Work Text:
it’s not wrong, i’m different
no matter what anyone says, play a song for me
it melts into a different color on a bright day
i’m not unfamiliar, i’m different, the rain stops.
— different song for me, p1harmony.
“Hyung,” Yoonsung asks him one day, “how would you define your sexuality?”
Myungho, absorbed in his assignment—he can’t tell if he’s grateful or pissed at Jaeyun for forcing him into stopping his procrastination—is sufficiently startled enough that he drops his pencil. “Huh?” is all he manages to get out. Uneasiness settles like a heavy cloak over him. “So suddenly?”
Yoonsung shrugs, still looking at him expectantly. Myungho stares back, mouth slightly open.
It’s not that Myungho is offended. Yoonsung has asked him weirder things—hell, Jaeyun knows all about his messy one-night stand with an unnamed girl in the year above when he got drunk for the first and last time (or so he said. It lasted only three months), which automatically means that Minho knows, and as close as Jaeyun’s nosy boyfriend is to Yoonsung, the younger of course knows all the messy details, too, even if they hadn’t been together yet when it happened.
(Messy details that Myungho hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to tell even Jaeyun. It was that bad. Yoonsung is the only good soul left in this world, really. It’s no wonder he loves Yoonsung so much, as sappy as that makes him feel.)
It’s just that Myungho is startled and shocked. Yoonsung has never really felt the need to question the life choices Myungho makes even with all the incessant teasing he does. Yoonsung has never felt the need to ask Myungho these kinds of things ever, either. But Yoonsung feels the need to ask now, and Myungho knows it wouldn’t be just for the hell of it. Even if speaking the answer out loud scares him.
“I…don’t know?” is all he can think to say when Yoonsung cocks his head to a side, starting to ask if he just broke Myungho or something. “It just—is?”
“You said you’re bisexual,” Yoonsung says. “Girls and boys?”
Myungho considers that. “I never really considered what bisexual means for me, in depth,” he admits it. “I mean, it’s just a label I go with? Girls and boys are both good-looking and well, I’m not opposed to dating or whatever with either. I mean,” he gestures at Yoonsung, “I’m dating you.”
“But?”
Does there have to be one, Myungho wants to say, but he has never been able to get away with lying to Yoonsung, of all people. Two years younger and twice as bright-natured, he has always been able to read people easily, especially Myungho, who has never tried to shy away from Yoonsung. Has never felt a need to. Falling for Yoonsung was as easy as soaking up the sunlight the younger radiates.
“I wonder if I could be attracted to other people. Other genders,” he admits and at once, he feels stupid and guilty. Exposed. “I mean, I would never cheat on you, and I’m happy with you, but—”
“Hey, don’t look so panicked,” Yoonsung smiles gently. “I know you wouldn’t.”
Myungho exhales in relief. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, fighting the stinging in his eyes.
“What for?”
“Just—thinking like this,” he says helplessly, and even as he says it, he knows he sounds so very incredibly stupid. “Because I love you but I keep thinking about these ifs and…all of that.”
“Hyung,” Yoonsung gets up off of Myungho’s bed and crosses the room to where Myungho sits at his study table. He grabs the only other chair—the little stool that he himself brought in here for when he wants to experiment with makeup in Myungho’s room and he needs a space in his boyfriend’s cluttered room to keep his things—which makes him only about as tall as Myungho’s chest when he sits. Myungho looks down at him slightly apprehensively. “You’re so ridiculous, you know that?”
“Uhm.”
Yoonsung rests his arms on Myungho’s lap, head atop them, peering up at his boyfriend. “Who put the idea that questioning your sexuality while in a relationship is cheating in your head?”
“Doesn’t questioning usually entail—?” Myungho waves a hand meaninglessly, words failing him. Yoonsung gets him, though. He always does.
“Not always,” he shakes his head. “It’s okay to wonder. I know you wouldn’t cheat, ever.”
“Don’t you worry that I’ll lose interest in you?” Myungho asks quietly. In this relationship, he’s learned that being vulnerable when he needs to be is the only way this will work, never mind that he is a whole two years older than his boyfriend. Never mind that Yoonsung is only a second-year while Myungho will be going through his last and final year when this year is over with. “Don’t you worry that I might leave?”
“I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t, at least not so soon,” Yoonsung shakes his head. “You forget that you literally drunk-confessed to me after—”
“Don’t remind me,” Myungho groans. He sobers up immediately, though. “You really don’t?”
“Nope,” the younger shakes his head, making his curled hair bounce. “Never. You love me.”
“I do.” Wholly, so desperately that sometimes Yoonsung is what he hangs onto to keep himself afloat. Does Yoonsung know exactly what plagues him the nights where he sneaks into the younger’s dorm room and clings to him, crying himself to sleep? Maybe not. But he’s never denied Myungho, either.
“Then what’s there to worry about, in that aspect?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Myungho hesitates. “Why are you asking me? It’s so out of nowhere.”
“Last night,” Yoonsung says, and immediately, Myungho realizes. “When Kyungminie asked you how you knew, you looked unsure when you talked. You were sort of second-guessing the entire time.”
He knew it. He also feels a little stupid for being so transparent about it, when he’s always been scared of everything that he said last night could connotate. But Yoonsung holds not a drop of judgment in his gaze.
“Oh.” He doesn’t know what else to say. He tries to keep his gaze on Yoonsung, looking up so earnestly at him, but it’s a failing effort. “You’re really not—?”
“Trust me, hyung,” Yoonsung says. “I’m not. I love you all the same.”
“Thank you, Yoonsung-ah,” Myungho says, bending down as much as can to drop a kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead. He kind of wants to properly kiss him, but his head isn’t in the space right now. “I love you all the same, too.”
-
Here’s the thing: Ji Myungho has never looked in the mirror and felt that he sees all that he wants to see. Not even once in his life.
That’s an exaggeration. When he was younger, his biggest concern had been about when he could go out to play next. As he grew older, keeping his homework and assignments in check, but around then was what Myungho calls the beginning.
He has never been brave enough to tell anyone, not even Jaeyun, or Yoonsung. Myungho hadn’t known he liked boys until he was about twelve or thirteen, a crush on the boy next door that never blossomed to anything. The said boy next door turned out to be Yang Minho, Jaeyun’s boyfriend, and Minho does not know that he was essentially Myungho’s bisexual awakening. Really, the most anyone knows about that is there was once a cute boy he lost touch with in elementary school.
Running into Minho when the younger started university had been fairly awkward, especially since he had already hit it off with Minho’s then-crush, Jaeyun. Myungho prefers not to speak of it.
But anyway. The beginning.
It started with one winter morning when he woke up with a bad cold and stole his mother’s jacket to keep himself warm. Both his parents were at work at the time and as an only child, he was left alone at home, deemed old enough to take care of himself at fourteen. By then, he had already realized fully that he liked boys just as much as he liked girls, even if he tended to lean toward girls more. It was an integral part of him he never figured out how to cut out of him, and by the time he was seventeen, he was glad he never did.
His mother had two different coats she jackets in the winter, and she had taken one of them to work. After forcing himself to shower and wrapping himself up securely in the jacket—feet socked, to be safe—he set about making himself some warm tea, the way his mother taught him to do.
It was as he was filling up the water kettle that he caught sight of his reflection in the window.
He had looked at the shape of his jaw beginning to define itself sharply, the first hints of facial hair beginning to grow in, all so very masculine, and he thought, I don’t want to look like this.
He had shoved the thought away, and acted like it never happened. The day carried on as normal, except he got worse as the day went by, spiraling into a full-blown fever that had his parents scolding him for not informing them sooner when they came home and found him curled up on the couch, asleep, his phone hanging loosely in his grasp.
When he woke up in the middle of the night, the medicine finally making the ache in his bones subside a bit, he panicked. Because his parents knew the password to his phone and Myungho, in all his stupidity, had been reading about transgender people when the fever had taken over and sent him to sleep. Luckily, when he checked his screentime usage, it showed that they hadn’t been looking, but the very real terror of possibly being found out stayed with him for years.
He never bothered to get to know more about transgender people than he needed to after that. He was too scared to, knowing that some part of the definition echoed with him and others didn’t and he didn’t know what the hell it was all supposed to mean.
That was the same year he began to wonder if bisexual was really the label for him—the same year he began to wonder if he was really a boy at all.
-
The thing about being hopelessly in love is that you never know what you’re willing to do for the person you love until you’re actually about to do it. Another thing about loving someone so bad that it consumes you whole is that you always feel safe with them.
And yet, Myungho can’t bring himself to tell Yoonsung about why he questions his sexuality, the same way he can’t bring himself to voice out loud why he’s been sticking to an unfitting label for years.
He’s pretty sure that nobody knows.
“Yoonsung knows about my...sexuality struggles,” Myungho tells Jaeyun when they meet up during the only free period that they both share—at nine in the morning on that specific Thursday. The two of them met through the university’s student-run dance club, and have been inseparable since. Probably because their gaydars sniffed each other out quickly enough and they bonded easily.
Jaeyun looks at him, eyebrows raised. “You have sexuality struggles?” he asks, genuinely curious and not judging.
Myungho shrugs, restless. He fiddles with the strap of his bag. “I guess.” He doesn’t know why he said it out loud, but hiding things from Jaeyun feels wrong when they’re best friends, especially when Yoonsung figured it out so easily.
Jaeyun hadn’t been there at Minho’s dorm last night when his boyfriend had convinced Yoonsung to bring Myungho along as well as two first-years from the dance club.
The night before, Jaeyun had been absent due to having too many assignments to catch up on . So, when Kyungmin had just asked how he and Minho and Yoonsung all knew they weren’t straight, Myungho had sort of rambled where Yoonsung and Minho’s answers had been vague and not so helpful. The other first-year, Haemin, hadn’t really interjected to say anything—Myungho thinks he’s in that denial phase—but had listened non-judgmentally.
It makes sense that Yoonsung had figured it out, and now he wonders if Minho knows, as well as he knows Myungho, not to mention Kyungmin and Haemin. He feels bad that Jaeyun is essentially left out of the loop. Even if he knows he doesn’t have to talk about it when he feels so unsure—lost. He wants to, anyway.
“You guess?” Jaeyun repeats, tilting his head quizzically. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s not much of a big deal,” Myungho replies, shifting in his seat—the sun shines down merrily on the bench they are sitting on, just outside the arts building, making him sweat more than usual—and pretending to not feel Jaeyun’s watchful gaze. “Just. Wondering if bi is really the label for me.”
“Yeah?” Jaeyun doesn’t prod, only invites him to talk more.
Except Myungho doesn’t know what else to say, except, “I’m just, wondering if I’m attracted to other genders, too,” he says, hoping his best friend isn’t transphobic or something. “Just…thinking.”
“You’re not sure?” No judgment. He breathes a little easier.
“Yeah.”
“Because of Yoonsungie?”
That, he shakes his head at. “I’ve always wondered. Since I was, I don’t know. Fifteen? Yoonsung didn’t change anything.” Except that I worry he might think I don’t love him enough, even when he’s told me he doesn’t.
“You’ve wondered for a long time, then,” Jaeyun says. Myungho hums in response. “Was the crop top part of that, then? The night you guys got together?”
“Crop top?” Myungho’s head snaps to Jaeyun, knowing too well that Jaeyun knows that he knows. He tries to hide it anyway. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry if I’m wrong,” Jaeyun says, “but your sexuality struggles. It’s related to your struggles with your own gender identity, isn’t it?”
His breath catches in his throat. Blood roars in his ears. “I—I don’t know what—”
“Hey.” Jaeyun reaches across the table to grasp his hand tightly. “I’m right, aren’t I? It’s okay. I would never think of you any differently. You can tell me these things, I promise.”
“You’re not disgusted,” it’s a statement. He searches his best friend’s face, relieved to find only love and comfort and support. “Jaeyun-ah, it’s been—so long—and I can’t even breathe easily knowing I’m like this, and I—I can’t sleep at night sometimes—”
“Hyung, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Jaeyun stands up and walks around the bench table to sit next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist. Myungho inhales shakily, fighting back the onslaught of tears. He drops his head onto Jaeyun’s shoulder, counting to ten in his head, breathing in rhythm.
Just like Jaeyun taught him when he first admitted to being bisexual (with the big question mark in his head), and he had a little bit of a panic attack, and then Jaeyun cried a little too because he’s bi, too, and it was sort of a little bi people solidarity crying fest after he helped Myungho calm down.
“Thanks,” Myungho finally says when he has caught his breath, and he realizes they’re probably going to be late for class if they keep talking like this, but he also doesn’t care right now. “I’ve never told anyone. Not ever. So, for you to listen like this—how did you know?”
“It’d be shitty if I didn’t listen,” Jaeyun says. “When I thought about it, it made sense. I’m friends with a few trans people, actually, and some of the stuff you said sort of connected with what they told me. Besides, you’re my best friend. What are best friends for if not to notice when one is struggling?”
“Cheesy dumbass,” he says fondly. “To answer the crop top question. Yes. I think so?”
“You think?” Jaeyun gives him a knowing smile. Myungho frowns, caught. “Experimenting with gender expression isn’t what you were trying to do?”
“Well—” he reaches up to touch his hair, recently grown out longer than he had it for all his life.
Not long enough to tie, but long. Another way he had tried to experiment, another way he tried to figure out what he wanted to be, what he is. It worked, mostly. If anything, Myungho decided from this that he doesn’t want hair any longer than this—this length is already difficult to manage as a dancer and he isn’t built for keeping up with untangling knots every day.
But he likes the way this length looks on him. It makes him feel more—at ease. Like he sees some semblance of who he wants to be in the mirror. After a year of keeping the same length, he’s fine with it.
“Yes, but I also wanted to impress Yoonsung. I don’t know,” he stops messing with it; Yoonsung had minimally styled it because they had time to meet up this morning and he doesn’t want to mess with it any more than he already has. “It felt like an excuse to not be so strict about everything.”
“Everything meaning?”
“You know how this whole, gender thing, is sort of. Taboo in Korea,” he says. Jaeyun nods. “So. I’ve known for a long time that I’m not cisgender, and it’s. Scared me badly. Made me think about things that I…wanted to do, but shouldn’t.”
He lets the weight of that sink in, watches the horror and sympathy flit across Jaeyun’s face. “Don’t look at me like that. I won’t, not anymore, I just…I was—am in a bad place at any given time. I just—it’s not always awful, but most of the time, it is.”
“I’m sorry you have to feel that way,” Jaeyun says. “I wish I knew.”
Myungho accepts it with a nod, and it helps to fill the yawning chasm of emptiness inside him. Coping this way and that is the only way he knows to go on. Surrounding himself with people is one of the arguably better ones as opposed to scars lining his skin in places people can’t see. Even as a dancer. Since dating Yoonsung, he’s learned better than to turn to the blade—and honestly, he’s learned better since he met Jaeyun and he had the distinct feeling of the loneliness receding.
“You couldn’t have,” Myungho says instead of saying it’s okay. “I’m better at hiding it than expected.”
“I just want to know if you’ll be okay,” the younger says. “If you are okay.”
“It’s a better phase than usual,” Myungho tells him. A pause, and then, “it’s been exactly a year since I didn’t hurt myself. Yesterday marked the year.”
“Oh?” Jaeyun brightens. “That’s great. Really!”
Myungho laughs. “Did you know that Yoonsung is the only one who ever knew about it?” he says, and it feels good to say out loud. “He caught me with the, um, blade, last year. It was an awful day in all sense of the word. But I’ve never tried to do it since, even if I felt tempted. Because I know it’ll hurt him, too.”
Jaeyun frowns. “Did he—”
“Yoonsung didn’t do anything!” Myungho quickly rises to his boyfriend’s defense. “It’s just. What I’ve been telling myself since then. I’ve only realized recently that I don’t have to do it just to make myself feel something else than…all of this,” he gestures at himself, even if he knows Jaeyun doesn’t entirely get it. He does know that Jaeyun will try to understand, anyway. “That’s all there is to it, I promise. Unhealthy mindsets are a part of this whole thing, you know that.”
“And it’s just up to us to chase it away,” Jaeyun smiles, parroting his words from back then, from their crying fest.
“Yeah, so,” he suddenly doesn’t know what else to say. “That’s the gist of it, really.”
“Can you tell me what it means to you, not being cisgender?” Jaeyun says, slowly phrasing his sentence as he goes along. Myungho swallows. That’s the hard part of talking about it. He has it mostly worked out in his head but saying it out loud?
“I’m not a boy,” he says. Jaeyun nods. “But I’m not…a girl, either.”
“You’re neither?”
“I—I guess,” his mouth is cotton-dry, but he forges on. “I…I don’t hate some things about being a boy, even if I’m not. Like, I wouldn’t always wear dresses or skirts or whatever. Actually, I probably wouldn’t on a normal day, but I’m not…opposed to it. But it doesn’t feel like cross-dressing to me, you know? Because—I’m not a boy, so dressing like a girl would isn’t—but clothes also don’t have a gender, to be fair.” He shrugs, more nonchalant than he feels. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s okay that it’s complicated,” Jaeyun points out. “Not everything has the easy answer.”
“Well, yeah,” he sucks in a breath. Watches the way a girl chases her friend across the grounds, yelling something along the lines of you wouldn’t dare. “It’s just—I know what I’m not, but it’s hard to define what I am. Neither girl nor boy, but there are aspects of it I connect with.” Jaeyun’s eyes are piercing, but not in a bad way. He’s listening carefully. “Sometimes I feel like I want to try heavier makeup than what I already do. Nothing colorful or bright because that’s just not me, but something to make me look less…sharp, I guess.”
“You can ask Yoonsung,” Jaeyun says. “He wouldn’t judge.”
“Yeah, I know,” he lets out a breathless laugh, thinking of his sweet, giggly boyfriend, who would do it, no questions asked. Okay, maybe a few, but nothing judgmental. God, he loves Yoonsung so much. “Do you think I should tell him about…all this?”
“Why not?” Jaeyun replies easily. “He’d be happy to know. And…well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I know he worries a lot about you. At least now he’ll know why you struggle so much.”
“He always did say relationships don’t work without vulnerability,” Myungho confesses. “He’s the one who taught me to be as honest as I am with him. Well—as honest as I’m brave enough to be.”
“And he’s right,” Jaeyun says. “How do you think Minho and I have lasted this entire year? We’ve fought, and badly. But we’re here today because we made sacrifices and we were honest.”
Myungho tilts his head towards the sky. “That’s the great thing about love. If we try, it sustains against almost all odds.”
“You should take up songwriting.”
“Nah, I’d rather stick to dancing.”
“I should’ve asked sooner, but what about your pronouns?” Jaeyun asks. “And honorifics?”
“I…I don’t know,” Myungho says, feeling a little stupid. “Hyung doesn’t feel wrong but I also don’t think I mind any…others. And pronouns…honestly, I’ve never given it that much thought. But I guess I’m okay with using any. For now.”
“What do you prefer?” Jaeyun asks again, because he knows Myungho often downplays his own feelings to keep from causing conflict or confrontation.
“They and them, I guess,” he finally admits. “It feels…right.”
“Okay, then,” Jaeyun stands up and stretches. “Let’s head back to class? Unless you’re too tired to.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” Myungho shakes his—their head. “I’ll manage. University may kick my ass but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Look at you, finally admitting it’s doable,” Jaeyun snorts. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Yah, Moon Jaeyun!” they yell, slapping him on the head lightly. “Show some respect!”
Jaeyun only giggles, and that sets Myungho off, too, and they walk back inside like that, giggling so hard they get side-eyed by the other passing students and teachers—but neither of them find it in themselves to care, not when something has finally gone right.
-
The crop top is yellow and shines under the light. It’s almost obnoxious. Honestly, Myungho wouldn’t have cared about wearing it if Minho hadn’t insisted that Myungho, of all people, could pull it off easily. That is the only reason he’s considering this at all.
“I don’t know,” he chews nervously on his bottom lip. He knows he would look fucking hot in the top, but it feels—too bold. It is not something he would normally wear and part of him—
Part of him wants it so badly. He has never been against showing off more skin than he would in everyday life, but it feels like he’s almost announcing to the world that he is anything but a boy. His girl cousins often wear things like this. He literally can’t think of any boy in his life who would flaunt this much skin, other than Minho, who wears a shorter shirt in an attempt to look cooler to Jaeyun.
“Yoonsung would be starstruck,” Minho says casually. Myungho whirls, eyes wide. “What? Everyone knows you have a crush on him. Have you not noticed the way he watches you so carefully?”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything romantic,” he bites out, the tension under his skin increasing with every second he looks at the crop top tossed over the chair. It comes out snappier than he had meant it to be, but he can’t find the words to apologize. “He could just—I’m probably a cool sunbae to him.”
“Nah, he thinks you’re cute,” Minho dismisses. “He wouldn’t object if you kissed him senseless.”
“Yang Minho.” His nails dig into his palms. “Don’t say things like that!”
Minho frowns. “Are you okay? If you’re that nervous about wearing the top, I won’t make you.”
There, a way out. And Myungho doesn’t want to take it. Logically speaking, he knows it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. He would just be labeled as bolder than everyone had thought—and honestly, given that this is a party thrown specifically to give the freshmen a taste of one, why shouldn’t he be a little bold? And anyway, if Yoonsung doesn’t have any kind of specific reaction, that’s fine.
“I’ll wear it,” he declares, grabbing it and stalking into the bathroom.
Taking off the sleep shirt he has on—studying all day means Myungho will stay in pajamas if it means he’ll be comfortable (and he likes how nondescript his sleepwear can be, genderless, really)—he stops to stare at himself. He doesn’t exactly hate what he sees.
Since starting to dance in high school, he had gained a notable physique. Abs and defined muscles, the dream of pretty much almost any boy in the world. At first, it had been a result of the constant dancing and exercise he threw himself into to forget how much it hurt to breathe, sometimes, and as he grew older, it became a conscious effort to keep his physique.
He doesn’t hate it, because he knows abs and muscles aren’t necessarily connotated to masculinity. Maybe he likes it because it’s one of those supposed masculine things he can take and make it not so. And maybe he resents himself a little bit because like it or not, the first conscious efforts he made was because he wanted to be more ‘manly,’ for lack of better word. To not let anyone, anyone, see how much he hated being who he is.
It works, for the most part. Myungho doesn’t have enough to energy to care about that specifically, not anymore, but the million other things he hates prick at him endlessly.
The crop top is meant to highlight his physique, and he likes it.
He likes it because it can really be interpreted any way one chooses to take it. And for tonight, he’ll let everyone believe he likes showing off—and yes, maybe he sort of does—while he himself will revel a little in the fact that what they see is not quite the truth. All for him to keep to himself.
He wishes he could share this with someone, but being accepting of sexualities is different from being accepting of gender identities. Myungho honestly thinks he might die before he tells someone.
“Get it together, Ji Myungho,” he mutters, tugging the crop top over his head. It fits him like a second skin, and when he twists around a little to inspect how it looks on him, he sees that it mostly covers his skin until above his belly button, and when he raises his arms up a bit, it lifts to show off even more of his abs and part of his chest.
Huh. It’s not so bad.
“So?” he slips back into the room and shows Minho, sprawled on his bed as he texts someone, probably Jaeyun. “Is it okay?”
“Great!” Minho exclaims, throwing himself into an upright position. “Quick, go put on the jeans we bought! I want to see how it looks!”
Myungho does exactly that, and when he reemerges wearing the low-waisted denim jeans Myungho decided to get himself, Minho lets out a wolf-whistle that colors Myungho’s ears red.
“Damn, hyung,” he non-discreetly checks Myungho out. Damn him. “You’re hot. I mean, even more than usual. Yoonsungie won’t stand a chance.”
“You sound like the blondes from Mean Girls,” Myungho mutters, going back inside the bathroom to brush his hair. The new length has made people say he looks good, that he looks great. And he would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the way Yoonsung’s ears reddened a little when he’d said it. Only three months into their friendship and Myungho is beginning to think he might be a little bit more obsessed than he thought with the younger.
No wonder his friends have noticed. Myungho was something of a serial dater in high school, a desperate attempt to stop feeling anything for boys, to convince himself he was a straight, cis boy, and obviously, it hadn’t worked. But it did teach him a thing or two about flirting, about noticing reactions from the one you have your eyes on. It also taught him nothing about keeping his feelings hidden under the facades he throws up.
“Let’s go, then,” he says when he finally manages to get his hands to stop trembling ten minutes later. Minho seems to understand how nervous he is and doesn’t prod him; after all, they’re getting ready half an hour earlier than they should for a reason—to let Myungho get ready first before they stop by Minho’s dorm room so he can get changed quickly.
Minho whoops, getting to his feet. “Let’s go!” he cheers, seeming far too excited.
-
He gets so many compliments that Myungho ends up trying to hide himself behind tall-as-hell Jung Kai, who looks reasonably confused, but they’re acquainted from the dance club, so he allows Myungho to tag along when he goes looking for his boyfriends. After the trio is reunited, Myungho is sort of lost, looking for his friends. Or at least someone he knows fairly well.
His introvert is not having a fun time right now. This crowded house is not a great place to be at.
He runs into the dance captain, Choi Yeonjun, after a while, who is also surprisingly wearing a crop top. They stare at each other for a full five seconds before they burst into laughter. While Myungho’s is light yellow cotton short-sleeve, Yeonjun’s is similar to a sweater-like turtleneck with long sleeves, in a pink color matching the cotton-candy shade of his hair.
Yeonjun always seems to dye his hair different colors and finds different kinds of outfits to go with it.
“Felt a little bold tonight?” Yeonjun asks in that friendly way of his. The two of them aren’t exactly friends, since Myungho is only a third-year while Yeonjun will be graduating at the end of the year and they’ve both had different schedules, but Yeonjun is always nice to everyone.
“I guess,” Myungho replies. “It was my friend Minho’s idea.”
“Ooh, the cute one dating Jaeyun, right?” Yeonjun says, and of course he knows who Minho is, even though Minho is not a dance club member. Yeonjun’s the kind of social butterfly who gets along with everyone and declares himself as a hyung or oppa to someone he met literally five minutes ago. It’s exactly what he did to Myungho. “He was right to suggest it. You look good! Really good! I never expected to see you dress like this, honestly.”
Myungho feels a warm glow light itself within him. “It’s not my style, not usually,” he admits, “but I think I suit the look.”
Yeonjun laughs. “I love the confidence,” he reaches out to ruffle Myungho’s hair. “I’ve got to go find my boyfriend before he bites my head off, but have fun, yeah?”
“Your boyfriend?” Myungho blinks. He could have sworn Yeonjun was whining about being single to his vice-captain, Jung Wooyoung, literally three days ago.
Yeonjun hums. “We got together over the weekend,” he says. “He’s small, but he’s a force to be reckoned with. Do you know Choi Beomgyu? He’s in the same year as you.”
“Uh, no. But congratulations.”
“How about you? Nobody yet?”
Myungho’s face burns. “I’ve…not quite worked up the courage to say anything.”
Yeonjun lifts a brow. “Is the outfit to impress them?”
“Sort of.” Myungho refuses to elaborate any more on that, and Yeonjun lets the topic go.
“See you around, Myungho-yah,” he says as he leaves. “We have afternoon practice tomorrow, don’t forget. And good luck!”
“Thanks, sunbaenim,” he murmurs, watching Yeonjun disappear into the crowd. At this point, it feels like the heavens are sending him a sign to get it together and confess to Yoonsung already. He wonders if it’s unfair to Yoonsung, potentially dating him while he’s this messed up. Then he remembers that Yoonsung doesn’t have to know.
He does wonder though, how long he can keep this charade up.
He decides to go searching for someone instead of just waiting around. Weaving through the crowds of people, he keeps an eye out for anyone he knows, and ends up running into the same person he’s been slightly dreading meeting all night.
“Yoonsungie, hi,” he says breathlessly when he enters the next room and almost slams into the younger. He looks adorable as always, hair curled and dressed in a sleeveless light blue shirt, just enough makeup to make him look more awake than usual. “You look great.”
“Hyung,” Yoonsung’s face is definitely redder than usual as he takes in Myungho’s form, unusually close to him—not because either of them had intended it. “Hi. You look great, too.”
Myungho makes a conscious decision to step back. “Let’s go find Jaeyun and Minho,” he suggests. “I’ve been looking for them all over the place.”
“Oh, I saw them over there,” Yoonsung says, and just like that, the tension between them shatters when he takes Myungho’s arm and guides him along through the crowd.
Myungho thinks that he fits so well next to Yoonsung, with his bright eyes and constant laughter and never-ending good energy. He thinks that Yoonsung is someone he could love.
-
Two hours later, they’re both drunk.
Understatement: Myungho is definitely drunk and Yoonsung only a bit tipsy. As emboldened as he feels tonight, Myungho’s intention, tonight, is apparently to get wasted.
That night with the girl taught him nothing at all, apparently.
Yoonsung stops him before he can get there, though. He wants to say Yoonsung is an angel for that.
Even if he pouts a bit when Yoonsung takes the plastic cup away from him with a stern yet endeared expression. Myungho is so head over heels for him. He’s so cute and pretty.
They find themselves in a game of truth or dare, headed, of course, by Choi Yeonjun. Myungho doesn’t know why he’s surprised when it’s exactly like Yeonjun to start a game of truth or dare at a party like this one.
Yeonjun decides to be nice and says that the penalty for not answering or doing a dare can be a regular shot. Yoonsung protests that Myungho and basically everyone is already drunk enough. Yeonjun says that it’s their problem.
Myungho frowns at Yeonjun, but Yoonsung doesn’t seem to be hurt, so he doesn’t say anything.
All that really happens is that Myungho succeeds in not getting any more drunk than he already is, because he isn’t a particularly adventurous person so he just has to choose truth and be honest. The drinks have gone to his head so even if he admits something particularly embarrassing, he doesn’t quite remember them only a minute later.
Until Yeonjun—also drunk—pops the classic question: kiss the prettiest person in the room.
To Yoonsung.
The younger boy looks mortified, eyes darting between Yeonjun and Jaeyun seated three spaces away from the dance captain, who looks caught between amusement and pity.
“C’mon, Yoonsungie!” Minho hollers. Myungho knows for a fact he isn’t drunk, just being a little shit. “Kiss him! You know you want to!”
“Kiss who?” Yoonsung cries out, but his ears are red and the flush is creeping down his neck. And he looks at Myungho before he looks away, shoulders tensed.
Yeonjun’s eyes narrow, and all Myungho can do is think, oh shit, before the dance captain is opening his mouth to say, “in that case—Myungho-yah! My lovely, beloved hoobae! Why don’t you do it?”
Myungho swipes the cup Yoonsung had been very deliberately keeping away from him and drinks almost all of it in one go. He almost throws up but he keeps it together.
Yeonjun laughs good-naturedly. “Oh, well, that’s fine, then,” he says. He picks Jung Wooyoung next for something Myungho can’t quite recall, because it’s around then that he tugs on Yoonsung’s sleeve and says that he might throw up.
“Oh, no,” Yoonsung’s eyes widen. He jumps to his feet and hurries Myungho out of the room to the nearest bathroom, where the older stumbles inside and where he really does throw up. His muscles convulse as he heaves and he feels like absolute shit.
He cries when he’s done. Because he’s gotten drunk when he isn’t supposed to, because he can’t stop thinking so hard about Yoonsung, because he cares so much and some part of him will always hate himself for being bisexual—or whatever the goddamn word for it is—and because Myungho hates himself so much. For never being able to move past the sense of wrongness. The sense of not being who he wants to be.
For every day since he was fourteen, he has tried. And he has failed.
“Hey, hyung,” Yoonsung says softly, and Myungho shivers at the feel of Yoonsung’s arm around him. “Do you want me to get some water? Maybe that will clear your head.”
“Yes, please,” he whispers, and he sits there, outside the bathroom in a dim hallway while laughter erupts all around him, face buried in his knees as he cries. His hair is a sweaty mess, as are his clothes, and how is he supposed to kiss Yoonsung when he tastes like vomit?
God. Even with all of these messy feelings, he cares deeply for Yoonsung. He wants to tell Yoonsung, if only to get it over with.
“Hyung-ah,” Yoonsung returns a minute later. “I got a carton of juice from the fridge. Yes, unopened. And some water.”
“Can we go outside?” Myungho asks, feeling so incredibly tired. “It’s too hot in here.”
Yoonsung, ever so gentle, leads him out of the house into the night air. The night air is cold, but the heat of the house keeps them warm for a time yet. He passes Myungho the juice and holds onto the cup of water while Myungho curls up against the wall and stares into space as he takes careful sips.
It’s apple juice. His mother has always said that apple juice is good for sickness. He suddenly misses her fiercely—when was the last time he called her? Not for a week, at least. He should call her in the morning. Let her know that he’s…somewhat fine.
“Thank you, Yoonsung,” he finally speaks after emptying it all, the coldness of it helping to clear his head. He’s definitely drunk, still, but he’s thinking clearer now. “I appreciate it.”
“Anything for you,” Yoonsung grins prettily. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Kind of,” Myungho murmurs. “At least I don’t taste like vomit anymore. And the juice is good.” He reaches out a hand for the water. The younger passes it over. “You’re an angel, seriously.”
“You’re one of my best friends,” Yoonsung says. “I know it’s been only three months, but you really, really are. I know you’re not having the best time recently.”
“I haven’t been, for years,” Myungho admits. “I don’t remember the last time I felt…normal. I just—struggle a lot with asking for help, I guess. I tend to work through shit alone or I just suffer.”
“That’s not a good mindset, hyung,” Yoonsung scolds, coming closer to sit right beside him.
“I know. It doesn’t make anything easier.” He takes the water sip by sip. “What would I do without you, Cho Yoonsung? My guardian angel.”
“You’re still out of it, hyung,” Yoonsung says.
“I like you, Yoonsung-ah,” Myungho says. Once upon a time, he would have shied away from being so bold. But tonight, he’s too tired to care. “I really like you a lot. I wanted to be the one you kissed when Yeonjun-sunbae dared you to.”
Yoonsung’s eyes are wide and his face is red and he looks more beautiful than he has ever looked. “I hope you’re being serious, hyung-ah. Really.”
“I am being serious,” Myungho insists, leaning closer. The empty plastic cup falls out of his lap and clatters onto the ground. “I’ve liked you since I met you.”
“I like you too, hyung,” Yoonsung rushes out. “But I don’t think I should kiss you right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re drunk and it would be irresponsible of me,” he says. “I want us to kiss when you’re not…drunk and you were just sick, anyway. You’re not in the right mindset. Honestly, I think you need to go home and sleep.”
Myungho laughs. “You’re so cute, Yoonsung-ah, when you ramble. But promise me a kiss tomorrow?”
“I promise,” Yoonsung says. “Let’s get you back to your room.”
When Myungho accepts his hand to help him up, it’s with a lighter heart and blood singing with the promise of succeeding in fulfilling his more immediate wish.
-
Myungho thinks about that cursed night at the party as they knock on Yoonsung’s dorm room. Unlike Myungho, Yoonsung has a roommate, a fox-eyed boy by the name of Kim Sunoo who usually spends the day bothering his boyfriend in Jaeyun and Minho’s year. Now that Myungho thinks about it, there are a lot of queer people floating around in their orbit.
It’s a nice feeling. A change from the stifling environment of high school.
Yoonsung opens the door and he looks happy to see Myungho. “Come in, I just finished an assignment,” he says happily, tugging Myungho inside by the wrist. The room is colorful and decorated with stickers and posters, true to Yoonsung and Sunoo’s personalities.
It’s Myungho’s favorite room. There’s always a sense of comfort and unabashed energy of I am who I am, infused with the very air they breathe in this space. They think that they would have liked any kind of décor Yoonsung put up, but this is their favorite kind. The kind where their boyfriend and his roommate don’t hide behind what society dictates a boy should be like.
“What brings you over all of a sudden?” Yoonsung asks, clearing up his study table. The small room has two of those squished in, and Myungho often drops by to see both boys bent over their tables in concentration. “Weren’t you supposed to be out with the dance club?”
“Nah, I begged out,” Myungho shakes their head. “Besides, can’t I drop by to see my boyfriend?”
Yoonsung laughs, crossing the room to stand before Myungho. “Ah, hyung, you’re so cheesy,” he says teasingly. Myungho only grins back and leans in to kiss Yoonsung. He tastes like stardust and love personified—which is to say, like the bag of barbecue-flavored chips lying on the table and the cherry lip gloss he wears, so very Yoonsung.
Their cute little boyfriend, sweet and loving and gentle. A fire to him that powered his ambitions, the way he would fight to defend his loved ones until he could no more.
“Okay, this is not going to become a make out session,” Yoonsung laughs as he pulls away.
“What if I want it to be?” Myungho asks.
“I find it hard to believe you would come all the way over here at dusk on a Thursday to make out with me when you know perfectly well that we’re going on a date tomorrow,” Yoonsung replies with a gleam in his eye. Damn. He really does know Myungho too well.
“Well, I did want something,” they admit, and Yoonsung sees the way they tense up, and immediately becomes more serious, tilting his head to listen close. “I…I wanted you to do my makeup.”
Yoonsung blinks. “What? Don’t I already?”
“Something heavier,” Myungho explains, already feeling a bit stupid. “Like, not heavy, just something to make me look…softer?” they trail off, unsure of how to say it. “I want something more feminine,” they finally spit out.
“Oh!” Yoonsung nods. “Of course. I’ll do it…right now?”
“If it’s convenient for you. Yes.”
“Okay, then, sit down,” he directs them to the bed. “Let me get my stuff.”
Myungho watches Yoonsung open his closet and dig out his makeup kit. They know that Yoonsung and Sunoo often experiment on each other—they have the stupidly endearing selfies to prove it.
When Yoonsung comes back to him, he begins working on Myungho with no questions, just doing as Myungho asked. It makes Myungho feel more at ease. Allows them to breathe easier. Yoonsung has a way of making them feel that way so easily.
Silence reigns over them save for Yoonsung’s soft humming. It’s only when they close their eyes to let Yoonsung work more freely that they feel brave enough to say it out loud.
“Yoonsungie, can I tell you something?” they say.
“Yes?”
“I’m not a boy,” they breathe out, and saying it again, it feels like they could simultaneously twirl above the stars and crash to ground, burning up in the sun’s wake. Elation and fear mingling as one. “I’ve never been a boy, Yoonsung-ah.”
Yoonsung’s brush falters for only a second, but he resumes his work with all the gentleness he is known for. He shifts closer to Myungho and twines their ankles together despite the uncomfortable position. “Hm? Tell me more about it.”
“I’m not a boy,” they say, “but I’m not a girl, either. Do you get it?”
“Nonbinary?” Yoonsung asks, and Myungho jolts, but the younger doesn’t scold him for it. “I know my terminology, hyung-ah. I’m a gay man living in the twenty-first century. I make it my responsibility to know these kinds of things.”
“I don’t think nonbinary is quite the right word for it,” Myungho says softly. “But it’s close enough.”
“There’s no rush, is there?” Yoonsung boops his nose affectionately. Myungho falls back a little, eyes opening as a wild sort of giggle erupts from their chest, and Yoonsung pulls them back, laughing as he does. “You’re going to ruin the makeup if you keep laughing!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Myungho struggles to keep their giggles under control. He fails, but Yoonsung goes on working anyway. He has never been fazed by the things Myungho tells him, regardless of whether it makes him sad. He looks so incredibly endeared and loving even this close up. Especially this close.
He accepts this, too, like he had when he had discovered Myungho about to cut a bleeding line into their thigh again, like when Myungho had admitted to wanting to not exist anymore, as part of them.
He had vowed to help Myungho through every step of the way, and now, he vows to stay with Myungho wordlessly in the way he keeps doing Myungho’s makeup, and is unable to resist giving them a kiss on the nose for how much the two of them are giggling.
“Tell me about your pronouns, hyung-ah,” Yoonsung says, beginning to work on Myungho’s nose. “Or should I call you something else?”
“I don’t care about honorifics,” Myungho says honestly. “If I am not any gender, then…I guess stuff from all genders applies to me, you know? Like makeup, the cursed crop top, the hair.”
“True,” Yoonsung muses.
“My pronouns are they/them for now. Just a test drive to see what I like. I think I’m going to stick with for the foreseeable future, though.”
“How long have you known?” Yoonsung asks. “I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you.”
“Since I was fourteen,” they say quietly. “Maybe I always had an inkling, but it wasn’t until then that it really properly registered for me. And I spent almost every day hating myself for it since.”
“But it’s getting better?”
“Sort of,” they say with a wry smile. “Can’t just erase years of that shit with one realization that I’m not an outcast, can I? You know, Jaeyun figured it out easily when I told him about the sexuality conversation that we had the other day. I don’t think I would have told you if he hadn’t picked up on it.”
“Jaeyun hyung does have a sharp eye,” Yoonsung agrees. “Hold still while I do your lips.”
Myungho does, and a minute later, Yoonsung says, “am I allowed to call you my boyfriend, then? Or do I call you, I don’t know, a partner?”
“Partner sounds nice,” Myungho says. “I’m sorry I lied to you this whole time.”
“None of that,” Yoonsung admonishes them. “I know saying things like this is hard. You’re still my Myungho-hyung, my partner who I love. Okay?”
“Okay,” Myungho exhales. “And about the sexuality thing…”
“Oh.” Yoonsung looks like something slapped him. “That’s why! Ooh, makes sense, actually. But what I still said stands!”
“Thank you, Yoonsung,” they say, blinking back the hot tears. Nope, they will not ruin the eye makeup they know looks pretty, because Yoonsung worked on it.
“Always, hyung. Always.”
And because they are Myungho, they have to break the mood by saying, “I want to kiss you so bad.”
Yoonsung eyes them. “I just did your lip gloss.”
“I want to kiss you anyway. I love you so much, Yoonsungie.”
And because Yoonsung is Yoonsung, he obliges. He lets Myungho leans forward to kiss him so fiercely that all the breath is knocked out of his lungs. They keep giggling every time they part, even when their positioning is so that Myungho is basically hovering over Yoonsung.
For every kiss, Yoonsung whispers a promise. A promise to love him no matter who Myungho is, a promise to stay by their side, a promise to protect their, a promise to let Myungho take their time when they want to say things. A promise to stay the same Myungho-and-Yoonsung that they have always been.
Here’s the thing: will Myungho be, okay? In the long run, yes. They have people to support them, now, and Jaeyun is going to start harping about going to therapy soon—and honestly, Myungho thinks that after this long, talking to a professional will do him a world of good.
They will struggle. Because mental health struggles really don’t go away. Myungho knows all too well how easy it is for them to spiral and go back to hating every fiber of their being, denying themself of the love they knows they have. They know, too, that they genuinely need help.
But right now, Yoonsung is kissing them and they won’t crash and burn for a time yet.
Together, Myungho and Yoonsung dance high in the sky, and make a promise to be there for each other, always; to let their love flow forth no matter what the circumstances may be. Myungho has made similar promises like this before. They have had betrayals because he doesn’t fit society’s standard.
But this time, they believe it. Their love burns hotter than the sun and they believe with all their heart that they will never be alone to suffer again.