Sit down.” 

Chenle flails and hops about. Jisung watches him and feels quite old. At least, he consoles himself, Chenle’s energy is not to the extent of Yangyang’s, who remains curiously absent. “Noooo. I have to drive. I have to escape .” 

“Escape what? Me?” 

“No, dimwit. You’re coming with.”

“Hah.” 

“Run away with me, Jisung,” Chenle says breathlessly, jokingly. 

Jisung puts on a great act of wiping exhaustion from his wide-open eyes. “What are we running from?” 

Chenle only shrugs. “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

He figures it out after half an hour, after Jisung manages to drag himself out of bed and ends up strapped into the passenger’s seat of Renjun’s (now stolen) car, after they find themselves fully lost in the traffic of a Monday afternoon. 

While their escapade may be at least somewhat illegal, Chenle hasn’t crashed yet, so Jisung counts it as a win. 

They’re comfortably far from home, stuck in the quiet traffic of their neighboring city. It’s the thing of distant skylines, of dreaded returns to school, but now it feels like a real destination. 

The sky is a pastel blue. 

“I don’t think we need to escape anything,” Chenle says, drumming his hands against the wheel. “I think we just need to find something.” 

Jisung can’t argue with that. “In that case, what are we looking for?” 

sungie?

Somewhere Only We Know · Keane

⊚ Hopes and Fears

This is the kind of song Chenle usually likes. 

“Change,” He says simply. “The good kind.” 

And what is the good kind of change? The kind of change that gets you dreaming about your best friend fucking disappearing? 

(Jisung looked that up, by the way. He’s not much of a Freud stan, but the Internet said something about wanting your relationship to become something different… He decided on the spot that his mind is actively trying to fuck him up.)

Jisung thinks about what Jaemin said that night. Something about searching for small new things to bring joy. 

This may not be small, or even new, but some part of Jisung’s brain assures him that it’s going to be happy. He’s wasted enough time being sad. 

Chenle hums along to the song and casts a sideways glance at Jisung. “Thoughts?”

“None.” 

“Not even one?” He smiles and looks back at the windshield. The light goes green, and cars return to crawling along. “What happened to thinking of--” 

“Stop,” Jisung groans. “Saying that to you was a lapse of judgment.” 

“Was it true, though?” 

Jisung’s heart jumps in a way that’s coming to be terribly familiar. He looks out his window. 

“You know how I sound when I lie.” 

-- ↻ --

Jaemin is crying in the kitchen.

He’s a frequent crier at things like books and films, but not usually one for… crouching on the floor, head in his hands, almost unmoving. 

Chenle and Jisung return home to find the air charged with something unpleasant again. 

Jisung isn’t the type to ask, but Chenle immediately kneels on the floor next to Jaemin, who only offers a watery, “It’s fine,” in response. 

Jisung just stands in the foyer and watches. 

It’s dead silent. 

Chenle doesn’t ask what happened. He doesn’t demand anything, doesn’t expect anything. All he says is, “What do you need?” 

And Jisung is startled, because he’s never heard that before. Not from his parents, not from his friends. 

It makes so much sense. 

Quietly, Jaemin says, “A hug,” and Chenle delivers as soon as the word leaves his mouth. 

Jisung observes this as an outsider and his eyes begin to burn. 

“Jisung-ah,” Jaemin says thickly, switching languages to conceal… something. “Could you go check on Renjun?” 

Jisung isn’t perhaps as good at consolation as Chenle, but he knows how to follow instructions. He’s halfway down the hall before Jaemin finishes the sentence. 

Renjun lies flat on his back on his bed, scrolling aimlessly on his phone. He barely stirs when Jisung opens the door and steps in. His purple hair is a trampled cotton-candy cloud against the white winter sky of a down pillow. 

Jisung shifts his weight from foot to foot. “You… good?” He asks cautiously. His voice cracks an octave up and he wants to jump out of the nearest window. 

Renjun hums. The profile of his neutral face is all gentle slopes and soft lines; angelic. 

He and Jisung were closer when they were younger, but as Renjun grew busier, it seemed like nothing about their relationship was strong enough to keep it from fraying ever so slightly.

Renjun and Chenle stay united by their heritage and shared jokes. With Yangyang, Renjun shares some kind of unspoken dependency, and with Jaemin, a friendship simply beyond the comprehension of outsiders. 

Renjun and Jaemin’s bond is probably strong enough to save the fucking world. 

Then… why all this? 

Jisung lacks Chenle’s careful touch, his tact. Maybe his personability. “What’s wrong, man?”

“It’s nothing, Jisung.” 

Somehow, Jisung’s brain finds a way to take this personally. It’s convoluted, yes, but in some ways akin to all the times in the past where he’s been denied information or trust because of maybe his youth. 

It always seems to come back to youth with Jisung. 

“It’s not okay.” He presses his lips together. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.” 

Renjun’s phone shuts off with a click. “It’ll get there.” 

“When?” 

“Soon.” Renjun closes his eyes and makes like he’s trying to fall asleep. 

“Listen, Renjun,” Jisung starts, and he knows now that there’s no stopping. “We may not be the closest out of everyone here, but we’re still friends. Jaemin is crying in the kitchen and you guys have been weird for probably a week now, and this is selfish of me to say, but… there’s no use lying because this is the kind of stuff that all of us can feel. We’re all fucking friends here, Renjun.” 

He swallows, berates himself for not knowing when to shut up, but doesn’t shut up. 

“Maybe you don’t need to tell me, maybe I’m being unreasonable, but please tell someone the truth.” 

Renjun looks, to put it simply, shocked. Not at the things Jisung said, but maybe more at the fact that he was the one saying them. 

Jisung lacks Chenle’s tact, yes, but it seems they share their courage now. 

There’s no reply from Renjun, just a wordless stare. 

“Sorry,” he says quietly, and turns to open the door and retreat. 

“Wait,” Renjun says finally, purposefully, and Jisung turns to see him move to a seated position on the bed. He gestures for Jisung to join him. “You’re right, Jisung.”

Jisung does as directed, though with some level of apprehension. 

Renjun’s expression is stoic and strong as always, though in his eyes there seems to be a new glint in polished brown. Empathy. 

“You know, you don’t have to--”

“But I do, don’t I?” Renjun swallows, and Jisung’s eyes go to his Adam's apple. Gentle slopes, soft lines. “I do, because out of everyone here, you’re the only one who called this out.” 

Jisung is on the verge of explaining himself, blaming Jaemin for his intrusion, but impossibly, Renjun smiles . 

Still, Jisung rushes to say something. “We… we don’t… No one wanted to say anything because you seemed really stressed and busy and… stuff.” 

“You guys are right on both counts.” Renjun admits. There’s an almost fond quality to his gaze. “Work is, well, bad. Shit keeps hitting the fan and my superiors want me in 60 places at once, but…” He allows his smile to waver. It’s conscious, Jisung knows, to let that crumb of vulnerability sneak through. “This isn’t about any of that.” 

“Then what is it about?” Jisung asks, surprised at his own boldness. Maybe his curiosity. 

“Old stuff. Stuff I never thought I’d have to talk about, but obviously I did.” 

There’s a heavy pause. Jisung still feels like an intruder, like he shouldn’t be trusted, but… but maybe that’s just because he’s never really been trusted like this before. 

Jisung, when I say you haven’t changed since 10, it’s because you’ve been a perfect adult since then. You’re exponentially more mature, more rational than all the rest of us. Consistently.

Youthful oblivion is fading away, replaced by long limbs and deep voices and trust. When it matters, trust. 

16 has Renjun looking at Jisung as a brother, a friend. Not just some cute kid anymore. 

“Jisung, I don’t… talk about all this much, because I never felt it was relevant, or that you guys wanted to hear it.” Renjun’s eyes wander, now. “It’s all just one big sob fest, and the only one who knows it all is the one who was with me through it all.” 

“Jaemin.” Jisung nods. 

“You know how we met, right?” 

Jisung does. It’s always been a wild story to him--the wonders of the Internet, digital love, fated coincidences. They were a happy story of online friendship, transferred easily to real life in a way most only dream of. 

“I’ll keep the backstory short and go straight to the shit that matters,” Renjun says as though he’s explaining a film plot. “So. I was around 10. Unofficially disowned, officially emancipated.” He dusts off his hands as if to convey some kind of ease in this time of his life. 

To Jisung, it sounds everything but easy. 

“Cousin took me in. We know this bit. Stuff, stuff, stuff. When she died, she left me the house. I think I was 12.” Renjun shrugs. Nothing much. “I was the only one in this bigass house, trying to deal with the law and all this other stuff adults invented to make life hard on my own. No money. No family to speak of. Not many friends. Et cetera.”

“Uh huh.” When Jisung processes all of this, relates it to Renjun Huang , his friend of four long years, he will cry for hours. For now, he sits, stoic. Taking a page out of the other boy’s book. 

“When I met Jaemin, shit was… bad.” 

Another pause. 

Renjun looks at Jisung as though trying to avoid saying something aloud, but Jisung feels a bit too committed to stoicism. 

“I was trying to kill myself, Jisung.” 

“Oh.” 

“But I didn’t! I was really young and had no concept of biology and really didn’t know how to go about killing myself, so I just…” He makes vague but theatrical slashing motions in the air. 

Jisung is, to say the least, dumbfounded. 

“And that went on for a while, and Jaemin was the only one I was talking to, and when he found out about it last week,” Renjun pushes his sleeves up to his elbows only to cross his arms. Long sleeves in July. Jisung had noticed, but always knew better than to ask. “He thought I was still fucked in the head and well, everything went to shit.” 

“He…” Jisung starts, unsure how to finish. There’s only one reaction characteristic of Jaemin, but it feels too icky to say aloud. 

“Blamed himself? All the way. We used to fight quite a bit, so maybe he thought… But see, I didn’t… die.” Renjun rolls his eyes. “After a point I figured I wasn’t going to, but, I don’t know. Thought maybe the pain would…” He grimaces. “Never mind. Bad sentence.” 

Jisung only nods. “You’re good now?” 

“Fucking stellar now,” Renjun says, and it sounds vaguely like he’s trying to convince himself. He pauses, and his shoulders drop. “Well, we’re working on it. At least I’m loaded now.” 

The rest goes unsaid. 

“Okay, bad question, but why is Jaemin crying?” 

Renjun shrugs and makes a face. “I told him a bit too much truth.” 

Jisung understands how any of this could turn poor Jaemin into a flaming, sobbing wreck, but Jaemin already knew this story. Jisung looks at Renjun, questioning. 

Renjun sighs like he expected this. “Why do you think I didn’t kill myself?” 

“You were young and stupid?” Jisung parrots like an idiot.

“Yes, but… no. After I actually learned how to, got some, say, more plausible methods, I simply… did not do them.” He groans. “C’mon, Jisung. Think some thoughts for me.” 

“I’m trying!” Jisung clutches at the sides of his head, willing something to fill the empty space between his hands. 

“Jaemin! The answer is Jaemin!” Renjun gestures wildly and bonks Jisung once upside the head. It’s a bit too comical for a conversation like this. “Bitch cured me! I lived because of him! And so on!” He covers his face with his hands. “This is mortifying.” 

Suddenly it makes a lot more sense why Jaemin was crying. Jisung would cry too if he heard shit like this. 

Which is, of course, why Jisung starts crying. It’s just two tears and he wipes them away before Renjun looks up again. He’ll save the brunt of it for later. 

“He… really fucking cares about me, Jisung.” Renjun says thickly into his hands. “He has for six fucking years.” 

“Don’t you start crying now,” Jisung blubbers. 

“I’m not crying, you dipshit. I’m… reflecting.” He stays unmoving for probably a minute or two and then resurfaces, looking only a bit worse for wear. “So I told him all of this, and he started crying a perplexing mix of sad and happy tears, and I ran away because crying people scare me. That’s all.” 

“So things are good now?” 

Renjun groans again. “God, don’t ask me that. I don’t know. Something’s still weird, and I don’t know what.” He falters, glancing around. 

Jisung narrows his eyes. “You know what’s weird.” 

“Fuck you for being correct.”

“What’s weird?” More a statement than a question.

“It’s like… we tell each other everything, right?” Suddenly, Renjun is quiet. His vowels are rounded, his eyebrows knit, and Jisung realizes he’s just a kid. 

18 is just a kid. 

“This is the first real… disagreement that we couldn’t talk to each other about. I’m not a big venter anyway, so honestly it’s kind of weird that I snapped and ended up talking to you now, but you get my side of the story so you're not allowed to be concerned.” Renjun jabs a finger at Jisung, but quickly retracts it. “I just wonder who he vented to.” 

Jisung tilts his head. “Are you sure he vented to someone?” He asks, and then regrets it, because they both know Jaemin Na is a professional venter. 

“It’s not like I… care, but what if someone is walking around thinking I’m gonna fucking commit now?” 

“That doesn’t sound good.” 

“Bet your ass it doesn’t.” 

“For what it’s worth, he didn’t tell me anything.”

Renjun raises an eyebrow. 

“Or Chenle.” 

Then he nods like this is all the information he expected out of Jisung. 

“Can’t have been Yangyang, because Yangyang is only serious once in a blue moon,” Renjun muses. “His parents have been similarly swamped lately, and Yerim is a kid…” 

Jisung watches in silence as Renjun’s eyes widen, remembering something Jisung is sure he wasn’t present for. 

“Holy shit.” 

“Holy shit?”

“Holy shit, Jisung. I have to go to the beach.” 

-- ↻ --

When night falls and Jaemin is preparing to escape, Renjun stops him by the door. 

He offers a (rare) smile, wraps Jaemin in a (rare?) hug, and speaks quietly as usual. “I’ll go this time.” 

And Jaemin’s eyes widen, because he understands. It’s equal parts shock and awe, but he’s the one to open the door for Renjun and watch him go. 

Jisung and Chenle sit in the living room, observing this exchange with soft, wide eyes. They look at each other, share calculated, confused smiles, and wait for Jaemin to look back. 

Maturity and courage are things they’re coming to share, but if they want it to, innocence can last forever. 

-- ↻ --

Jisung spends the following morning in a vegetative state. He cries a lot, stares at walls a lot, communicates with Chenle in incoherent noises meant to convey his feelings a lot. 

Luckily for him, Chenle isn’t doing much better. 

They hold each other and cry a lot. 

It’s mainly the increased awareness of Renjun’s past, some hyper-empathy, some regret. It’s the type of crying one does after watching a sad film, except the characters are real and moving and in their lives. 

The characters held them, took them in, raised them. They still are raising them, in all honesty. 

Jisung and Chenle can’t imagine life without Renjun or Jaemin. The loneliness, they quickly decide, would probably kill them. 

But when their tears are starting to run dry and they are tiring of their sudden grief, Chenle says something fascinating. 

He says, “At least we’d have each other, right?” 

To Jisung, the implications of this statement are many but easily summed up.

In any universe, we’d have each other. 

His throat is raw and his eyes are dry and moving, even to speak, feels terribly taxing, but Jisung manages to make a face and deliver a one word answer. 

“Obviously.” 

-- ↻ --

Yangyang wakes up on his orange bean bag about an hour after the pity party ends. He explains that he was gone all day yesterday because he scheduled all of his obligatory check ups for the same day. Apparently it’s less of a waste of time. 

This makes very little sense to a still vaguely tear streaked Chenle and Jisung, who listen to Yangyang’s lively narration from the edge of their bed. 

All Jisung knows is he’s glad Renjun’s the one who owns the house and not Yangyang. Still, he begrudgingly takes some delight in Yangyang’s unrelenting energy. 

Jisung wonders how much he knows. That glint hasn’t left Yangyang’s eyes since they first met.

Yangyang is forever exhausting, yes, but he can draw sorrow out through the shoulders and illuminate a dark room. Jisung’s gaze fixes on his chocoball eyes, unassuming and filled with glitter, and asks them a question.

Jisung knows his expressions are easy to read, but he wishes communicating with his eyes was a bit easier. He still hasn’t absorbed Chenle’s talent. 

Yangyang meets Jisung’s eyes and grins, thoughtless. For all his winning characteristics and strange quirks, he still does quite a good job of being an idiot. 

“Anyone wanna play Mario Kart?” 

Jisung has his answer. 

-- ↻ --

“Oh baby, I am a wreck when I’m without you, I need you here to staaaay--” 

Chenle flits around the room in 2x speed, singing loudly along to the clashing, cresting music emanating from the blue speaker. Miracle of miracles, he’s cleaning . 

More aptly, Jisung thinks as he watches this from his place on the bed, Chenle is reveling in his latest victory. 

Their most recent Mario Kart face off has resulted in Yangyang retreating to the living room to play Uno with Yerim with the intention of boosting his freshly damaged ego. 

As with most things, Jisung had decided to take a backseat to the action and observe this display. He’s never had much interest in video games beyond Animal Crossing (for the two months Chenle was obsessed with it) and Minecraft (though he kind of plays it like Hay Day). 

What he does have an interest in is this. Chenle’s post-win high, some kind of stimulant drug, the foggy delusions he shares. 

Though appearing deeply engaged in a new book, Jisung takes a break from words and abstract concepts to watch Chenle, letting his strong (and somehow stable) voice interrupt Jisung’s thoughts. 

This, Jisung thinks, is a bit of a curious song choice for an adrenaline rush. 

sungie?

Line Without a Hook · Ricky Montgomery

⊚ Montgomery Ricky

“The wind is a- pounding on my back, and I’ve found hope in a heart attack--” Chenle gives it some semblance of life. 

“How come you know all the words?” 

He doesn’t look startled nor interrupted, he simply turns to Jisung and carries on, grinning. As the song peaks with a high note Chenle dares not attempt, he answers, “You’re not the only indie kid around here.” 

“News to me.” 

“I’m a sad lil’ gay bitch on the DL.” 

Jisung raises an eyebrow. “Which part of that was on the DL?” 

“Shut it, Sungie. You’re, like, one word away from being one too.” 

“Yeah, I guess I’m not very little.” 

Chenle’s mouth falls closed. “Huh?” 

Jisung is giving Yangyang a real run for his title of “Biggest Idiot”. “What?” 

“You…” 

To say Chenle looks shocked would be inaccurate. He has the almost analytical air of a mathematician solving a new equation, but it seems to be that he’s found no answer. 

Puzzling, but not quite mystified. Not in the least discouraged. 

Jisung watches the conflict play out in his eyes, but it’s astoundingly short. 

“Jisung, are you…” Chenle raises a hand and lets it flop limply forward. 

Jisung stares at it. “Am I weak?” 

Chenle looks flat-out astounded now. 

“Please don’t use euphemisms with me,” Jisung pleads, still staring at Chenle’s hand as it retreats behind his back. 

“Gay, Jisung! I’m asking if you like men!” 

Now, this is when the alarms start to blare. Jisung feels dragged into the spotlight from the wings, and suffice it to say he’s frazzled. “I, uh… I like everyone just the same?”

“That’s not what I mean, you huge shithead.” Chenle gestures widely. His eyes are blown to the size of sand dollars. Then, suddenly, he calms down. “Okay. Let’s put it like this. Would you fuck a guy?” 

“I wouldn’t fuck anyone, ideally,” Jisung says candidly. 

“Ace?” 

“Dunno. Haven’t given it much thought. Maybe.”

“That’s very valid of you. Respect, bro.” 

Jisung is jarred. “Thank… you?” 

“The main issue still stands, though.” Chenle crosses his arms. Ricky Montgomery continues to wail in pain in the background. Jisung feels it. “Would you date a guy?”

“Dating is weird.”

“Honestly, agreed. Would you…” 

“Please, Chenle. I know what gay means.” 

“Could you see yourself falling in love with a guy?” 

Jisung runs out of responses. 

I have. 

“Um.”

Chenle looks down at him with more concern, now. Or something akin. His eyebrows are knit, but his eyes are exploding in color.

Pink, red, orange. Sunsets, tulips, lights, love. 

I know how you sound when you lie. 

“I think so.” 

Now it’s Chenle’s turn to be taken for a loop. “Wait, what?” 

Jisung says nothing, but he feels his face warm. 

“Are you serious?” 

Through gritted teeth, Jisung manages, “Would I joke about this, you dickwad?” 

“Yo, that’s… I’m proud of you.” 

“I didn’t do much.” 

Chenle blinks a few times and then nods solemnly. “True. I’ll be proud of you when you get some bitches.” 

“ Chen le!” 

“So, so… outta curiosity… would you say you’re bi? Or just, you know--”

“Um. None of them.” Jisung doesn’t even know why he’s sweating, but oh God, is he sweating. “I don’t think I want a label right now,” He says, with the air of someone ordering a sandwich and asking to hold the pickles. 

Chenle is trying very, very hard to be neutral, and considering that he’s never neutral, it’s incredibly unnerving. 

Moreso when Jisung watches the cotton candy colors explode in his eyes, reflecting pictures of something so indecipherable, but something so true. 

“Don’t be awkward, you huge shit,” Jisung says offhandedly. “You’re allowed to have a reaction.”

He sees Chenle relax in his periphery. “Thank fuck , I just didn’t want to freak you out but--”

“I’ve known you almost a decade and am yet to be freaked out by anything you’ve done.” 

“--But honestly, I just want to give you a hug. No subtext, no pride, no welcome. Just a hug.” 

And Jisung hasn’t replied yet, but Chenle’s arms are already outstretched towards him.

Jisung makes a big show of setting his book down, sighing, and standing, but he’s the first to lean in and close the gap. 

One hand settles in Chenle’s hair, the other at his waist. It’s tight, warm, reminiscent of sleep. 

Maybe too intimate for lucidity, because Chenle tenses for half a second too long before he relaxes, quiet, melting like cotton candy under the sun. 

For the first time in a really, really long time, Jisung feels at peace. 

“Would I still have gotten a hug if I weren’t a little gay?” 

Chenle’s response is muffled against the fabric of Jisung’s shirt. “I couldn’t care less about that. You’ll always be you, and I just decided I wanted to hug you.” 

Jisung’s heart is sunset colored. 

-- ↻ --

Yangyang’s Uno game devolves into a tournament. Renjun gets back from the lab, Jaemin returns from the beach, and Chenle and Jisung emerge from their room only to be swept into the chaos. 

They huddle on the floor around the living room table and play like their lives depend on it--with the exception of Jaemin, of course, who was once accused of cheating and has now resigned himself to orbiting the table, glancing at everyone’s cards, and making pointed remarks. 

It’s Jisung’s turn when Jaemin bends down to look at Renjun’s cards and whistles lowly. “I think you’re fucked either way, babes.” 

Renjun lets out a noise of frustration, drops his cards on the table, and spends the next minute wrestling Jaemin to the ground. 

Jaemin only laughs the whole time. 

Jisung, however, sits in conflict. Before him is a blue 2, and he has no blues or 2’s, but he does have a wild skip. 

Only Chenle is on his left, and Jisung does not want to die today. 

He resigns himself to drawing cards. Jaemin materializes behind him, glances down at Jisung’s cards, and just giggles a little. Then he whispers obnoxiously into Jisung’s ear, “You wouldn’t have done that if I were next to you.” 

Jisung looks up and mutters a few very choice terms of endearment in Korean. 

He swears he sees Chenle smile. 

Uno turns into Dutch Blitz, and suddenly it’s a matter of pride.

Yerim is their reigning champion, with 7 wins so far (they all refuse to keep score the way the rules actually suggest, and merely crown whoever’s the first to yell “blitz”.) 

Jisung doesn’t fare well with games like these. His reaction time is slow and his blood pressure is high, so he often sits in the corner and stresses as everyone else rushes to throw their cards into piles. 

Before long, everyone in the room is starting to go a little mad. Yerim, with not a hair out of place, simply smiles from her edge of the table and draws another set of obscenely good cards. 

“Is she rigging it?” Chenle asks incredulously as he sets down three 9’s and a 5. 

Jaemin shakes his head. He decided to join in one this one for reasons relating to his own competitiveness, but his focus and intensity is nothing compared to that of Renjun Huang, second place winner. 

Renjun scares Jisung. 

Yangyang has also been drawing consistently good cards, but seems too absentminded to keep up with the game. He resigns himself to almost tragic losses each time, smiling, but Jisung sees he’s only laughing to hide the pain. 

In the middle of game 14, Jaemin and Yangyang go for the same red 10. What follows is an explosion of argument. 

Jisung keeps shuffling through on his end, and both Chenle and Yerim seem to be experiencing traffic jams due to the pair of unmoving arms stretched across the table. 

Renjun, with 1 card left before blitz, looks deep into Yangyang’s eyes and says, “Jaemin was first.”

Even Jaemin is shocked at that. 

Yangyang doesn’t want to argue, but his eyebrows shoot up and he mutters, “I thought I was… faster…” He rectracts his hand slowly, just as Yerim, reigning champion, rushes to his defense. 

“I saw Yangyang first, honestly,” she says, if only to stall for time. 

Renjun flashes a deadened glare. 

What follows is a five minute argument involving a lot of pouting and a lot of whisper yelling. Somewhere within it all is Jaemin, stunned, watching Renjun take his side with a mix of pride and shock. 

Jisung smiles at the table and goes on shuffling. 

Dutch blitz turns into poker. Jaemin ducks out a bit before 11, not bothering to make an excuse. 

Yangyang yells, “You’d better get fucking laid!” after his retreating figure, and Chenle claps his hands over a protesting Yerim’s ears. 

She, too, is soon to depart. She mentions her mothers once and Renjun’s already pushing her out the window. 

Poker is… a mess. No one has money to speak of (with the exception of Renjun, who is simply too smart to gamble real cash), so they settle for writing down starting amounts and raises on little sheets of paper. 

Chenle racks in about $8,000 worth of fake cash in the first three rounds, and he’s immediately identified as a common enemy. 

“What,” he protests. “Am I not allowed to win?”

They never set a metric for winning, but it’s Jisung who does in the end, with nothing but an online guide to poker terminology and sheer will. 

With $11,960 of paper to his name, Jisung declares victory over the steadily wilting three. 

Yangyang sighs. “I thought I’d be good at gambling. It just seems to fit with my… character design.” 

“Yeah, well, your ‘character design’ also paints you as a fucking idiot,” Renjun says frankly. 

“Fair,” Yangyang says and slumps against Renjun’s shoulder. 

It’s a bit past 1 AM now. Renjun pushes Yangyang away, feigning distaste, and thus he grabs Chenle by the arm and retreats to their room in silent protest. 

This leaves Renjun, Jisung, a lot of paper, and the hum of crickets. 

Jisung smiles, unsure. He doesn’t know how to say what he means to. 

“Some fucking tournament, huh?” Renjun remarks fruitlessly.

“I’m rich,” Jisung says shortly. 

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” 

“If… if this was real money--”

“Don’t gamble, Jisung. Too much risk.” 

He sounds less like an adult, prescribing and advising, and more like… a friend. Well meaning, caring, just the right amount of selfish. 

I couldn’t bear to see you upset . 

Jisung thinks back to their conversation the previous night. “How was Jeno?” 

Renjun blinks like he doesn’t know what Jisung means, but eventually nods. “He was cute. I think he was just… shocked for a lot of it, but he heard what I had to say and that’s what was important.” He looks up, almost conspiratorially. “Bet he’ll treat our Jaemin well.” 

There’s something bittersweet in his gaze, and suddenly, Jisung’s half-baked thoughts come tumbling out. “Renjun, are you… y’know, into Jaemin?” 

“In… to?” Renjun’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god, no. God, Jisung. This society is so fucking amatonormative, I swear…” 

Something falls into place in Jisung’s mind, and as Renjun continues to sputter, he smiles. 

Then Jaemin comes bursting through the fucking door. It hits the wall with a bang, and Chenle and Yangyang come rushing down the hallway, gazes full of not concern, but curiosity. 

Jisung and Renjun whip around in sync. Jaemin stands, stationary, incredulous. His eyes are wide, focused somewhere on the ground before him, and a numb smile is playing across his cherry-colored lips. 

“Folks,” he announces to the floor. “I’m really gay.” 

And thus they drag him in and crowd around to hear the gentle conclusion to the nation’s love story. 

TL;DR - he made out with Jeno for, like, an hour (gross) and then they sat there and talked about life for another (cute) and now it seems they’re… clumsily entangled the way teenaged lovers always are. 

Jisung is happy. Happy to watch Jaemin narrate broadly, extravagantly, in a voice full of life. 

Happy to see Renjun’s incredulous smile, hear Yangyang’s echoing laughter, to watch Chenle’s eyes…

He watches Chenle’s eyes reflect fireworks over the dark waterfront, vivid color and neon lights and pure joy. 

He watches as Chenle’s eyes drift to him. Jisung is reflected in those movie screens, his pink hair and blushing cheeks a mess of joy and youth. 

In those eyes, there is a question. 

Will we be like them?

It’s an invitation, too. A silent summation of all the offhanded “I love you”s, the summer stars and vivid sunsets. Pink and orange, glowing in the night. 

What surprises Jisung is that it’s not a surprise. It’s stepping into a third home, a quiet one. 

Jisung has never been too good at sending messages through his eyes, but tonight, he tries the hardest he ever has. 

No. We’ll be different. 

Because they’re both 16, and love is nothing new. 

It’s blossoming color, the climax of a song nine years in the making.

This is you and me we’re talking about, after all. 

-- ↻ --

July is coming to a close, and the sun is high. It washes over the sand like ocean water on skin; a gentle kiss, a supply of warmth. 

Endless courage. 

Two kids rush down the boardwalk, too fast to be unsure. One’s standing on a skateboard like a baby deer adapting to new limbs, the other is racing ahead. Their hands are intertwined, their pace barely controlled. 

It’s precarious, but there’s safety in their laughter, in their stolen glances, in the cushion of sand when they race right off the edge.

Falling is easy. 

They tumble towards the shore, a single entity of soft fabric and dark hair. 

They take too long to untangle their limbs, to become separate beings again, but they don’t talk about it. 

For a silent moment, Jisung sits by the waves he’s started to befriend and lets the seafoam seep into his veins. 

He’s figured out that it’s Chenle who gives him courage. 

Chenle, who looks up to the sky and sends it his quiet messages, who Jisung knows will reflect sunlight and color and love forever. 

They don’t have to talk about it. They just read each other’s eyes. 

sungie?

Boys · Hippo Campus

⊚ LP3