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Iseul Kim thrived on physical contact. People used to call him a playboy because of the arm he always had around a girl's shoulder or waist, when he wasn't interested in the fairer sex at all. It was their warmth he was chasing, a feeling of closeness- two people breathing as one.
Boys never let him do that. It made them look weak, or worse, gay. Iseul was used to being rebuffed when he got too comfortable with another boy. But never with Min.
Iseul could sit with his shoulder pressed up against Min’s, or lean his head against Min’s back, or even have his arms wrapped like a vice around Min’s long torso- it never mattered. Min wasn’t there. He was far away, somewhere Iseul could never reach, blank eyes staring like two sheets of paper.
“Hey, man. Are you okay?” Iseul asked one night as they settled into their beds, having suffered through another grueling day of training. Min turned to look at him, the distant look in his eyes fading, temporarily, upon being addressed.
“...I’m not hurt,” the boy replied.
Like a robot reading its status report. Iseul could almost see the word Recalibrating… floating above his head.
“Not like that,” Iseul said decisively. He turned under his blankets so he could throw Min a languid, sleep-softened grin. “Like, up there. All those gears turning in your brain. They doin’ okay?”
Min was silent. With his eyes, Iseul followed the two scars on Min’s right cheek, which intersected right beneath his eye, forming a cross. Try as he might, Iseul couldn't imagine who would do something like that to someone so quiet, so gentle.
(Of course, Min had cut off Taeho's hand, but-)
“Gears,” Min said slowly, digesting the word. "I don't know what you mean. Nothing hurts."
Iseul propped himself up on his elbows. “It's an expression. I mean, mentally, are you… feeling okay?”
“Nothing hurts,” Min repeated, the corner of his mouth twitching the slightest bit.
“Well, it’s one thing for nothing to hurt, and another to be feeling okay , you know?”
A shadow passed over the taller boy’s face, just for an instant, gone so quick that Iseul may have imagined it. And then Iseul thought, no- you really don’t know.
That made him feel sad.
Maybe it showed on his face, because Min tilted his head at him, inquisitive. Backlit by the moonlight, his hair was such a pale silver that it seemed almost to glow. Iseul shook his head at him and smiled.
“It’s nothing,” he lied. "It's okay."
...You'll be okay.