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Sometimes, Minho looks at Jisung and sees the moon. He feels his insides pulled into Jisung’s orbit like the tides. When Jisung’s mood waxes and wanes, so does his own.
There’s a helplessness to it. He goes to bed with Jisung’s face on his mind and wakes up with Jisung’s name on his fingers, typing out a text to send to him. He can’t control the vast space Jisung has taken up in his life, wouldn’t change it even if he could. Because he loves Jisung. He knows this with the same surety he has in the stars in the sky, the moon at night. He knows, he knows, he knows, with every fiber of his being.
He can’t ever stop loving Han Jisung.
–
“Is anyone sitting here?”
Famous last words, Minho thinks to himself often when he replays their first meeting in his head. Jisung had come into the lecture hall late, Minho not knowing his name was Jisung then, and saw that the seat next to Minho’s was empty. He tousled his hair and smiled at Minho shyly before asking to sit down.
Minho should’ve known then. He should’ve known that a cute boy’s smile was all it took to wrestle his heart into something soft, something palpable. That as soon as Jisung sat down and took out a pikachu-themed pencil case, Minho’s heart was no longer his own.
–
Jisung is wearing glasses today. They’re circular and wire-rimmed and everything Minho loves. Or maybe he just loves everything about Jisung.
They’re sitting at a desk in the library, and Minho can’t focus on anything but those glasses. He erases the chicken scratch his words have become, trying his best to reread the paper about empathy on his laptop and take real, legible notes on it. He finally gets to the methods section when a noise next to him brings him out of focus.
He looks at Jisung quickly (too quickly) and sees him dozing off on top of his notebook, his pencils rolling to the ground. Minho sighs, picks up the pencils. He sets them next to Jisung’s head, taking the opportunity to stare.
Jisung really is beautiful, with or without the glasses. He has so much hair, and it’s always fluffy from being blow-dried in the morning. His cheeks look so soft and plush, like he hasn’t lost any of the baby fat Minho did when he graduated from high school. His eyelashes are long and wispy, and when he blinks at Minho, Minho can’t help but say yes to anything and everything.
He’s perfect.
Minho can’t even bring himself to look away when he notices Jisung slowly blink awake. “Min?” Jisung asks, voice groggy.
“Yeah, Jiji?”
Jisung smiles something small, almost shy. “Why are you staring at me? Were you watching me while I was sleeping?”
Minho inhales. He knows his love is obvious, but he’s still never said anything concrete yet. Everytime Jisung catches on, he remembers that Jisung doesn’t exactly know. Like when he invites someone to his apartment and they ask about his new rug – it’s not new. He’s had it for three months now. But of course, it’s not new to Minho. He lives with it everyday.
“You look really pretty when you sleep, did you know that?” Minho smiles when he sees Jisung turn his face away at the compliment.
Minho thinks he doesn’t care if Jisung knows or not. He just needs Jisung to know how perfect he is.
“Wake me up when you want to leave, Mr. Sweettalker,” Jisung says to the space in front of him, facing away from Minho.
–
After that first day, Jisung sat next to Minho every class. Sometimes, they would look at each other and try to hide their laughs whenever the professor pronounced one of the Korean words wrong. It was Intro to Korean History – Minho still thinks they should get a free pass for laughing at their professor, especially when Jisung says he feels bad for doing it.
They ate lunch together for the first time when their professor let them out early one day.
Usually, Minho rushed straight to his developmental psychology class, packing his things up quickly without sparing a glance behind. Now, he had ninety minutes to kill. He’s taking his time putting away his pencils, closing his notebook, about to sling his backpack on when he feels a light tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Jisung look at him with a bit of nervousness.
“Wanna get something to eat? Now that we have so much time, you know.” Jisung was already all packed up. It looked like he had waited for Minho to be finished to ask.
Minho nodded. Because what else was he going to do with those ninety minutes? And part of him was curious about the boy he always sat next to.
Jisung was fun to talk to, he learned quickly. He had so many thoughts about so many things, even about the correct way to split chopsticks.
“You have to make sure it touches the table while you do it.” He demonstrated on a pair and handed it to Minho. “Here.”
Minho took the pair. Perfectly split, he noticed. Aside from his mom when he was still a child, no one had ever split apart his chopsticks for him. His chest warmed.
When they went to put their trays away and throw away their disposable utensils, Minho had learned many new things. Jisung is a history major, he hopes he can bring his fluffy white dog to a farm and test out his herding abilities, and he can make pen-beats on the table with the end of a spoon. The last one was something Minho noticed. Quiet and rhythmic, done slightly out of habit — like the crush he could feel forming.
-
“I want to go with you.”
Jisung looks at him with a question in his smile. “To the grocery store?”
Minho nods twice, three times. How does he say that he wants to go wherever Jisung goes? He doesn’t know how, so he doesn’t.
He waits for Jisung to shrug before making his way to the coat rack and grabbing his jacket. He grabs his scarf and ties it around Jisung’s neck in a knot, patting his head for good measure. “There,” he whispers into the crown of hair.
Jisung giggles, putting his hands in his pockets. “You’re always taking care of me.”
And maybe now would be the perfect time for Minho to just admit it. Of course, because I like you . I already bought all my groceries yesterday, and I don’t really have much money to be buying any excess, but I still want to go with you because I can’t stand to be apart from you. Well, I guess I can be apart from you, like that time when you went on vacation with your family to Hawaii, but I’d rather not do it again. I don’t think I can stand another two weeks without you, not even this twenty minute grocery trip. I want to hear your voice while you tell me your favorite ramen brands, I want you to ask me mine. I want to sneak a small chocolate bar onto the conveyor belt and watch you grumble before you pay for me.
Jisung is now opening the door, and Minho is too scared that it will close before he can step out of it, so he doesn’t say any of it. He chooses to link his arms with Jisung, instead.