Chapter Text
i. Riki Nishimura is fifteen years old when he falls in love.
He’s sixteen years old when he learns how crookedly a heart can break, and eighteen when he understands that it all probably worked out for the best. Each of these epiphanies become clearer once the rose colored glasses have been swapped out for a retrospective lens. The present has a way of distorting things into complex riddles; a syllogism draped around a double entendre.
1. Riki loves one person, and one person only: this is the absolute truth.
2. Riki lies with Jungwon all the time.
3. The person whom Riki loves is—
But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
౨ৎ
In 2009, Riki and his parents emigrate from Okayama, Japan to Des Moines, Washington. Their house rests on the highest part of a sloped street; a feature which Riki’s mother is oddly charmed by as they’ve only ever lived on level ground, and which Riki loathes because they’ve only ever lived on level ground. He’s always been a particular child, and by the age of four, the concept of routine has already been cemented as a precious thing. The concept of affordable housing in the suburbs of Seattle, on the other hand, flies entirely above his head. It’s far more important for his home to be perpendicular to the surface of the Earth.
When Riki is eleven years old, his parents hire one of the neighbor’s kids to babysit him during their anniversary trip to Kyoto. This is infuriating for a number of reasons. Primarily because Jongseong is only a few years older—which just makes him a child looking after a slightly smaller child. Additionally, Jungwon Yang is home alone most days and seems to be getting on just fine. Surely, Riki would also manage just fine on his own; no need for some fake adult to keep him alive for the weekend. The whole Jongseong arrangement is just laughable overall.
“He’s a good boy,” Riki’s mother gushes, trying to pitch it to him in a way that doesn’t make him want to stick his brain in the microwave. “Incredibly sweet. Handsome, too.”
Riki has no idea what makes a person handsome or not. All the older aunties in their neighborhood are always whispering to each other beneath their visor caps about how Jongseong is a nineties heartthrob actor reincarnated. Riki wasn’t alive in the nineties, but he doesn’t think it was a long enough time ago for Leonardo DiCaprio to have respawned three doors down.
He’s seen Jongseong before, here and there. They’re not close enough in age to attend school together, nor do they have any reason to interact beyond a quick nod in the mornings as they mount their respective bikes—Riki careening down the hill like a dandelion let loose in the wind, Jongseong clenching his hand brakes as he haltingly skids the entire way down to the main road. From these brief glimpses, Riki has managed to collect the following observations:
1) Jongseong Park is a bit of a coward.
2) He is supposedly handsome. The entire underside of his hair is buzzed. The longer pieces in front hang down over his face and he’s constantly having to flick them out of his eyes. Riki has never seen him without the shiny black watch he always wears on his wrist—another thing that makes him look cooler than he actually is.
3) He bears as much resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio as Riki does to Jungwon Yang’s dog.
But no amount of glimpses could have prepared Riki for the sight of the boy standing in the middle of his own kitchen. He hates the way it feels like his house has been graced with the presence of a celebrity, a mysterious figure he’s only ever seen from far away. Now here Jongseong is, up close and in the flesh, asking Riki if he wants anything to eat.
Riki stares at him for a bit, and it takes Jongseong repeating himself for him to snap out of his mini trance. “Do you cook?” he asks distrustfully.
The boy grins. “I dabble.”
Riki doesn’t have a particularly strong desire to consume anything that Jongseong “dabbles” in. But his mother raised him to be polite, so he says:
“Make me omelette fried rice.”
Jongseong moves around the kitchen like he owns the place, acting as though he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s all an act, as Riki quickly realizes. He sees Jongseong checking his phone every minute or so, scrolling back and forth through the recipe to triple check every step. He’s obnoxiously confident in his amateurity, boldly flaunting his competence like some hard earned badge of honor.
By the time the food is ready, Riki has made up his mind not to like it. He takes his first bite as Jongseong looks on expectantly. He chews slowly. Swallows. He briefly glances up, then back down at his plate. The look on the other boy’s face makes him a little queasy: all stupidly doe-eyed and hopeful. As if Riki’s approval is actually worth something. His stomach flip flops in a way that’s not entirely unpleasant.
“Thanks,” he mutters.
Jongseong beams. Riki polishes off the rest of the food without another word.
What else can he say? It tastes like home.
It takes Riki exactly one afternoon to decide that he will despise Jongseong for as long as he lives. It takes another twenty-four hours for the boy to become his favorite person in the entire world. Children are just fickle in that way.
It all starts with one omelette fried rice. What ensues is a seven year love story in the making.
⊹ ࣪ ˖౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹
ii. Riki has hated Jungwon Yang for as long as he can remember.
It’s not that the other boy has done anything to warrant this animosity. He’s cute and perfect and adored by children and adults alike. He comes over for dinner sometimes on the weekends, chews all his food with his mouth closed, and carries his own plate over to the sink when he’s done. It’s well known in their neighborhood that the Nishimuras see Jungwon as a second son. Riki has spent years trying to figure out how to frame the boy for some heinous crime.
They’d gotten along well enough when they were younger. It could even be said that they were attached at the hip; constantly begging their parents for play-dates, sleepovers multiple times a week, a general disdain at the prospect of making any new friends besides the other.
But then Jongseong had happened: the boy whom Riki had hated, and then not hated at all. There are rules to these things, and Riki can only have one favorite person. So when he decided to stop hating Jongseong Park, he realized he had an empty vacancy to fill—because everyone knows that any boy worth his salt has both a best friend and a mortal enemy.
Sometimes, admittedly, Riki’s own self-enforced distaste for Jungwon slips his mind. But now and again the boy will say something so insane, something so aggravatingly dead accurate, that his shallow grudge is born anew.
౨ৎ
“You have a crush on Jay.”
Riki’s head snaps around so quick, he’ll still feel a twinge in his neck hours later. “Sorry?”
“No need to apologize,” Jungwon says mildly.
They’re lying side by side on Riki’s bed: Jungwon flat on his back, Riki propped up on his elbow, lending him the perfect angle to loom imperiously over the other boy.
“No, I mean, what the fuck did you just say?”
Jungwon furrows his brow. “You stole that watch from Jay?” he repeats hesitantly, pointing at Riki’s wrist. “Didn’t you?”
“Oh,” he says, relaxing. He glances down at it. “He gave it to me.” So Riki is hearing things now. That’s just great.
The watch had been an early birthday gift. It hadn’t been something he’d explicitly told Jongseong he wanted, but his friend isn’t an idiot. Riki wonders exactly how long Jongseong has been noticing his eyes lingering on his wrist, gazing at the timepiece in admiration and thinly veiled envy. Since this year? Since that very first day he’d babysat Riki? For years before they were ever formally acquainted, had Jongseong noticed Riki noticing him?
Whatever the answer may be, a little box tied with red ribbon was waiting patiently on Riki’s front doorstep this morning, and inside the box was the shiny black watch that makes someone look cooler than they actually are. Riki doesn’t think he’s ever grinned as wide as he had while slipping it onto his wrist. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything as beautiful as the sound of that metal clasp clicking into place.
“That’s your present?”
“Yup.”
“Wow.” A vein of envy shimmers in Jungwon’s voice. “That thing is expensive, you know.”
“Is it?” Riki says bemusedly. He’s never paid much attention to that kind of thing, and it wasn’t the value of the watch that had occupied his thoughts. He still isn’t sure what exactly had made him crave it so desperately. The weight of it still feels strange around his wrist, like a transplanted limb. Every time he glances down, the sight of it catches him off guard.
“I didn’t get you anything,” Jungwon says sullenly.
Riki glances at him, puzzled. “That’s fine.” It’s not like he expected anything. Why would he expect anything from Jungwon?
“You’re impossible to shop for,” Jungwon sighs. “You know exactly what you want, but nobody else does.” He suddenly grins up at the ceiling, dimples blooming on his cheeks. “But my company is priceless, right?”
“Right,” he drawls.
Jungwon had popped over uninvited today yet again. At this point it’s more than just tolerable to Riki: it’s routine. The boy keeps on coming over every day after school, keeps on sleeping over two to three times a week. That’s the way it’s been since kindergarten, and if there’s one thing Riki dislikes more than Jungwon, it’s breaking a perfectly comfortable habit.
The company isn’t all bad — and he’s starting to think that a room without Jungwon nesting himself in the giant pile of blankets on his bed, without Jungwon swiveling endlessly around in his desk chair till he’s drunk with dizziness, without Jungwon sitting cross-legged on the floor with his homework spread out in front of him is a room that would feel horribly empty. If there’s one thing Riki hates more than anything or anyone, it’s solitude. Any reprieve from that is, in a sense, priceless.
“Are you doing anything special today?”
“I think Heeseung and Jongseong are taking me to a movie.”
“Heeseung, too?” Jungwon says, looking puzzled. “Don’t they hate each other?”
“Don’t ask me,” Riki grunts, rolling over onto his stomach. “I’m just the birthday boy.”
He considers taking a nap while Jungwon is here. Every time he tries napping during the day, he inexplicably gets hit with sleep paralysis: his entire body conscious but frozen, a sinister weight bearing down on his chest, unable to shout out or open his eyes. But it only happens when he sleeps alone. When Jungwon is there, nothing bad ever happens to him.
“Do you think I can come?” Jungwon asks, disrupting his drowsy musings.
“Um…”
At first Riki had wanted to spend the day with just Jongseong. But then Heeseung had been added to the plans, which he didn’t really mind because Heeseung is cool and also kind of hilarious in that I care comedically little about everything kind of way. But Jungwon? He’s trying to imagine what place Jungwon would have there between Heeseung and Jongseong, and keeps coming up blank. It’s not like they haven’t all hung out before. He’s pretty sure Jungwon is Heeseung’s favorite dongsaeng—big surprise there. But this is different. Today is all about Riki. It’s about the people who love him the most. He just doesn’t see how Jungwon would factor into that.
Before Riki can answer, Jungwon breaks out into a sharp laugh. “I’m just kidding,” he snorts, shouldering him playfully. “I already saw that movie, anyway.”
Riki nods with a little breath of relief.
Jungwon leaves shortly after that, so he forgoes his nap to spend the rest of the afternoon getting ready. For him, “getting ready” consists mostly of being on FaceTime with Sunoo while rifling through his closet and ignoring every one of his classmate’s suggestions on what to wear. Before he knows it, it’s seven o’clock and Jongseong is knocking at his front door. It’s only once they’re at the theater and walking up to the ticket booth that Riki realizes he never told Jungwon which movie they were going to see.
౨ৎ
Riki feels underdressed. At the last minute he’d decided to just pull on a pair of sweats and an old puffer jacket that’s starting to fit too small around his shoulders. He’s pretty sure his shirt is inside out.
Jongseong on the other hand is all dressed up: white turtleneck tucked into vintage wash ripped jeans, his signature oversized leather jacket, and a generous dousing of the cologne that’s become as familiar to Riki as the smell of his own home. He tugs at his loose collar self-consciously, wondering if there’s time to go home and change before the movie starts. But then Heeseung arrives in a similarly slapped together outfit, and he feels a lot better.
They make their way into the designated auditorium, climbing the steps all the way up to the very last row. Riki sinks into the crimson seat, relishing the smell of buttered popcorn and fusty velvet upholstery. They wait for the lights to dim and the trailers to begin.
“You’re officially a teenager,” Heeseung smiles, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “How does it feel?”
“Kind of the same,” Riki answers honestly. “You guys really aren’t anything special, you know.”
Jongseong lets out one of his loud, belly laughs. The sound waves interact with Riki’s body chemistry in a strange way, his stomach going all fizzy like cola. As soon as it fades, he begins plotting a way to hear it again.
The movie begins, the theater descending all the way into darkness. Jongseong is delightfully reactive; giggling and snorting loudly during moments that weren’t written to be comedic, going stiff as a board during scenes of high suspense, leaning over to whisper explanations into Riki’s ear when he silently tilts his head in confusion. Heeseung periodically slips away to refill their popcorn, because he’s one of those weirdos who doesn’t mind missing parts of a movie.
Every now and then, Riki finds his attention drifting away from the film towards the boy seated to his right. He wonders what it would have been like if it was just him and Jongseong here at the theater, their arms comfortably overlapping on the shared arm rest. Watching a movie is a passive activity, so the evening probably would have gone in much the same way. But still, it would have been just the two of them.
He recalls the way Heeseung had gotten shuffled into tonight’s plans. How his mother, nonchalantly, had said, “It’s very sweet of Jongseong to offer to take you out on your birthday.”
Riki had frowned. Something about the way she said it didn’t seem quite right. “Of course,” he’d said. “He’s my best friend.”
It was her turn to make a strange face. Riki couldn’t puzzle out her expression: half confused grimace, half indulgent smile. The only conclusion he could arrive at was that his mother didn’t approve of Jongseong for some reason. But he ruled that out immediately — she’d always been fond of him, and wasn’t she the one who had pushed him into Riki’s life in the first place?
“Why don’t you take Heeseung along with you?” she suggested delicately. “You know, so he has someone his own age there too. You love Heeseung, don’t you?”
Love was a bit of a strong word. Riki had always made it a personal resolution to reserve it, apart from his family, for one person, and one person alone.
“Or maybe you could take Jungwo—”
“Fine. I’ll ask Heeseung.”
౨ৎ
Heeseung is meeting up with some friends after the movie, so Jongseong takes him home. They’re quiet the entire bus ride back, but it feels more natural than awkward. Riki’s stomach flip flops in circles before he finally musters up enough courage to lean his head against the other boy’s shoulder. He closes his eyes, feigning tiredness. Jongseong doesn’t stop him.
From the bus stop, he walks Riki all the way to his front door. He stands there on the top step, rocking back and forth on his heels, his breath pluming the air. Moonlight coats them both in a silver varnish, bouncing off the snow blanketed roofs and highlighting the worn creases in Jongseong’s hand-me-down leather jacket.
Riki lied — everything feels different now. He feels shiny and new; the world sharpened into perfect clarity.
“Did you have fun tonight?” Jongseong says softly.
He realizes with a shock that he’s about to cry. His stomach aches at the sight of the strand of hair falling into Jongseong’s eyes. His chest clenches in synchrony with his fists. He shoves them angrily into his pockets and shrugs, ducking his head so his hood hangs low over his face.
“It was pretty fun.”
Jongseong sounds upset. “Only pretty fun?”
“Pretty fun means fun,” he protests.
“No, fun means fun. Pretty fun means only kind of fun, which is significantly less than really fun. It means mediocre fun. Was your birthday just mediocre, Riki?”
Beyond the plastered grin, he can see that it’s only half jest. There’s an undercurrent of panic detectable to his trained ear; panic associated with an ingrained fear of coming up short, of giving people less than what they expect. What Jongseong doesn’t realize is that he has nothing to worry about — Riki has never expected a single thing from him.
“It was perfect,” he says quietly.
“Really perfect?” Jongseong teases.
“Pretty perfect,” he whispers.
A crease appears on Jongseong’s brow. He takes a single step forward, his expression heartbreakingly earnest. “What can I do to make it better?”
In a version of tonight that doesn’t exist, Riki brushes that stupid strand of hair away. He takes Jongseong by the hand. He has the courage to say something real. Nothing happens after that; his daydream begins and ends within the moment of confession, on the precipice between before and after.
Riki breathes in deeply. He takes a step back.
Jongseong’s frown deepens, and he panics. Wracking his brain, he blurts out the first nonsensical thing that comes to mind. “I want your jacket.”
It’s true that Riki has always demanded things: I want, I want, I want. But there’s a difference between asking and expecting. Subtract one from the other, and what you’re left with is nothing more than muddled hope.
The thick, faded brown leather drapes over him like a weighted blanket. Immediately, a familiar scent invades his senses: smoky honey and sweet tobacco, a smell that is quintessentially Jongseong. A realization pervades Riki’s entire being, rattling him to his core.
He’s wearing the jacket. He’s wearing the watch. If Jongseong had reached inside his own chest and handed over his lungs, there would’ve been little difference in significance.
A tear slips down the side of his nose.
“Oh,” Jongseong utters in surprise.
Riki drops into a crouch right there on his doorstep, hangs his head between his knees, and cries. Guttural sobs shudder through him, his face a blubbering, mucousy mess. In the back of his mind, he feels indignant. He doesn’t understand how his body could betray him like this, especially when he’d had no conscious awareness that he was this close to coming apart at the seams.
Yes, thirteen does feel different. It fits a few sizes too big for him, sitting awkwardly on his body like a ill-tailored costume. An oversized jacket. As his crying settles down into something more hiccuping and gentle, Riki comes to the conclusion that this is what being a teenager truly is: an unraveling.
“Good tears?”
Jongseong’s voice comes from closer than he expected. Riki hadn’t noticed him dropping into a squat beside him, hadn’t even felt the hand smoothing circles over his back.
“Pretty good,” he warbles with a wet smile. He wipes his eyes, lets his forehead fall against Jongseong’s shoulder so he doesn’t have to see the expression on the other boy’s face. He doesn’t know if he can bear it anymore.
Park Jongseong has a way of looking at you like you’re the only thing that matters. And when you’ve just turned thirteen years old and realized you’re half in love and don’t know any better, you believe it.
Before he can talk himself back out of it, he unclasps his newly gifted watch, slips it from his wrist, and holds it out to Jongseong wordlessly. He feels the boy turn, his chin brushing the top of Riki’s head. He doesn’t look up.
“Trade,” Riki murmurs, shaking out the sleeve of the jacket. “For this.”
“What do you mean, trade?” Jongseong laughs, and the sound trembles through Riki’s entire body. “I gave it to you—both of them.”
Riki drops the watch into Jongseong’s lap before finally, reluctantly pulling away. “I want you to have it.”
Jongseong looks at him carefully. “You don’t like it?”
“I do,” he says with a smile.
He places his hands on his knees and pushes himself up. For a moment he just stands there, looking down. He imagines a day much like this one—however many years into the future—where he might finally be taller than Jongseong. Where he might be big enough to matter.
“I just realized the reason I liked it was because it was yours.”
⊹ ࣪ ˖౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹
iii. It’s a beautiful summer’s day — candied blue sky, sunshine and singing birds, not too humid and not too windy — the perfect climate for committing the perfect crime.
“You invited me over to help your little brother steal his best friend’s bike?” Heeseung questions calmly.
They’re standing in front of Jungwon’s house, staring down at the innocent periwinkle bicycle chained to the rickety drain pipe. Nobody passing them by would ever question a thing, seeing as how this particular trio is nothing out of place to be found on Jungwon Yang’s front lawn — it’s the perfect crime.
“He’s not my friend,” Riki objects at the same time that Jongseong says, “He’s not my little brother.”
Heeseung appears generally unconvinced. “Right.”
“C’mon Hee,” Jongseong pouts. “Who else could I have asked? You’re the only criminal I know.”
“I broke into your locker once.”
“To do what?”
“…That’s none of your concern.”
“Which is exactly what a criminal would say!” Jongseong concludes triumphantly.
Heeseung turns to Riki. “Why are you stealing Jungwon’s bike again?”
“So I can repaint it,” he huffs. He doesn’t understand why the situation warrants the third degree. “He’s been complaining that he wants it red like mine.”
“Why don’t you tell him that to his face like a normal person? Just say you’re giving his ride a little makeover.”
Riki scowls. “Obviously I don’t want him to know that it’s me.” He sees the two boys exchange a glance. “He might get the wrong idea,” he elaborates, because there’s nothing that irks him more than a secret glance he’s not in on.
“And what,” Heeseung says, “is the wrong idea exactly?” He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh, which makes no sense. Riki fails to see the humor in the situation.
“He might think I did it to be nice to him or something.”
“We can’t have him thinking that,” Jongseong nods solemnly.
Riki rolls his eyes. “I just want to stop hearing about it.”
“Naturally,” Heeseung says. He looks like he wants to say something more, but thinks better of it. “I think I can find it in my heart to help you.”
“Great,” Jongseong exclaims, followed closely by a “shit.”
“What is it?”
“Shit,” he mumbles again, fumbling around in his pockets. “I forgot to bring the bolt cutter.”
“No need,” Heeseung shrugs. “We can just pick the lock.”
Jongseong straightens up, his eyes wide. “I knew you had it in you,” he says proudly. Heeseung shoots him a withering look. Sometimes they get on so well that Riki forgets they don’t get along well at all.
He and Jongseong stand off to one side while Heeseung crouches down and unhooks a safety pin from the belt loop of his jeans. While he fiddles with the lock, they take it upon themselves to stand guard: a task which mainly consists of staring intensely at the front door and willing it not to open. They’ve entered into an unspoken contest to see who can go the longest without blinking, judged purely on an honor system since neither of them can break eye contact with the door to hold each other accountable. Riki’s eyes are starting to water.
“Are you almost done?” Jay asks anxiously, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Will you relax?” Heeseung snaps, not looking up from his work. “I’ve never had the cops called on me before, but I know Jungwon Yang isn’t gonna be the first one to do it.”
Fate must find itself pretty damn funny, because it’s at that exact moment that the door cracks open and a familiar head peers out through the gap. Jongseong and Riki freeze like startled mice; a reaction which escapes the notice of their concentrated companion.
“Heeseung?” the boy utters in surprise.
“Yeah, yeah, one sec—” The lock finally slips free, clattering to the ground. Jongseong nudges Heeseung with his foot, hard, and he finally straightens up with great reluctance. “Yes,” he clears his throat sheepishly. “Hi, Wonie.”
“What are you guys doing?” Jungwon asks, looking bemused.
Heeseung flounders for a moment before blurting, “That’s none of your concern.”
Beside him, Jongseong is visibly saturated in some cocktail of panic and determination; quick as a whip, he seizes the handlebars of the newly liberated bike, swings his leg over the seat, and takes off down the street, only squeezing the brakes for a split second before allowing himself to accelerate into a blur.
Jungwon turns to them slowly. “What is he doing?”
“They were helping me steal your bike,” Riki admits glumly. “I think Jongseong got too immersed in the role.”
They all watch as the boy proceeds to drive straight over a pothole and eat shit.
Jungwon blinks, his face muddled with confusion. “Alright,” he says after a long pause. “As long as I have a ride to school tomorrow.”
“Sure thing,” Heeseung answers, giving him a little two-fingered salute.
And then it’s time for them to go, because Jongseong has managed to pick himself up off his ass and continue frantically pedaling away as though Jungwon is hot on his heels. Riki watches him go with a strange squeeze of pride in his chest.
When Jongseong was four years old, his father began teaching him how to swim by throwing him into the deep end of the pool. After resurfacing, he’d apparently screamed his head off for a solid ten minutes before demanding to be tossed in again. After hearing that story, Riki figures he just never learned how to get into things halfway. Everything always has to be an ultimate, all-or-nothing dive. It’s probably the best and most ridiculous thing about Jongseong: being willing to drown for the sake of the moment.
They manage to catch up to him at the base of the slope. He’s dismounted from the bike, doubled over with his hands on his knees. Beneath the fatigue, he’s exuding euphoria: he’s just completed his first successful heist, his first dramatic getaway. He has conquered the moment.
And Riki knows that this was the sight he had been waiting to see, that this was the reason he’d looped Jongseong into his stupid, juvenile plan. It’s a selfish reminder that Riki is one of the few special people that Jongseong will go all-in for. The boy looks ridiculous: hair tousled and standing straight up in some places, sweat pasting the strands down in others. He’s gone blotchy and red in the face, pupils blown, blood pumping with so much adrenaline he doesn’t even notice the blooming wound seeping into his linen shorts.
“Your knee is bleeding,” Riki points out.
“I think I want to be a movie star,” Jongseong wheezes, grinning from ear to ear. “Or like, a theater actor.”
“You have the stage presence of a decapitated chicken,” Heeseung says tonelessly.
“Maybe a stunt double, then.” He glances down. “Does anyone have a band-aid?”
It’s Heeseung and Riki’s turn to exchange a look: one that says, What are we going to do with him? The only difference is that Riki’s exasperation is saturated with fondness—because even Jongseong at his most ridiculous, most obtrusive, most unself-aware is still a part of the boy that he’s come to worship.
“Let’s go, Tom Cruise,” Heeseung sighs, shaking his head. “I’m sure you’re feeling peckish after stealing candy from a baby.”
Heeseung just doesn’t get it. He can only appreciate things on the surface level. Riki is the one who’s put in the effort of getting under Jongseong’s skin. He’s ever conscious of his own continuous unraveling; the unraveling that started the night of his thirteenth birthday, or maybe that very first day Jongseong stood there in the middle of Riki’s kitchen and glanced at his wrist instead of the clock to check the time.
It’s the little things that pile up. The shiny black watch. The smell of honey and tobacco. The weight of a leather jacket. The splotch of blood on a brand new pair of cargo shorts — because for the first time in his life, Jongseong had let go of the brakes.
It’s a beautiful summer’s day. Riki is fifteen years old. And he’s just made the fatal mistake of falling all the way in love with his best friend.
౨ৎ
“Mom said I shouldn’t hang out with you so much anymore.”
Jongseong pauses with his finger poised over the aerosol nozzle, a trail of spray paint dripping down the side of his arm. Jungwon’s bike is resting on its side in the grass, half blue and half red like a melty rocket pop.
“What?”
That came out all wrong. In Riki’s attempts to paraphrase, he’d misconstrued his mother’s fundamental intent, as hurtful as the implications are.
“Actually her exact words were, ‘cling to.’ She thinks I’m like, a burden or something,” he clears his throat, trying to sound nonchalant, “that I get a lot more out of your company than you get out of mine.”
Riki hopes the pleading note in his voice isn’t as apparent to Jongseong as it is to himself. He knows exactly what he’s doing: piling on the self-deprecation, stretching his mother’s words to their fullest transparency. He’s waiting for Jongseong to deny, deny, deny. The desperation of it chokes him.
“I like having you around, Riki,” Jongseong says slowly, setting the can down.
Riki isn’t sure what kind of reassurance he was looking for, but he’s left feeling oddly unsatisfied. “Sure you do,” he mutters.
But surely there must be some truth to it? Jongseong is no saint. He wouldn’t pour this much time and effort into someone he was merely humoring. He wouldn’t sacrifice his favorite day of the week to lounge at home and do nothing (Wednesday), just to go to The Home Depot and buy spray paint and sealant for Jungwon’s bike. He wouldn’t come over and insist on doing all the work himself, because he’s spent the last couple of days binging tutorials on YouTube. He wouldn’t do any of that if Riki was nothing more than a burden. Right?
Riki can’t bear this game of does he like me, does he not? — knowing that it’s not even in a romantic sense, which he could tolerate, but in a am I even wanted or needed? kind of way. He feels small and pitiful and full of existential dread, all over a boy who doesn’t spend a fraction as much time thinking about him.
Jongseong must see the way that he wilts. He always sees, always compensates, even though sometimes Riki would much prefer it if he didn’t. “You’re not some charity case to me,” he continues. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t seek you out. I’m nice, but I’m not that nice.”
Riki can see that he’s picking his words out very carefully, putting genuine thought into his response. It’s part of what makes Jongseong so special—what allows him to believe that Jongseong sees him as more than just someone to be pitied.
“I know Heeseung calls you my little brother, but I don’t see you like that. You’re not my family. You’re not an obligation to me. I don’t love you unconditionally.”
Riki holds his breath. He feels a lump growing in his throat.
“I like you because I like you. You push me out of my comfort zone. You make me feel smart, but like it’s okay to be an idiot, too. I always feel like I’m the butt of every joke—but you’re the one person I know who’s always laughing with me.”
It’s too much. Too, too much.
“I’m a bit of a coward,” Jongseong laughs haltingly. “You already know that. But I don’t feel like one with you. I get to do stupid, reckless things— things that make me feel brave. Even if it’s just stealing Jungwon Yang’s bike so you can paint it red.”
“Thanks for that, by the way,” Riki mumbles.
“You’re welcome,” he grins. “See? You make me feel… appreciated. That’s a pretty selfish reason, isn’t it? But it’s a big one. I like doing things for people. I like doing things for you.”
“I’m the selfish one here,” Riki croaks.
“You might think that,” Jongseong acknowledges. “It makes sense that you would. I think you do things for people without even noticing. You’re the most altruistic selfish person I’ve ever met.”
Riki can’t look him in the eye. His heart is thundering in his chest, and he’s starting to go a bit lightheaded—though that may very well be from all the paint fumes hanging in the air.
“You didn’t have to say all that,” he mutters. His head spins like a carousel, faster and faster. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I understand where your mother is coming from,” Jongseong says diplomatically. “But she doesn’t need to worry.” He cracks a smile, wide and raw and beautiful. “I get a lot more out of your company than you get out of mine.”
“Bullshit,” Riki laughs, but the sound is strained.
Jongseong tilts his head. “Is there anything else on your mind?”
Riki gulps. No, there isn’t. He nods slowly. “There is.”
“Anything I can help with?”
He feels possessed, like someone else is speaking for him. His mouth keeps forming words, refusing to do his bidding. “If you knew someone who’d developed a crush on a friend, what advice would you give them?”
Jongseong immediately perks up. “Do you know someone like that?”
“Um.” Riki’s eyes dart around. “Maybe.”
He’s about to ruin it. Jongseong always sees everything, and now that he’s opened the door just a crack, that’s all the other boy needs to wedges himself all the way in and peer inside. All that reassurance, all the dismissals of his mother’s concern, and it’s all about to be undone in a heartbeat. All because Riki can’t keep his mouth shut. All because a tiny, reckless part of him wants to know, to be sure—
“Riki,” Jongseong says softly, and he feels his heart plummet all the way down to his feet. “Are you…”
“It’s Heeseung,” Riki blurts. His face flashes hot, heat burning at the back of his eyes. He feels like he’s being dangled over an abyss, left with no choice but to grasp onto the most frayed, abstract rope; confessing to even the most bizarre diversions from the truth. “Heeseung likes you.”
Jongseong blinks, clearly taken aback. There’s a beat of silence, then another, the pit of Riki’s stomach growing colder and colder as he braces himself to be laughed at, for Jongseong to cackle and wheeze and throw his head back at the mere idea of it, for him to call Riki out on his bullshit and expose the shameful, gnarled truth of his heart. Riki waits for the rope to snap. He waits for the ground to give way beneath his feet.
But then Jongseong’s face fractures into something blinding, and it feels like salvation and damnation all at once.
“Does he really?” he says, breathless and beaming.
It’s the most devastating moment of Riki’s adolescence: seeing his bright-eyed, sickly love recreated on another person’s face, seeing for the first time what the inside of him looks like when brought to the surface. There’s only one word for it: Riki is disgusted.
So this is what I am, he thinks hollowly. A fucking fool.