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“And what milk would you like with that?” Sungchan asked. It was rush hour at the cafe, the sweet spot between morning and lunch where every work from home employee was in need of a reason to stay alive. Sungchan tossed a look to the line that was verging towards the door. The customer in front of him was staring at him with a strange look, but Sungchan was leaning on brushing it off, say it was a casualty of the dude having big eyes that looked AI-generated.
“Oh, um, oat.”
“Iced?” Sungchan kept his gaze on the screen. The customer was practically burning a whole through his forehead.
“Sure.”
Sungchan rattled off the price, watched out of the corner of his eyes as the guy tipped 20%. At least he was nice, Sungchan supposed. He tried not to be bothered as the guy moved down the bar and hunched over his phone with all the energy of a kid being told to stand in a corner. Another customer was already at the counter, rattling off a drink with modifications like this was Starbucks.
Sungchan would say he hated his job, but he didn’t, not really, at least not enough to quit and do something more worthwhile, whatever his parents meant by that. He was just like any other recent college grad that wasn’t tethered to a prior commitment, waiting out a period of life like a hook waiting for a catch.
The cafe was good for passing time. He liked the mindless motion his body could slip into, the autopilot of tapping in orders and pulling shots. He hadn’t made a habit of looking at the time, only jolting to realization when Minhee patted his shoulder to let him know he was due for a break.
Sungchan scurried to the back, where he dug his vape out of his bag, slipping it into his cargos. There was a little alleyway in between the shop and a roped off construction site, where someone had been curteous enough to dump crate boxes. Sungchan had made a routine out of smoking there, the vape already reaching his lips by the time he noticed the guy from earlier lounging on a crate.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to take your spot,” the guy said, shooting up to his feet.
Sungchan shook his head, mumbling out that he could just stay. And as he turned, intending to go smoke in his car, he heard the guy clear his throat. “Hey, I’m not trying to be weird, but uh, I think we matched on Hinge.”
“Oh.” It was Sungchan’s turn to be sheepish. He didn’t want to tell the guy he never remembered anyone he matched with on Hinge. He’d only downloaded it at Shotaro’s insistence, a bout of good-natured heckling that stretched from if only you had any game to i just want my best friend to be happy . Because happiness was found on a dating app, of course.
“What’s your name?”
“Eunseok. And you’re Sungchan?”
“How—”
Eunseok pointed to the tag still pinned on Sungchan’s apron.
“Right.”
Sungchan fumbled with the vape, not knowing what to say. Neither did Eunseok, it seemed, dawdling as if he could not fathom what to say next. Finally, he settled on, “It was nice meeting you.”
“You too,” Sungchan echoed as Eunseok walked off. Then pulled out his phone to delete Hinge.
When Shotaro pulled up in his mom’s CRV, his hair was brown. The last time Sungchan had seen him, which was at the beginning of summer and the tail end of Shotaro’s two weeks home, right before he flew back to New York for an early start to his job, his hair was a violent orange. Sungchan had told him he looked like a toddler got too eager with a crayon and Shotaro had flipped him off, yanking the joint out of his mouth with a good-natured grin.
“You’re taking this barista gig seriously,” was the first thing Shotaro said when Sungchan slid into the passenger seat.
“What?”
“The beanie. It’s not even below 60 yet.”
Sungchan rolled his eyes, smushing down the top of his hat. “I think consulting’s made you a worser person.”
“This is only the beginning,” Shotaro intoned as he backed out of Sungchan’s driveway, careful to not knock over the potted freesias his parents had just hauled home the other day. “There’s a line in our contract that says we’re compensated with stock options for every time we make the world a more miserable place to be in.”
Despite that, Shotaro paid for their meal at the drive-thru and shooed off Sungchan’s offer to Venmo. They used the arm rest as a makeshift table in the parking lot, flicking at each other’s fingers in the box of curly fries. It was the same every time they met, aimless, shooting the shit in random plazas. If it could have be a profession, Sungchan was a veteran. Though no one ever got paid for that kind of banal joy.
“You should just come to New York,” Shotaro said, biting down on his straw. “I miss you.”
The Pepsi Sungchan was gulping down stung at his throat. “With what job?”
“Sleep on my couch. It'll be cozy.”
“Pretty sure your roommate would mind.”
“Jaemin is a bit of an ass but he’s nice as long as you vacuum.”
“So a glorified housekeeper? No thank you.”
Shotaro opened his mouth, then shut it. He looked guilty, and Sungchan could have predicted what he would have said, like autofill. It was worst, that he didn’t say it to avoid hurting Sungchan’s feelings. Fuck consultants, for real.
“I’ll visit.” Sungchan willed the underwater sensation in his chest away as Shotaro lit up in a smile. “Promise.”
The worst part about being friends with Shotaro is well. Sungchan’s pretty sure he’s been into him since he discovered he could be into guys, and it didn’t help that Shotaro was the guy who sparked this realization. He was also the first person Sungchan ever came out to, over Facetime in freshman year of college, both of them drunk and pixelated on opposite coasts.
“You’re actually so dramatic even if you try not to be,” he remembered Shotaro saying, “but I guess that’s what’s cute about you.” Or he could have hallucinated that. Probably.
Maybe the actual problem was that in the past four years, and the four before that, Sungchan’s noticed that Shotaro only ever dated women. And slept with women. And found women sexually and romantically attractive. Which left Sungchan with the 99.9% surety that it would have never worked out anyways. He wasn’t the type to indulge in the 0.1%.
But last spring, when Shotaro had put an end to his year-long relationship with Aeri, and Sungchan was into casual daydrinking (as a coping mechanism for his impending senior thesis and overall dread of life), there was a moment where he considered the 0.1%.
Shotaro had come to visit, a weekend trip courtesy of his semester wrapping up weeks before Sungchan’s. Sungchan had been good at keeping himself in check. He gave Shotaro his bed because there was no way both of them would fit without it getting awkward. He didn’t bat an eye when Shotaro came out of the shower in with Sungchan’s towel wrapped around his waist, or when he came back from class to Shotaro lying in bed with his hoodie, bemoaning the beach town chill.
It was just a moment. Shotaro had insisted on going to the beach, in part because he knew Sungchan never went despite it being close. They rode electric scooters to the bluffs and took swigs from bottles of orange juice half-filled with vodka. In the water, they yanked at each other’s limbs and started races that Sungchan always won. When they tired, they laid on one of Sungchan’s ragged towels, sand baking into their calves as they waited for the sun to dry off their shorts.
And Shotaro was so close.
Just an inch away, the mesh of his shorts brushing up against Sungchan’s thigh. Shotaro had his glasses on, ridiculous wrap arounds that he’d spent way too much money on for how ugly they were, but he looked handsome, still. There was a patchy block of sunscreen on Shotaro’s chest, right under his tattoo. And there was a part of Sungchan, far more than that 0.1%, that thought it was fucked up how the only thing he’d ever really wanted in life was a non-negotiable and all he could do to make everyone happy was grasp at sensible, second-best options.
Then the moment passed. Sungchan was always too late. 99.9%.
“Do you think it’s like, a public cry for help?” Hanbin asked as he wiped down the espresso machine. They had just closed for the day, Hanbin flashing an apologetic smile at a couple through the glass door as he flipped the sign.
“Maybe he’s like a performance artist. Or some kind of method actor?” Minhee mused. He was clearing the display shelf of leftover pastries, already calling dibs. It was public knowledge that Minhee didn’t eat any of them himself, instead subsidizing his roommate’s sweet tooth in a pitiful puppy love gesture.
Sungchan rolled his eyes. “He’s just a freak. Who the hell schedules multiple dates back to back at the same coffee shop?” The day’s topic of conversation: a customer who hogged a back table for several hours to field three first dates. None of them seemed successful, if the women’s expressions were anything to go by.
“He also had a remote work meeting in between,” Minhee shrugged. “Multi-tasker.”
Hanbin shook his head, folding his rag into a neat square and setting it on the counter. He’d been promoted to manager just a month after Sungchan started, after their old manager quit to do soul searching on a farm in Northern Ireland. Hanbin was a cool manager — he made sure everyone took their breaks on time and let people switch out their shifts with 48 hour notices, even if Sungchan knew he regularly had nervous breakdowns staring at the Excel sheets.
“This city is insufferable,” Hanbin said, with the fondness someone can only muster when they’ve lived somewhere their entire life. “Speaking of dates—”
Sungchan ignored Hanbin’s gaze and stubbornly wiggled the mop against a sticky stain. “No.”
“ Come on . I think you guys could be really cute together.” Ever since Sungchan had made the mistake of disclosing his uneventful love life to Hanbin at a party, Hanbin had been trying to set Sungchan up with randos from his extensive network of dancers and dancer-adjacents. Sungchan had agreed to one, a banal movie and dinner with Jeonghyun Lee, who was objectively handsome but too insistent on getting a backlit sunset shot for his 50k Instagram followers. Sungchan wasn’t keen on being anyone’s photographer boyfriend.
“Hey, sometimes being single is the move,” Minhee pointed out. Sungchan sent him an appreciative nod, grateful for the buffer Minhee provided on these shifts, even if he knew Minhee wanted desperately to be in a relationship himself.
Hanbin huffed as he shuffled around cartons of milk in the below counter fridge. Sungchan knew Hanbin was coming from a good place, but he didn’t know how to break it to Hanbin that he had a rose-tinted vision of romance. Not everyone had a perfect domestic relationship with a PhD student who picked them up from work in their co-owned hybrid car — it definitely got to Hanbin’s head.
Just as Sungchan bent over to pick up a stray wrapper from the floor, he heard a knock on the storefront window.
“Who’s that?” Minhee asked.
Sungchan stood and came to eye level with. Eunseok? Eunseok, who pointed at the Closed sign like he had trouble deciphering what that meant.
“Give me a sec,” Sungchan muttered, excusing himself. Eunseok doubled back as Sungchan pushed through the door.
“You’re closed?” was the first thing Eunseok said.
Sungchan casted a cursory glance at the sign. “It sure does say that.”
He looked back over at his shoulder, to Minhee and Hanbin huddled together at the counter, anticipating first row to a spectacle. Eunseok followed his gaze, but snapped to attention as Sungchan cleared his throat.
“Can I help you with anything? Other than getting a coffee.”
“Oh yeah,” Eunseok blinked, suddenly reminded of his task at hand. “Would you want to go on a date some time?”
He delivered the question with nonchalance, like he was asking Sungchan where the bathroom was. Hands in his pockets and all. Sungchan couldn’t help it – he scanned Eunseok’s face, benign and good-looking in a way that feel contrived, and dropped down to his plain gray sweatshirt, sensible khaki pants. It was fascinating to realize how insane people could just wear Uniqlo basics and pass seamlessly through everyday life.
“And if I said no?”
Eunseok grimaced. With realization or self-consciousness, Sungchan couldn’t tell. “I would just accept it and never come here for coffee again.”
“So why risk it?”
“I thought I would regret it if I didn’t try,” Eunseok cocked his head. “After seeing you last time and blowing it.”
Being single had been the move for Sungchan ever since a series of nothing much in college. But Sungchan would be lying if he said he didn’t occasionally lie in bed wishing someone (who was not Shotaro) would come and hold him. He’d been succumbing to that thought more and more recently, since Shotaro had come back. Getting over someone by getting under someone else.
Before the silence could drag any longer, Sungchan fished his phone out of his back pocket and handed it to Eunseok. They decided on dinner, Saturday, 7 p.m.
The day before Sungchan’s date with Eunseok, Friday, Shotaro announced to Sungchan over text that he was coming over, five minutes before he came over. Sungchan didn’t read it because he was sleeping, exhaustion knocking him out as soon as he got home from the opening shift. When Shotaro arrived, he flopped his entire body weight on Sungchan, who woke up wondering if his recurring nightmare of being suffocated to death by a mountain-sized Squishmallow had finally come true.
“Get off,” Sungchan croaked. His sleep-addled brain thought to rest his arms on Shotaro’s back. He kept them at his side.
“Let’s go to a cafe,” Shotaro said, not getting off.
“I just got home from one,” Sungchan groaned, turning over. It wasn’t long before Shotaro wielded surprising strength to pull Sungchan out of bed and into the passenger seat of his car. Sungcha sighed as they cut through the suburban streets, hitting the highway. He flicked through Shotaro’s playlists and put on something labeled “SUMMER!”. The clouds were gray, threatening rain.
“This place is cute,” declared Shotaro with approval when they arrived. Sungchan didn’t have to ask to surmise that he probably found the place off some TikTok or his fervent Instagram scrolling, what with the storefront being occupied by a soft opening sign. Having free access to drinks at his cafe made Sungchan squeamish at the thought of having to pay for coffee, so he ordered the cheapest toast off the menu and let Shotaro pay for their food. Before Shotaro could protest, Sungchan took out his phone and sent him a payment.
“But I’m stacking up credit card points anyways,” Shotaro injected. Sungchan knew if he let him, Shotaro would happily pay for all of Sungchan’s meals when they hung out. That was just how Shotaro grew up, open generosity, open wallet.
When their order came out, Sungchan got up to grab the tray. The girl behind the counter looked familiar. He glanced at her face tucked under the cap, and realized she went to their high school. Was it calculus that they shared? She must have felt his glance. Something like recognition flashed in her eyes, before she turned back to the task of assembling a latte. Sungchan stiffened, enacting the protocol of ignoring everyone he recognized from school unless they were friends.
“Why do you look like that?” Shotaro asked when he reached the table.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re constipated.”
Sungchan glared as he slid into his seat. He leaned forward, furtive. “Isn’t that Minjeong?”
Shotaro blinked in the direction of the counter. “Oh yeah, I think so. Huh. Thought she went to art school in like, Georgia.”
“Well, she probably just decided to come back after graduation.” Sungchan didn’t know why he felt so defensive. He was the one who brought it up.
If Shotaro noticed Sungchan’s agitation, he didn’t let on. He was busy tilting the tray to get a good picture, something he took from far away, but zoomed in. As always, Sungchan found it obnoxious, but still reposted it when Shotaro tagged him in his story. These were the only times he ever posted anything.
Just as he was about to close his phone, a banner popped up. A link from Eunseok, followed by a text:
this place?
Earlier in the day, Eunseok had texted Sungchan asking if he had any dietary restrictions. It was funny to Sungchan, how all of Eunseok’s texts were about the logistics of their date. No other attempts at flirting.
no restrictions , Sungchan shot back amid his shift.
any preferences? or things you don’t want?
always down for sushi . It was also strange to Sungchan, how he didn’t find this back and forth tedious. He usually did, preferring to hash out logistics in one go. Maybe it was the lack of much happening in his life lately.
“Who are you texting? Is he prettier than me?”
Sungchan looked up from his phone to Shotaro preening, trying to catch a glimpse of Sungchan’s screen over the lip of his cup. “Don’t make me hurt your feelings,” Sungchan quipped back. He ignored the hiccup in his chest.
Shotaro narrowed his eyes and motioned grabby hands at Sungchan’s phone, but made no real attempts at it. Sungchan tapped on the link Eunseok sent, loading a review page of a sushi restaurant. The menu seemed fine.
am i not worth an omakase course , Sungchan sent back. He held back a smile as a bubble of dots popped up on the screen, then went blank. Cute. He decided to toss Eunseok a line.
kidding . seems good
you’re kind of mean, was what Eunseok sent back, along with a thumbs up on Sungchan’s message.
you seem to like me though?
More dots, appearing, disappearing. Then just, yeah.
Sungchan couldn’t help himself; he laughed. And maybe it was this that prompted him to blurt out, “So I’m going on a date with this guy from Hinge. Well he asked me out at the cafe but. He’s from Hinge.”
Shotaro’s eyes widened comically as he set down his latte. “Oh my god. Finally.”
Sungchan winced. “Why did that sound so condescending?”
He wasn’t prepared for Shotaro to hop out of his seat and over to Sungchan’s side of the booth, ambushing him in a hug. Sungchan resisted the urge to accept it.
“What the hell,” he sputtered.
“My baby is all grown. Getting dates on his own,” Shotaro sniffed. He patted Sungchan’s head and smiled as Sungchan levelled him with a death glare.
“Asshole,” was all Sungchan could muster back, ignoring the vague sting in his chest.
Sungchan had visited Shotaro, once. The summer before his third year of college, Sungchan spent some of the money he saved from working at the campus bookstore on a week-long trip to New York. Shotaro was moving into his new place; Sungchan figured he could help out and finally get a glimpse of Shotaro’s world. Two birds, one stone. He slept on the minty IKEA sofa Shotaro’s parents had ordered for the place, helping Shotaro build his bed and collect furniture from Facebook marketplace posts. As repayment, Shotaro bought all his meals and snuck Sungchan into consulting events with expensive catering. When the apartment was all set up and scrubbed down to Jaemin’s liking (“I have dust allergies,” Jaemin had pointedly sniffed), they threw a housewarming party.
It was Sungchan’s first time meeting Shotaro’s friends, with the exception of Jaemin who Shotaro had lived with since freshman year. He didn’t know what he expected — they were just like the people at his own university, if not a bit more privy to name-dropping and shopping at sample sales. In a group by the kitchen bartop, Sungchan nodded along as some guy pitched his idea for a hallucinogenic matcha brand that could also have probiotic benefits.
“Oh yeah, I’d totally invest in that,” a voice added. Sungchan looked to the side, catching the owner’s smirk. “I mean, the intersection of gut health and cannabis? Venture capitalists would eat that up.”
The ironic delivery was lost on the matcha enthusiast, who pulled out his phone to jot down the quote. Sungchan met the eye of his neighbor and they shared a wry smile.
“I’m Wonbin,” he introduced himself. He had a very symmetrical face, wrangled under a trucker hat. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”
A minute into the conversation, Sungchan realized why the name sounded familiar. Wonbin was Shotaro’s little from the business frat — Shotaro had mentioned him before, in passing texts and Instagram stories. And the more Sungchan spoke to him, the more he realized their shared kinship:
“I mean, I don’t think I could have asked for a better big,” Wonbin replied with surprising sincerity, after Sungchan had asked him how he felt about being under Shotaro’s wings. “Most people in the frat are chill, but he’s just so. Generous? Or maybe open is a better word. It’s hard not to like him.”
Wonbin nodded towards the corner of the room. Sungchan followed his gaze, to where Shotaro was holding audience with a small crowd. Aeri had secured a plastic tiara on top of his head, and friends were clamoring to take pictures of his wide-eyed pout over a row of empty alcohol handles.
“Too bad he’s straight,” Wonbin muttered.
Sungchan’s head swivelled so fast he almost gave himself a whiplash. But Wonbin was already slipping his hand into his pocket and coming away with a vape pen.
“Balcony? I don’t usually let other people hit it. But since you’re Shotaro's hometown friend...”
They ended up shoulder to shoulder on the fire escape, passing the pen back and forth. Their conversation drifted from musing of the traffic below to discussion of east and west coast cultural differences. Sungchan was still thinking about Wonbin’s passing comment when he noticed the look Wonbin was levelling at his lips.
A siren whined as Wonbin licked into Sungchan’s mouth.
The next day at brunch, Shotaro delivered his blessings while stabbing into a poached egg. “I wouldn’t approve of any one else going for my little but since it’s you, I’ll allow it. Treat him well.”
Sungchan had just rolled his eyes and asked Shotaro to hand him the ketchup. He didn’t bother to tell him it was one time deal. Nor about the question Wonbin posed after they had sex in Wonbin’s dorm bed, staring up at the ceiling with weary contentment.
“You like him too, don’t you?”
In high school, when it came time to apply for colleges, Sungchan did what everyone else did: he applied to fifteen schools, five of which he liked, five of which he wasn’t opposed to going to, and five that were in proximity to cool things. Safeties and targets and reaches, all of that too. In the end, he tacked on a sixteenth: Shotaro’s dream school.
He knew from the moment he submitted the application that he wouldn’t get in. He’d gotten solid grades, but never found the will to throw himself into extracurriculars the way Shotaro was able to without expending much energy. On a supplementary response that asked his reasons for applying to said school, he was tempted to tell the truth.
Because I want to go where Shotaro goes.
He ended up regurgitating some information about career opportunities and courses he found on the website. It sounded generic, too hopeful. He didn’t even tell Shotaro he applied.
Their lists had other overlaps, but Sungchan was sure none of that would matter. And he was right — Shotaro confirmed his acceptance the day he got into his first pick. Sungchan was right there to wrap him in a hug, swallowing the taste of a reality he had already anticipated.
For the next few months, Sungchan would anxiously stare at his inbox waiting for the rejection email to hit, until it finally did. He deleted it after reading and submitted a confirmation to a university he wasn’t opposed to attending. In the grand scheme of things, he supposed, everything worked out as intended.
“So we’re still good for sushi right?” was the first thing Eunseok said when he met Sungchan outside the restaurant. He’d offered to pick him up, but Sungchan would rather him not know about where he lived on the first date. He’d been falling asleep to true crime podcasts these days.
“No, I’ve suddenly developed a life threatening allergy to raw fish,” Sungchan deadpanned.
Eunseok laughed, tugging at the collar of his short sleeve button down. He held the restaurant door open for Sungchan. Inside, the host ushered them to a far corner, where a table was already set up. Sungchan slipped into his seat, eyes darting around the restaurant to take in the dark limewash paint, the severe atmosphere.
“Cozy,” Sungchan remarked.
Eunseok nodded. “It’s my first time here. The decor feels like…a brutalist interpretation of a womb?”
Sungchan snorted. “Are you usually so verbose?”
“Only when I’m nervous,” Eunseok said. “Which might be often.”
After the food came out, Sungchan had kept his chopstick untouched, a habit ingrained from Shotaro’s insistence of camera eats first. But Eunseok had already picked up his chopsticks and reached for a roll with little hesitation. For a second, Sungchan wondered if it was strange to take a picture of food on a date, and decided it probably was.
Eunseok was the epitome of everything Sungchan had routinely scoffed at as a teenager: your average tech bro who grew up a few cities away from Sungchan, raised on new money and a one-track career trajectory, delivered into a cushy job straight out of school through purposeful network nodes. But he was also strangely compelling, unpretentious, or maybe just tactful enough to restrain himself. He didn’t ask Sungchan where he went to college. He didn’t ask if being a barista was what he’s really passionate about, or if he had some other interest he was supposed to be chasing in the moonlight. Instead, he asked Sungchan about the type of music he listened to (Spotify-curated R&B playlists), what he liked to do after work (mostly lie down, but sometimes cycling if he could bother getting his bike out of the shed), his blood type (A).
“What, are you trying to take my organs?”
Eunseok prodded at the artfully assembled nigiri on his plate, a tower of salmon and roe that had no way of being eaten with grace. “Was just trying to come up with something other than an MBTI question. But now that I know we’re the same blood type, that’s tempting.”
They finished dinner and, at Eunseok’s suggestion, strolled to a bar down the block. Sungchan caught himself searching for a reason to dislike the date and realized he couldn’t come up with any. It unsettled him, how well everything was going, how dangerously easy it was to slip into the motions of a relationship if only he would try.
Was Sungchan someone who put out on the first date? He could be, was a person who entertained hook-ups in college, but none of his dates had ever amounted to an invitation for breakfast the next day, much less an invitation to an apartment. After excusing himself to the bathroom, he stared at the mirror and prodded at an unruly patch of hair he’d failed to tease volume into. Then he opened his phone to a series of texts from Shotaro.
what are u doing…..
oh wait
omg i forgot ur date
HOW IS IT GOINGGG wait no focus on the date and tell me later ;)
Sungchan could be a person who put out on the first date. Maybe Sungchan should be a person who puts out on the first date, just this once. He walked back to his seat, where Eunseok was waiting with an empty glass, a question in the form of a smile.
“It’s getting late,” Sungchan started, hating himself all the way down.
All the windows were dark when Sungchan pulled up to Shotaro’s house, save for the rightmost window on the second-story. Shotaro’s room. Sungchan hesitated before getting out of the car, then hesitated again as he walked up the door steps. He didn’t have a chance to second-guess ringing the bell; the door was already swinging open, Shotaro squinting at him in cutoff sweats and no shirt.
“I heard you from upstairs. What happened to your date?”
“Ended early,” Sungchan said, sliding past Shotaro and toeing off his shoes.
“Oh shit, was it bad? Was he an asshole?”
“He was nice.”
“And?”
“It was fine.” Sungchan watched as Shotaro flicked on light, casting a warm glow around the cavernous living room populated by a large sectional sofa, a glass coffee table strewn with what looked the contents of Shotaro’s carry on and a half-packed bowl. “Taking a lot a liberty with your parents being away.”
Shotaro grinned. “So what, you’re telling on me?”
They ended up on the couch, packing the other half of the bowl as they waited for delivery. The TV hummed with a Netflix series they both pretended to pay attention to. Shotaro smoked first, then laughed when Sungchan took a hit and began coughing.
“Baby,” Shotaro teased, running off to the kitchen. He came back with a glass water and patted Sungchan’s back as he drank it. Sungchan drained half the glass, bothered by the sense that he was already taking more than was allowed.
“Not a baby. I’m taller than you, for starters.”
It was not what he wanted to say, Sungchan realized, but what even was it that he wanted to say? His tongue sat in his mouth like a paperweight. Shotaro plopped onto the floor next to Sungchan, looking unimpressed. He’d gotten a new tattoo right on his rib, a pile of stars caged in an hourglass, trickling from one compartment to another. It had been a flash piece from the same artist who had done the small script on his chest. He’d texted Sungchan a picture five minutes before arriving at the studio, an urgent wait but does this look okay because it’s about to be on my body permanently , as if he hadn’t already made the appointment, as if Sungchan telling him no would have changed anything.
Sungchan reached out before his brain could catch up. His fingers landed on the tattoo, and he watched with delayed wonder as Shotaro jolted.
“What?” Shotaro asked, expecting a joke.
What was the punchline, Sungchan wondered. Would it be when he leaned forward? When doorbell rang, when Shotaro’s phone lit up with the notification that their food had arrived? When Sungchan finally stood in front a moment he wouldn’t be able to return from and still decided to move forward?
It was like a bad knock-knock joke, he decided.
Commit. Commit what? A silence that reverbed until the crowd went home.