Work Text:
When what we love is close, what does it cost to go far?
What do we have to sacrifice?
Too much.
So we found a place just far enough.
***
When Jin Woo returned to the city with Seol and his sister, Eun Young invited him to stay with them in Hongdae, close to the University where her husband teaches in the college of music and where she had opened her cafe. The apartment was small because until Seol and Jin Woo came, it had only been Eun Young and Jae Seung, but they made it work.
Jin Woo gave Hyun Min a little while before he tried to find him. The battle in Hwacheon wasn’t their first; it was ugly, but it wasn’t the end. Years of living a half-life has a way of building up inside someone and then exploding in the wrong direction. It was Hwacheon, not Hyun Min, that had borne the realization in Jin Woo that the only way he could live would be fully, and that meant leaving the home he thought he’d made. He was too old and tired to fight for acceptance in a rural mountain village, even with allies like Joong Man and Moon Kyeong. It wasn’t fair to Seol, either.
Jin Woo found Hyun Min crashing at a friend’s place in Itaewon, and everything that he never thought he needed to say, he said it anyway - that his life was incomplete when they were hiding and incomplete when they were apart, and he was sorry for taking his frustrations with the world out on the only man he’d ever loved.
Hyun Min had conditions this time, though - things he had assumed when going to Hwacheon but had never actually spoken, and realized the hard way that Jin Woo hadn’t been ready for. Commitment wasn’t an issue, but it turned out openness had been, at least in Hwacheon. But there was another one. He wanted Jin Woo to start painting again, too.
Sometimes the city was suffocating after living on the farm for so long, but unlike the village, Hongdae was accepting, inviting. He and Hyun Min both had found classes to teach at the SFAC Art Space near the university. Being in the city and close to a university has its perks for people who still aren’t considered normal in many places. Even beyond Jin Woo being gay, their family arrangement was definitely out of the ordinary, and if Hyun Min, Eun Young, and Jae Seung could be convinced, it was going to be even more extraordinary soon.
It takes Jin Woo a few days to build up the courage to ask a favor after the idea that’s been rattling around in his brain finally takes over so that he can’t sleep anymore. It’s unlike him, but there’s a lot at risk if this goes sideways.
“Eun Young, can Jae Seung’s mom keep Seol one night soon, so that we can all have dinner? I want to talk about something.”
He’d run it by Hyun Min first, even though he really didn’t need to. He knew Hyun Min wouldn’t need convincing; they’d already done this in Hwacheon - the two of them. But this was going to be more complicated, and he needed Hyun Min on his side, not sitting there stunned while he laid out his idea for Eun Young and Jae Seung.
It wasn’t feasible to have dinner for the four of them in the tiny apartment, especially because it could get late, and Seol’s gramma would keep her there so she could be put to bed on time. Jin Woo found a quiet restaurant nearby that wasn’t too big and hoped things would go smoothly. He didn’t like to make a scene, but he may not have a choice in this matter.
Eun Young spent the few days before their dinner worried about what her brother wanted. “This new life can be stressful in the apartment, but it’s mostly working,” Eun Young told Jae Seung.
Jae Seung agrees, “And Seol has settled into school and made a few friends.” She’d had to adjust a bit to being around kids her age, but it hadn’t taken very long. “Because of her life in Hwacheon, she doesn’t really think or talk like them. She’s introverted, and kind. Moving again, another adjustment, may be too much, though.”
“The cafe is doing well, and with your position at the university, we couldn’t leave the city. There are too many reasons to stay,” but Eun Young knows her brother is itchy here. “He’s been Seol’s mom and dad until now. Seol will struggle if he leaves, and she can’t go with him. What do we say to make him stay, if he wants to go back, or somewhere else?”
“Eun, I, well, I don’t really know how to say this, but what if we find a bigger place and become a big, weird family? I’m on a tenure track, so we’re stable. No one in the music department cares about that kind of personal family thing, thankfully. The cafe is doing well. Jin Woo and Hyun Min are both amazing with Seol, and she loves them. And Hyun Min needs a more permanent situation, even if he is a poet. Do you think they’d be willing to help out at the cafe while she’s in school?”
Eun Young gapes at her husband. How she stumbled into finding someone like him will never cease to amaze her, and she will be forever grateful to God or the universe or whatever for sending him to her when she was at her lowest. She collapses into him and he wraps her up. Now it’s just up to them to wait for dinner and find out what Jin Woo is thinking.
Friday comes. Only really expensive restaurants offer the kind of privacy Jin Woo wants for this conversation, but he’s paying and can’t afford those, so he made an early reservation at a low-key place to beat the crowd.
He wants to start talking as soon as they sit down, but if they don’t at least wait until after they order their food, they’ll keep getting interrupted. It’s an awkward few minutes until then. Everyone seems to want to say something, but it’s Jin Woo who set this up, so they let him start.
After they have their drinks and the server takes their menus away, Jin Woo puts his hands on his legs, rubbing them to dry the sweat from his palms. Hyun Min grasps one of Jin Woo’s hands under the table and squeezes to calm him. They have a plan if Eun Young and Jae Seung don’t like the idea. It will be ok, either way.
He looks down, inhales a big gulp of air, exhales, and looks up at his sister and brother-in-law, “Seol is settling here, but it’s not going to work for much longer with all of us in that apartment. And there’s a part of me that needs to be out of the city.”
Eun Young and Jae Seung tense.
He looks between Eun Young and Jae Seung, “But right now, Seol is most important. And I think, with the way her life began, what’s best for her now is that all of us are there for her. I’m about to ask a lot of everyone, especially you two.” Jin Woo takes another deep breath, “Can we find a place to be together, all of us, comfortably,” he looks to Hyun Min and back at his sister, “the five of us?”
Eun Young and Jae Seung exhale. Eun Young starts to cry.
Jin Woo is worried and squeezes Hyun Min’s hand again. Resigned, he turns to his partner, “I guess it’s plan B.”
“No, no!” Eun Young cries out quickly, and a little too loudly. “I’m happy. These are happy tears. We thought you wanted to take Seol back to the country. We were going to suggest that we all get a bigger place and make a big, weird, happy family for her here instead.”
Their initially anxious dinner becomes a celebration. Jin Woo orders beer for himself and wine for the rest of them. After an hour of looking on their phones at available apartments, and even searching for some artist retreats for Jin Woo, so he can breathe a little more freely now and then, they leave the restaurant pleasantly drunk.
Seol is asleep when they get home. It’s not yet time to fill Jae Seung’s mom in on the details. Her son is a musician, so she’s used to unusual people and situations, but she may not be ready for this announcement so late on a Friday night. Jae Seung kisses Seol goodnight and leaves to take his mom home. One by one, Hyun Min, Eun Young, and finally Jin Woo, go to whisper their good nights to Seol.
They have found their distant place, closer to each other than they thought.