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The undeniable thing about Nanon is that he has a lot of friends.
Nanon's good at navigating himself between people, unquestionably amicable and well-liked amongst his peers and almost everyone of all ages. He has a good reputation to uphold when it comes to building and fostering friendships that last.
So when Ohm pompously walks into his life quite literally and Nanon's stomach twists up in great annoyance, he's not quite sure what to call the uneasy feelings building up inside him.
Days later, he'd attribute this bad first impression to the idea of meeting someone who seems to be just as ostensibly confident in his own capabilities as he is, his entire being threatened and yet somehow easily disarmed, boneless and feeling volatile against that charming smile and doe-eyes gazing up at him with an outstretched hand.
It makes no sense and he's never met someone who makes his heart leap out of his chest with a single, arrogant smile.
Nanon still tries, reaches out to him; he drops his honorifics and calls him Ohm instead of P'Ohm to make way for comfortability. He tries to hang out with him like he does with his other friends, and he recognizes the palpable switch the moment Ohm drops his defenses. But then over the months, they keep sharing meek and awkward laughters and shy glances across the room, their gazes somehow electric in a way that makes Nanon's stomach hurt some more.
A year into their friendship, Nanon finally reminisces about his first bad impression of Ohm. Ohm tells him how his own impression is just as equally horrendous, vividly describing how extraordinarily brash Nanon had looked that day, uncomfortable and grumpy and looking confused for some reason. That from that interaction, Ohm honestly hasn't expected them to be this close.
Nanon doesn't tell him about the uneasiness, of the troublesome turmoil he'd experienced after landing his eyes on that smile.
"But thank you for not giving up on me," Ohm says playfully, a smile lingering on his face. He leans forward, a little too close that Nanon almost wants to pull back just as quickly, but then Ohm's got his fingers pinching the tip of Nanon's nose tenderly. Nanon's eyes widen in surprise, unable to breathe. "You must have really wanted to be my friend."
Suddenly overwhelmed with a flush of embarrassment and really with Ohm being too close that Nanon can feel his warm breath over his face, Nanon finds himself jolting backwards against the wall, eliciting another laugh out of Ohm. Nanon finally responds with an incredulous scoff. "Friend, my ass. Who said I really wanted to? I don't want to be your friend anymore."
For a moment, Ohm looks as if he's pondering the next words he's about to say. He's got that glint in his eyes, the one that makes Nanon want to look away, but he's too enthralled to. There's just something about Ohm's gaze that makes him feel like he's melting in a puddle of overwhelming waves of jitters.
"If I'm not your friend," Ohm starts, face morphing into something a little serious as he also leans his back onto the wall, "maybe I can be your crush instead."
Somehow the joke is suddenly on Nanon who couldn't utter a single word out for a good moment, his lips parting in a soft gasp and his eyes blinking furiously, face glimmering with confusion. It makes it worse that Ohm is looking at him as if he knows something Nanon doesn't understand. Nanon stutters out a loud, "Why—" but then Ohm's laughter bellows out and echoes in the room as he lands a palm over Nanon's knee, and Nanon just knows exactly why with the way his touch sends electricity zipping through his spine, in the way his breath catches in his throat some more.
"You should have seen your face." Ohm just guffaws with a scrunch on his nose, so adorable and yet so insufferable. His palm still doesn't leave Nanon's knee when he adds, "That could be a punch line for a crowd. Friend, my ass."
Nanon breathes in. "I guess," he manages to say. "I'm also dumping you as a friend now," he adds threateningly.
Ohm just laughs next to him, voice filled with amusement. "I'll always be your friend as long as you want me to be," he says, voice dipping a timbre lower, softer, a gentleness that makes Nanon feel a little insane as Ohm squeezes his knee tenderly like it's a reassurance that he'll always be around.
Nanon likes the sound of that.
And it makes sense, because Nanon treats Ohm like a friend—he becomes a friend with lots of trying and effort from both sides. He becomes a close one in a short period of time. Someone Nanon holds dear to his heart, like Janhae and Mook and Chimon. Like Ohm has been a longtime friend even with only a year under his belt.
Sometimes Ohm's like P'Tay who listens to him talk about anything under the sun, who occasionally takes him out for food and shares endless laughters with. Every now and then he's like P'Wan who inspires him, who lets him come out of his shell, encourages him to be the best he can be. Like the moment with their backs pressed on grass, Ohm's cheeks flushed with the first cans of beers they've shared as he says with a lighthearted chuckle, "But can you see it? You on stage, playing the songs you've written, thousands of people watching you?" and how he pauses, looking at Nanon's cheek turned towards him and tenderly kissed by the blades of grass before adding, "and I'll be there in the crowd to watch you. I want to be."
Nanon holds onto those words, a promise of a future that maybe he can catch those eyes in the crowd, his chest hurting and his breath getting trapped in his windpipe as he looks at the same eyes reflecting back the intense heat of his own stare amongst a sea of people.
Because Ohm is his friend who has everything.
But then Nanon also holds onto other thoughts that make him slowly lose his sleep, tossing and turning with questions in his head, phone in hand as the conversation on his LINE account evolves from talking about Chimon's latest dating shenanigans to more personal conversations about things they look for in a partner, some that eerily sound like the friendship things evolving between the two of them.
I like someone who takes care of me, Nanon types back carelessly, not realizing the implication of his words until Ohm jokes about it a few minutes too long later, the dot dot dot lingering just a little longer than usual until a flash of I take care of you like that, don't I? comes on his screen, making Nanon's heart beat in trepidation with his fingers hovered over his phone.
And in a way Ohm is a friend that somehow doesn't make Nanon feel like he's just a friend, and it takes all but four years after that conversation and a series for them to realize that maybe friends don't look at friends that way.
That maybe friends don't kiss each other the way they do, breathless and their tongues moving against each other's in a languid slow dance, their mouths slotting together as if that's where they should have always been pressed against. That friends don't cling onto each other in front of the shooting crew as if it's their last kiss and follow it up with more hurried ones away from eyes that could also wonder what it is between the two of them, gazes that may question their fingertips pressed on bare skin and under shirts, their hips grinding against each other desperately in the comfort of their homes. That maybe it isn't just a simple favor between friends the way Ohm is pressed on his living room couch shirtless with Nanon on his lap, his grip tight on Ohm's hair, a simple yet a powerful indicative gesture as if saying a mantra of you're only mine. How Nanon's mouth elicits the most delicious moans with Ohm's face buried at the side of his face, mouth pressed on his ear whispering come for me, friend and Nanon comes undone just that easily.
That maybe a friend wouldn't press apologetic kisses on Ohm's shoulder blade after a heated outburst of possessive kisses, fingers still fisted over Ohm's blue hoodie, the sickening uncertainty looming over him recklessly after watching Ohm just casually say a few hours ago in front of a crowd, "We're really just friends."
Because a friend wouldn't do all the things that they do. Friends don't look at each other and constantly think of ways to say I love you.
Maybe that's just it, but maybe Nanon's also just afraid of what comes next. The three words Nanon wants to say is I love you but all that comes out is an angry “friend, my ass” with a well-concealed melancholic and dry laugh reverberating at the depths of his heart as he presses Ohm against the wall and kisses him senselessly.
Yet when Nanon pulls away, forehead knitted with his face visible with anguish, Ohm just looks at him as if he knows the three words left unsaid, the same ones replaced with less tangible words that might as well hold the same meaning between the two of them; Ohm with his eyes still wide with surprise and yet laced with a mischievous delight just stares at him like he can see through Nanon’s wall of defense as if it’s translucent, a beautiful picture of his feelings splayed out like a garden flourishing in the midst of spring.
“You tell me that we’re friends,” Ohm says softly. Patiently, like how he's always done when Nanon finds himself crumbling down like this. He smooths Nanon's forehead with the pads of his fingertips, a comforting gesture that allows Nanon's hold on his shirt to soften, his palms flattening on his chest.
“We are,” Nanon still insists, and it takes just a palm from Ohm to encase his cheek and pull him closer. The tips of their noses touch slightly, making Nanon catch his breath. Nanon's gaze flickers downwards to Ohm's mouth sheened with his own spit to the way it's quirking up in an annoyingly smug smirk, his lips parting slightly with a breathless huff. When Nanon looks up, his eyes linger on that cheek that has that incredible dimple that sometimes Nanon wants to run a finger on, to trace with his hand. Like a very good, appreciative friend that should maybe be more.
When their eyes finally meet, they hold each other's gaze, unwavering and steady just like the way they have always been with each other, a friendship affair evolving into something that may be just a tad bit more than what it could be—what it already is.
"Remember when I said I'll always be your friend as long as you want me to be?" Ohm says. "Well, I don't have to be just a friend anymore."
Nanon's stare is unabashed and ready for a challenge with his mouth pursed, but the dimple on his chin is prominent and telling of a smile that he’s arduously holding back. Ohm holds him closer.
If Nanon leans in for another kiss a few seconds later, pulling Ohm close with a hand on his waist and another on his neck before telling Ohm they’re still friends, Ohm will just melodiously laugh and say back to him, “Friend, my ass.”
And if in the future Nanon says the same phrase onstage with thousands of people watching him, adding on mentions of a cruel friend that knows of an irrevocable crush with his heart bared out in the open for everyone to see, that friend will know.
Ohm will just know and he'd laugh just as as he would before.