Work Text:
I lie awake at night thinking that I am missing something big.
Ah, too dramatic. Backspace, backspace, backspace .
I am just a single man against the tides of time.
Is that so different from everyone else on the planet? Backspace, backspace, backspace.
My emotions are too large for the container of my body.
Hwang Hyunjin stares down at his phone, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, and sighs. Directly to his left, people shuffle down the plane aisle, backpacks and suitcases bumping into one another– he clicks his phone off and pockets it, sliding his headphones down to rest around his neck.
Twenty-six years old and staring down the barrel of a seven-hour layover on the east coast of the United States, Hyunjin sighs again, quietly, before he hauls himself up from his seat.
Airports are therapeutic, in a way, and particularly at four in the morning. A family of five are ahead of him in line, a young girl on the back of her mother, pigtails drooping and mouth dropped open. When they spill out of the connecting tunnel and into the gate itself, Hyunjin watches out of the corner of his eye as the father gently nudges her awake, a small smile on his face as he says something in English that Hyunjin can’t quite make out. The girl blinks, sleepily, and then smiles back.
He pulls out his phone again, staunchly ignoring the sleep-deprived, self-aggrandizing poetry in his notes app, and finds his next boarding pass. Gate 47C.
It’s a slight shame that he’s traveling during the off season, as the crowds are thin and weary at such an awful hour. Hyunjin wonders how he looks, briefly, and then banishes the thought. He looks as bedraggled as everyone else, surely, except for the modelesque woman in her thirties clicking past him in high heels.
Down a long hallway lined with shrubbery. Hyunjin yawns. He slips his headphones back on and presses play.
Fifteen minutes later, Hyunjin is sinking into a window seat in Gate 47C, having arrived too early for the flight information to even be accurate– he certainly isn’t traveling to Dublin. Another yawn.
Does he sleep? No, his anxiety about missing his flight or getting his backpack stolen would keep him awake. Does he get coffee? No, that will just worsen his jitters. He responds to a text from his roommate, Jeongin– did your plane crash??
Unfortunately not! You’ll get to see me tomorrow <3
He plays sudoku for three minutes and then promptly gets bored. He tweets to his audience of twenty-four followers about said boredom. He moves to get his tablet out, itching to draw, before he remembers that his stylus died the day before.
What a miserable existence. No plans and too much time.
After sitting for another few minutes, Hyunjin stands. Surely there is something for him to do.
He does a lap– most of the shops are shuttered, and the ones that are open hold no interest for him. He extends the diameter of his next lap, seeing a half-asleep group of high schoolers, an old couple holding hands on an escalator, and another twenty-something woman reading from a hefty book of Russian text.
With a quiet beep, his headphones warn him of low battery. Hyunjin feels like crying.
Instead of crying, he acknowledges the pressure in his bladder and steps into the closest bathroom, tucking his headphones into his backpack with an irritated grumble. No music, no company, nothing to do– truly nothing worse. He relieves himself, washes his hands, and glances at himself in the mirror.
Well, initially. His eyes slide off his own reflection and catch on that of a man walking past him, mask pulled up beneath his nose and bangs hanging low on his forehead. For a gut-wrenching moment, Hyunjin recognizes this stranger.
But, no, that wouldn’t make sense. He shakes his head, heart in his throat, and rewashes his hands to pass some time.
Twenty seconds later, the man is at a sink four down from Hyunjin, head hung low and one earbud in. Hyunjin stares. Apparently sensing attention on him, the man looks up.
Those eyes , tinted honey-gold in the fluorescent light, tired and so achingly familiar. Hyunjin stops breathing. “Seungmin?” he asks, voice croaking with disbelief, and the man freezes.
Time slows. When Hyunjin breathes in, it’s syrup in his lungs. “No way,” the man murmurs, his voice nasally and tinged with heartbreaking nostalgia as he removes his earbud, “Hyunjinnie?”
A joke of such cosmic proportions surely shouldn’t be possible. Hyunjin runs through the options in his head with as much speed as he can muster– how many international airports, how many bathrooms? How many in-bound flights before the sun has risen? “How are you here ?” he asks, relocating his voice, and Seungmin tugs his mask down.
“I’m headed back to LA,” Seungmin explains, his eyelashes fluttering a little, as devastatingly beautiful as the last time Hyunjin saw him, “I’m just stuck on a layover right now. I… assume you are also stuck here?”
A heartbeat. “Is this fate?” Hyunjin asks instead, dodging the question.
“Maybe,” Seungmin says. He smiles a little. “Care to… continue the conversation somewhere that’s not a bathroom?”
Hyunjin glances over at his reflection in a sudden bout of self-consciousness, his greasy hair and chapped lips and eye bags suddenly so embarrassing , and clears his throat. “Sounds great,” he says, shaking the excess water from his hands and giving a deceptively confident smile.
Perhaps it is a miracle that Hyunjin looks so run-down right now, because if he were on his A-game– hair styled and makeup on and clothes flattering every angle of his body– he would still be worried about not being worthy of Kim Seungmin’s attention.
Time makes everything easier, but the moment Hyunjin met those dark, surprised eyes, he’s suddenly twenty-two again, clutching his diploma and watching the love of his life pose for his graduation picture with a smile.
They find seating outside of a cafe, two hours too early for its hours of operation. Hyunjin is still reeling from how this is possible , what the odds are of bumping into someone from his past at such an unassuming location, but he can put his shock aside in favor of staring at the man across from him.
“You’re still so beautiful, Seungminnie,” he murmurs, unable to stop himself from speaking his mind, and Seungmin just smiles at him.
“Thank you,” he says, giving none of the embarrassed squirming that Hyunjin had come to expect from him in college. Something in his chest keens– he squashes it down and leans forward.
“So?” Hyunjin prompts, smiling wide and toothy, “what brings you here? A layover, you said?”
Seungmin nods. Hyunjin takes the moment to properly appraise him– a comfy, slightly oversized jacket, hair in slight need of a trim with blonde highlights through his bangs. “Back to LA,” he repeats, “I went home to see my parents.”
“You were in Korea?” Hyunjin asks, shocked, and there’s the squirming. “I would have come to see you!”
“I know,” Seungmin responds. He scratches his nose. “My grandmother passed away recently, I didn’t want to… I didn’t want our reunion to be under such a pretext.”
“Oh.” Hyunjin takes in a thin breath. “Are you okay?”
Another small smile. “I’m okay,” he reassures, “we weren’t terribly close. I’m more just concerned about how it’s affecting my dad, since I can’t be there to comfort him.”
Always such a sweet-hearted man. Hyunjin wonders what the expression on his face must be. “What brings you here?” Seungmin asks, giving a couple of sleepy blinks.
“Oh, visiting my mom.” Hyunjin fiddles with the ring on his index finger. “She just got married.”
“Good for her.” Seungmin’s eyes dart down to track the motion of his hands, up to the floppy waves of his hair, then back down to his eyes. He takes a moment to recall years-old information. “How’s she liking Portland?”
“Moved up to Seattle, actually,” Hyunjin responds. He remembers complaining about his mother’s boyfriends to Seungmin back in college– luckily, finally , she found someone he thought worthy of sticking around. “She works at a weed shop, can you believe that?”
Seungmin giggles. “Your mom, really?” he asks, awed. “Good for her, I suppose. Does she like Seattle?”
“Well enough. The rain reminds her of home.” Hyunjin pauses for a moment, heart rate climbing, before he clears his throat and continues. “So you’re… I take it you still have that contract with Three-Racha Records?”
A small nod. “Just resigned for another four years, actually,” he says, a dreamy look on his face. “It was so lucky of me to get scouted directly out of college that I wanted to… lock it down. They have me in production now, too, not just vocals.”
“Wow.” Hyunjin laughs to himself, leaning back and running his fingers through his hair, pulling on it to give himself a point of focus– Seungmin, always so smart, so dedicated, so skilled. It makes complete sense for him to be picked up and whisked across the planet, away from Hyunjin and their little college town. “My life is pretty boring in comparison to yours.”
Seungmin’s lips twitch upwards. “Teaching is so important, Hyunjinnie,” he says, reaching out and placing one of his hands over Hyunjin’s, “and you’re doing something you love. I will always respect you for it.”
Hyunjin looks down at where their skin touches, Seungmin’s fingers long and a little cold against his own. He turns his palm over, an invitation, and their fingers thread together. “I’ve missed you so much,” Hyunjin says, a quiet confession. He drags his thumb over Seungmin’s knuckles, knobby and familiar, a taunting reminder of all the times he wanted to reach out and hold Seungmin’s hand back when they were roommates, dancing around one another and the promise of something else . His tongue is thick in his mouth; his sleep deprivation is gone. “I mean it, Min, I… I miss you all the time.”
“You don’t call,” says Seungmin quietly.
“Neither do you.”
Seungmin tightens his fingers around Hyunjin’s in what he interprets to be an apology. Hyunjin’s heart flings itself against his ribcage, begging to be let out and buried within Seungmin’s chest instead. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Hyunjin says with a sudden burst of laughter, “I mean– the odds?”
“I know.” Seungmin takes a deep breath– the moment of tension is gone. They pull their hands apart. “I think you were right.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s fate.”
Hyunjin breathes in sharply. “Are you trying to seduce me?” he whispers, watching Seungmin’s grin spread across his face, brace-less, “you naughty thing!”
“I knew romanticism was the way into your pants.” Seungmin’s laugh is breathy. “I should have tried that in college.”
“Huh? Tried what?”
“Romancing you.”
Tripping over a hairline crack in the sidewalk, miscounting the stairs and stepping down one too many. Hyunjin feels his eyes bug out of his head. “Why didn’t you?” he asks, over the rushing blood in his ears. Seungmin gives a tiny shrug and looks down.
“I was scared, I guess.”
“Of what? Me?”
“Of losing you, yeah.”
“That’s ridiculous. You will always have me.”
Seungmin is blushing. Kim Seungmin, a budding celebrity with thousands of followers and a monopoly over the best parts of Hyunjin’s memory, is blushing . “Ah,” he complains, covering his mouth with a hand, “don’t say that.”
“Sorry. I’ll save it for another time.”
Their eyes meet. Hyunjin looks away first, his world still spinning. “When do you fly out?” he asks, glancing back over, heart heavy with desperation. Never?
“An hour,” Seungmin says softly. He glances at his (expensive) watch. “I– boarding starts in ten.”
Such a cruel thing, reality. Hyunjin leans forward onto his elbows. “ Ten minutes? ” he parrots, and Seungmin grimaces.
“I know, I–” he falters. “I wish we had more time.”
“Reschedule your flight.”
“So last minute? I’m not that rich.”
Hyunjin laughs, though he feels more like slinking away and crying. He reaches out again, needy, and takes both of Seungmin’s hands. “Where’s your gate?” he prompts, “I’ll walk you there.”
“It’s in E,” Seungmin says, though he makes no motion to get up. His eyes trace over Hyunjin’s features like he’s trying to etch them into his mind. “I’m– I’m sorry, I just want to clarify something, are–”
He stops. His face is flushed. Hyunjin’s sure that if he were to reach out and touch, Seungmin’s skin would be aflame. “If you still don’t know, ask me at the gate,” he says, squeezing Seungmin’s hands before he stands and slings his backpack on again, “okay?”
Seungmin nods, standing a second later and fiddling with his bangs. It knocks Hyunjin off his feet just how quickly it all came rushing back– eighteen and standing in the middle of his dorm room, legs locked with terror, staring at a brace-faced boy on the bed by the window. Twenty-one and drunk, in bed with a stranger, a name on the tip of tongue that he doesn’t dare vocalize.
When they start walking, Seungmin reaches out and holds Hyunjin’s hand. Their fingers twine together. “You know,” Hyunjin starts, breaking the thin ice, “I’ve always… you know I was in love with you. Don’t you?”
A huff. “I hoped,” Seungmin says, “but I was too much of a coward to ask.”
“You aren’t a coward , Kim Seungmin, you moved all the way across the world by yourself. You pursued your passion and made a name for yourself.”
Seungmin’s eyes cut over. “Still didn’t get the boy,” he says, a half-joking slant to his mouth, despite the somber tone to his words. “So.”
Hyunjin wracks his vast catalog of songs and movies, books and poetry and art– what does he need to say? What does Seungmin need to hear? “There are other boys,” he says, though his choice of words doesn’t sound right.
“I guess.” Seungmin’s thumbnail bites into his skin, stressed. “Do you still love me?”
“Oh, silly man.” Hyunjin tilts his head back and laughs, gentle and punch-drunk. “You have no idea.”
Seungmin’s gate is the most crowded one Hyunjin’s seen yet, with boarding apparently already underway. Seungmin keeps fidgeting. “This isn’t fair,” he complains. “I haven’t s– I haven’t seen you in years . And now we get, what, twenty minutes?”
“You’d prefer if we hadn’t seen each other at all?” Hyunjin says, trying to reel Seungmin back into the shore he’s rapidly drifting away from– he drops their twined hands and grasps Seungmin’s face between his palms, squishing his cheeks until his expression grows comically off-centered. “Fate, remember?”
“Fate,” Seungmin echoes. His voice is watery. “Hyunjin. I’m really sorry I never told you how I felt.”
“Don’t stress, my dear. I know now.” Hyunjin glances over at the line, meandering slowly forward, before looking back over at Seungmin. “I’m glad you had to pee at the same time as me. I’m so happy that you’re doing well, and that America is treating you well even though it keeps you so far away from home, and that your career is starting to take off, and–”
Seungmin surges forward. When they kiss, it’s awkward and fast, but it erupts Hyunjin’s world into full color nonetheless.
They relax, bit by bit, and Hyunjin drops his hands from Seungmin’s face to rest them on his hips. Each saccharine glide of their lips takes him a little bit further from reality, further away from this chance encounter of a boy whose love his body has never been able to shake itself free from.
Reluctantly, they pull apart. Seungmin looks like a dream, all soft hair and reddened lips. “I gotta–”
“I know,” Hyunjin interrupts, gently. He presses a kiss against Seungmin’s forehead and takes a step back. “... hey. Call me, okay?”
“I will. I will.” Seungmin takes a deep breath, gripping the handle of his suitcase and glancing over toward the thinned line leading out of his gate. He looks back over, a heartbreaking smile on his handsome face, and lifts his hand in a tiny wave. “See you again soon?”
“Count on it,” Hyunjin says, smiling back, as softly as he can. He watches until Seungmin disappears out of the gate, boarding a plane to take him back to a time zone Hyunjin had just left, their trajectories incompatible.
He turns, slowly, and starts the walk back to Gate 47C. He glances at his phone, now faced with a six-hour layover, and contemplates promises and young adulthood, hand soap and soulmates.