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To put it simply: Leehan misses Taesan.
Missing someone isn’t a new feeling. He missed Sungho, Riwoo and Jaehyun when they left for college. He misses his sister now that it’s his turn. Woonhak, too. He misses his mom’s pork broth. She’d made it for him the night before he left, trying to hide the redness in her eyes with overcompensated enthusiasm. She misses him, and he misses her. He’d tried to cook it himself last week but it wasn’t the same, and he’d sat on the kitchen floor and called her, holding back tears so she wouldn't worry.
He misses all of that, and more, but he misses Taesan the most.
They’ve been together for as long as Leehan can remember. Not always together, but together. Leehan doesn’t remember when their friendship changed into something more, can’t pinpoint the exact date or time (they’ve never decided on an anniversary), but what he does remember is waking up one day knowing he can’t live without Taesan.
They never officially talked about the change, they didn’t need to, the line between friends and lovers was so blurred that it didn’t matter. What does matter: he’s not here now. It’s been a month since they started college, and a month since he last saw his boyfriend in person.
Leehan misses him. He misses him like he would miss a limb. A dragonfly with a torn wing, a fish without a fin, a spider with a missing leg. He can still function without Taesan, but it’s so much harder without him.
There’s never been a moment where it wasn’t Leehan and Taesan. Their friends joke that they’re inseparable, that they’re stuck together with a layer of glue, a piece of string tied tight around their pinkies. Taesan had scoffed and said he doesn’t believe in all that, that they are a choice, no force about it, but Leehan likes to think it’s true. They are linked, fate or otherwise, this life and the next.
Except, they’d chosen to go to different colleges. Leehan, closer to home, one city over so he’s only a train ride away. Taesan, further, a train and a bus and another train. The inseparable, separated, the glue unstuck, and the string unraveled. Taesan’s arts college hadn’t offered what Leehan wanted to study and vice versa. It’s the first time they’ve ever been so far apart.
He’s been looking forward to this moment all day, couldn’t stop thinking about it the whole time he was hanging out with Sungho. Sungho could tell, of course, he always notices these things. He gets the exact same way when he’s expecting a call from Jaehyun, though he pretends he doesn’t.
Leehan has his laptop set up in front of him, propped up on a stack of textbooks so he can get a better angle. He sits cross legged in front of it, video call app open, waiting impatiently for the notification to pop up on his screen.
They call every day. Multiple times a day. For the smallest reasons, the silliest excuses. Taesan will call to ask what flavor lemonade he should order and Leehan will take his time debating the options because he knows Taesan only called because he misses his voice, or Leehan will call him to ask for help on his word puzzle even though he knows the exact word he’s looking for, he just likes the way Taesan gets excited when he thinks he’s helping.
The bubble by Taesan’s name changes to green. He’s online. Leehan’s chest flutters and his breath stutters in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. Any second now and he’ll call. Leehan will see him again for the first time in a month, moving, breathing, real . It’s been a hectic first month, packed with classes and club activities and getting used to the workflow. This is the first time they’ve had time to sit down for a proper video call.
An incoming call lights his screen, the call tune shooting straight up his earphone wires and into his ears, an electric current, a stream of butterflies that settle in his stomach. He shouldn’t be so nervous. He misses him.
He hits accept, Taesan’s image fills the screen, and Leehan melts.
Taesan is there, in front of him (almost), wearing an oversized hoodie and a pair of blue pajama shorts, hair damp like he’s just had a shower. He’s running his fingers through his bangs, like he’s trying to make them fall into an acceptable place, almost jumping when Leehan answers because he’s been caught in the act.
His face lights up as soon as he sees him, lips tipping into his pretty toothy smile that Leehan is so accustomed to. “Hi,” Taesan says.
“Hey,” Leehan says back.
“How are you?” Taesan asks at the exact same time Leehan asks, “Everything okay?” Then they both laugh, Leehan honeyed low and Taesan sugary high.
Taesan waits for him to answer first, so he obliges. “I'm okay. Just met up with Sungho for dinner. We tried this new seafood place off campus.”
“Was it good?” Taesans asks, settling back against his pillows, legs pulled to his chest as he listens to Leehan talk. If it was a few weeks earlier, he’d be wearing a thick pair of sweatpants, but spring is rolling in faster than he can stop it and the weather is getting warmer so he’s wearing shorts instead. Not that Leehan is complaining.
“Yeah, really good, I think you’d like it there. They do grilled eel. I didn’t get it this time, though, I thought we could try it together.” Leehan watches Taesan nod, and watches him try not to smile. This is another point to put on his long list of things he wants to do together when Taesan comes to visit. “How was class?”
“Nothing too exciting, we’re just going over the stuff I already know right now,” Taesan says, then he groans and slouches a little into the bed, head rolling to the side and he squeezes his eyes together in overexaggerated pain. “They’re giving me so much work to do at home, though. So much. I’m drowning in it.”
“You’ll manage,” Leehan says.
“Well, yeah, of course I will, but--” Then he's off, and once you get Taesan talking, it's hard for him to stop. Leehan doesn't want him to stop. No, he's perfectly happy sitting back and watching his boyfriend talk animatedly about his day, his hands flying in excited gestures. “Anyway,” Taesan finishes, grinning through the screen, bright and clear even locked behind a layer of pixels. “How is Sungho? Jaehyun has been kind of insufferable, saying he misses him all the time. I mean, come on, they've only just got together.”
“He’s the same.” Leehan laughs, remembering Sungho’s flustered face, his red cheeks and restrained smile when Jaehyun had texted him earlier. He remembers what that feels like, to be drunk on giddiness at every little thing, like every moment is monumental. He misses it, sometimes, that feeling, but he loves what they have now, too. Their comfortable familiarity. “He’s just better at hiding it.” Because he can’t help himself, he teases, “Like you. Except you didn’t hide it very well.”
Taesan laughs too, a soft sound, somewhere between amused and embarrassed. Maybe things haven’t changed so much after all. “I swear I wasn’t that bad. I was cool about it. Composed.”
“Okay,” Leehan says, a brow raised. “Yeah, very composed. Got it.”
Taesan scrunches his nose and squints his eyes in a half attempt at a glare, but it’s forgotten when he remembers something else, “Oh, dad called earlier. He was asking after you, wanted to know if there’s anything you needed dropped off or something.”
It had been Taesan’s dad who dropped him off at college, since his mom can’t drive. He’s always been good like that, has always been kind and accepting of Leehan in the absence of his own father. It’s kind of funny, Leehan missing a father, Taesan missing a mother. Another way they complete each other, maybe.
“I’m good, tell him thank you, though.” Leehan smiles softly, eyes transfixed on Taesan, drinking all of him in so he can burn the image of him into his eyes, his brain. He could never forget what Taesan looks like, he’s too far gone for that, but he doesn’t know when they’ll get to do this again.
They talk more, for what feels like hours but in reality isn’t that long. Time is a funny thing with Taesan. It either slows, seconds passing in a trickle, caught in a moment, or it goes impossibly fast, over in a flash, and they’re already having to say goodbye again.
Leehan tells him about the clubs he’s signed up for and the things he’s been learning on his course. Taesan doesn’t really understand what he’s saying, but he listens like he does, attentive, interested, he asks questions about the topics he doesn’t know and Leehan loves him for it. Taesan tells him about the friends he’s made, how good the equipment in the recording studios is, so different from his old, barely functioning microphone. Leehan is happy for him. Taesan deserves this.
“I’m tired,” Taesan says eventually, broken with a yawn, and he sounds tired. His voice is getting sluggish and he’s drawing out his words in the way that he always does when he’s getting sleepy.
“Lay down, if you want,” Leehan offers.
Taesan is already almost there. He’s been slipping further and further down the bed the longer they’ve been talking. Taesan blinks at him through the screen, and Leehan gets a lazy grin when he says, “Lay down with me.”
Instead of answering, Leehan places his laptop down on the sheets next to him, moving the books it was stacked on and rolling onto his side. He slides himself under the covers until he’s got a pillow pressed to his cheek, his earbud digging uncomfortably into his ear.
Taesan disappears for a second and Leehan gets a screen full of Taesan’s empty bed, familiar black sheets and the black cat plush Leehan had bought him for his sixteenth birthday shoved down the crack between his pillows and the wall, like he doesn’t want it to be seen. Then there’s a shuffling noise in Leehan’s ears and Taesan reappears in the frame, occupying the empty space, now with his covers tucked against his chest.
He hasn’t seen Taesan’s college room in full, hasn’t had the time to go up and visit him yet. He wants to. It's weird, going from knowing every little detail Taesan's room to knowing nothing at all. There is an imprint in the shape of Leehan’s body in Taesan’s mattress at home, yet he doesn’t know what his college bed feels like, if they’ll even both fit.
There are photos taped to the wall behind him, faded from sun damage and holes in the corners from where they’ve been tacked to Taesan’s pinboard back at home. Photos of Taesan as a kid, with his dad, with his younger siblings. Birthday parties and family vacations. None of his mother.
There are photos of him and Leehan, too. There’s one from the time Taesan’s dad took them to the zoo when they were young and Taesan had held a snake, its scaly body coiled around his tiny hands. Another from when they’d won first and second place in their highschool swim competition. Leehan doesn’t remember who won what anymore.
There’s one of them last year, too. Leehan had fallen asleep with Taesan in his arms, and Taesan had taken his moment of vulnerability as an opportunity to snap a photo. It’s taken from a bad angle and his mouth is slightly open in a way he calls ugly but Taesan calls cute. It’s embarrassing, but Leehan lets him keep it anyway.
One with fresh ink, non-faded: a group photo of the six of them, taken two months ago when they stayed the night at Jaehyun’s, all of them together for the first time in a year and the last time for another. Leehan has a copy of that one too. It sits behind him now, in a decorated frame on his desk.
Like this, it’s almost like they’re laying side by side. It’s almost like Taesan is next to him, in person, and they’re not miles and miles apart. He can see himself in the corner of the screen, can see the way his hair puffs around his face like a lion’s mane when he’s laying down. Has his nose always looked like this? The line of his jaw? Is this what Taesan sees when he’s looking at him? Is this how he looks at Taesan?
He’s almost taken aback by the pure adoration staring back at him, from both himself and Taesan. He’s used to feeling it, but it’s strange seeing it like this, all raw and unfiltered and mirrored back at him, plain to see in his own eyes.
“What are you thinking about?” Taesan asks.
“Nothing,” Leehan says, then, “You, always. Are you comfortable?”
“Your bed is better,” Taesan says, nuzzling his face into his pillow, slipping his palm between his cheek and the fabric. Leehan can hear him exhale into the microphone of his wired earphones as he relaxes. He can almost feel the tickle on his ear. “This one is too thin. I think it’s making my back ache.”
“Or you’re just getting old,” Leehan says.
“I’m only two months older than you,” Taesan complains. If he were here, he would be digging his fingers into Leehan’s sides right now, trying to tickle him into surrender. It wouldn’t have lasted long because Leehan would have given in within seconds, if only so he could kiss the satisfied smirk off Taesan’s lips.
“Then we can be old together,” Leehan says, and it pacifies Taesan’s indignation until it’s softened to nothing. Even though the image of him is grainy, Leehan can see how his cheeks are flooding with pink. Even after all this time, he still manages to catch Taesan off guard. They really haven’t changed.
“I think I could deal with that,” Taesan says, all false bravado to hide a weakening core. “Getting old with you.”
“We just have to get through four years of college,” Leehan says. He doesn’t mean for it to come out as ‘we just have to survive four years apart’ but it sounds like that anyway.
Taesan laughs softly, his voice a matching tone as he says, “Four years is nothing.”
A few strands of hair fall in Taesan’s face, and Leehan wishes he could brush them away. He can’t. He reaches out his hand anyway, touches his fingertips to the screen and brushes them over the image of Taesan. Taesan flicks the hair out of his eyes. It’s good enough.
Taesan’s eyes flutter shut as their chatter quiets into murmurs. It’s not that late yet. Normally Taesan wouldn’t be sleeping for at least another few hours, so he must be exhausted. He’s exhausted, but he still took the time to call Leehan.
Leehan had walked home after hanging out with Sungho with the moon barely visible in the sky. It’s brighter now, illuminated in the square box of his bedroom window. He should close the curtains but he likes the milky night sky. There’s a sort of comfort in knowing that when he looks out of the window, Taesan is seeing the exact same blanket of moon and stars as him.
Like he can read Leehan’s mind, Taesan asks, “Did you see the moon tonight?”
They had tried that telepathy game once, when Jaehyun told them it feels like they share a brain sometimes. They’d failed when they had to choose between the sea and mountains. Taesan had picked sea because he thought Leehan would choose it and Leehan had said mountain because he thought that’s what Taesan would say.
“I saw,” Leehan says. “It’s waxing tonight. It made me think of you.”
Taesan cracks a lazy eye open, pressing his smile into his pillow. “It did?”
“Because it’s pretty,” Leehan says.
“Not as pretty as you,” Taesan says, a laugh suppressed into the cotton. Leehan can see it anyway because the way Taesan’s eyes are curving like crescents is a dead give away.
Leehan laughs too, the warmth spreading across his whole body. “You stole my joke. I was going to say that.”
“Get there faster next time,” Taesan teases.
Leehan wants to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so badly that he feels like he could reach through the screen and do it.
Leehan may not get vertigo when Taesan touches him anymore, but he might do now. After not feeling it for so long. If he could touch Taesan now, he might get butterflies like he did at fourteen, when he didn’t know what the feeling was, or his heart might give out on him like when he’d kissed Taesan for the first time, both of them flushed and nervous, tucked in a corner of the locker room where no one could see them. It was short and sweet and they’d laughed about it afterwards, but it was good. He would do anything to have that again now, awkwardness and all.
Leehan can’t kiss him, so he tells him instead, “I want to kiss you. So badly.”
“Me too.” Taesan sighs, all of his restraint eroded away with sleep and a yearning dug deep from his chest. “I wish you were here. I wish I was holding you right now.”
“Soon,” Leehan says. “I’ll come and visit you. You can show me around your campus and I can meet your new friends. We’ll test out your new bed and make breakfast in the morning and I can kiss you all I want. Does that sound good?”
“Next weekend?” Taesan asks. It might just be the dust on his screen or a pixel out of place, but he’s sure he can see a speck of light in Taesan’s eyes. A tiny star, light years away, bursting with hope. “If you’re free,” he adds quickly, so Leehan doesn’t feel pressured. He would never feel pressured.
“Next weekend,” Leehan affirms. “I can do that.”
“Great,” Taesan says, relaxed with relief and the promise of something to look forward to.
He’s fighting to keep his eyes open. Leehan is starting to feel tired now too, content in Taesan’s happiness and his own, comfort a weighted blanket tucked around the both of them. When he lets his vision blur, just a little, the edges of his laptop screen fade and suddenly they’re not video calling, Taesan is right there in front of him and Leehan can run his fingers over his jaw and cheek. He can kiss his lips and his nose and his heavy eyelids.
“Go to sleep,” Leehan prompts, his voice and his gaze dripping with fondness.
Taesan shakes his head, a displeased groan caught in his throat. “I want to talk to you more.”
“We can do this again,” Leehan says. “Tomorrow, if you want. Or whenever.”
“Stay,” Taesan mumbles, eyes already shut again. “Until I fall asleep. Then you can hang up.”
He was going to anyway. Taesan didn’t need to ask. It makes him feel good that he did.
“Of course,” Leehan tells him. “Goodnight, Taesannie.”
“G’night,” Taesan says. A pause, and then, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Leehan says back.
Then Taesan is gone.
It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep. It never does. They’re both like that. Leehan watches as his body relaxes, sinking into the mattress, and how the hand he had holding the sheets against his chest loosens, then falls in front of him, palm open and fingers spread so Leehan can slip his own into the gaps. He watches as Taesan’s lips part slightly and his chest rises and falls with steady rhythm.
Leehan takes a screenshot. Not as revenge, but because he’s cute.
Taesan hasn’t even turned his bedroom light off. He’ll wake up in a few hours with his eyes burning and his head pounding. Leehan would turn it off for him if he was there. He would do a lot of things.
Leehan stays for a while longer, just in case Taesan wakes up again and Leehan isn’t there, and because he looks sweet like this, peaceful. Because he misses him.
He didn’t get to tell him that, but that’s okay. Taesan knows, and Leehan knows he feels the same.