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Eunyung thought it was just envy at first. He thought he hated Haejoon so much he wanted to be better than him, so he woke up early, learned how to cook, looked for a proper job and even started studying at some point. It didn’t always work out – to be honest, it rarely did –, but at least he was trying. Eunyung desperately needed to show Haejoon that he could try, at the very least.
Maybe envy wasn’t the right word to describe the burning monster that Haejoon seemed to have awaken in him from day one. Maybe it became something worse than that, like a wound festering with time, becoming uglier and uglier. Deeper and deeper.
Eunyung hated being ignored and dismissed by him the most. He was used to easily receiving attention from others, good or bad, but most of the time he felt like dirt under Haejoon’s shoes. It was infuriating. It made him want to punch the guy, really, if only it meant Haejoon would look at him as an equal for five minutes. And he did do that, more than a couple of times, but somehow it only felt worse. Eunyung thought he deserved the nasty looks and the harsh words, but it still felt like shit, being on the receiving end of that.
It was only when Haejoon left that he thought, Oh. I just wanted him to stay.
But nothing really changed with the realization. Haejoon left, and Eunyung still needed to work, he still needed to study, and he still had practice after class. If anything, he could sleep a little longer these days, because no one expected him to make breakfast now. He didn’t have to worry about the possibility of someone cursing at him for making a dumb mistake or looking at him with disapproval if he got into a little scuffle here and there. He didn’t have to worry at all, and it went like this for a long time.
They barely messaged each other, and they hadn’t met since Haejoon left for University, but Juwan still visited sometimes. He brought homemade food and little trinkets that he thought were cute, always talking about things Eunyung didn’t want to know, like how he saw Haejoon yesterday, or how they ordered food together, and how they went to the library to study for their midterms. Eunyung couldn't care less.
“Man, I miss this place so much,” Juwan sighed. It was Saturday, and he had shown up out of nowhere with a bunch of bags filled with homemade food and snacks for Eunyung. His mother was truly a saint. “Don’t you miss the good old days?”
What good days?, Eunyung wanted to ask. But he didn’t.
“It’s only been like,” he spoke with a mouthful of lunch, “five months.”
“Which is a long time for me,” Juwan retorted. “It’s already summer!”
Eunyung didn’t feel like answering. The sun was shining through the kitchen window, and the house was stuffy. It was indeed summer, but he had barely noticed until now. Today was a rare free day, with no work, no practice, and homework that he was dutifully ignoring. It was his last summer as a high schooler, but he didn’t feel like doing anything at all today.
“You sure the supervisor won’t come back today, right?” Juwan asked for the third time today, having finished stuffing the fridge with his mom’s cooking.
“Yeah,” Eunyung answered, getting up to toss his plate into the sink. “Why?”
“What do you mean why,” Juwan put his hand on his hips. Did he always look so much like his mother? “Haejoon and the others are arriving soon and-“
“Haejoon?” Eunyung blinked, caught off guard.
Juwan frowned, “And the others too!”
“Haejoon is coming here tonight?” He sounded panicked even to his own ears, so he shook his head and forced an annoyed tone into his voice. “Why didn’t you guys consult me first?”
“Eunyung-ah,” Juwan huffed. “Don’t you ever check our groupchat? We’ve been talking about this for like, a whole week!”
Eunyung tried to look as composed as possible.
“I’m a busy guy,” he said.
Juwan was saying something about cherishing their friendship more or whatever, but Eunyung couldn’t get himself to pay attention anymore. He needed to do something with his uneasy hands. He decided to wash the dishes, even though he usually only did that at night. He didn’t want Haejoon to nag at him, after all. That guy was so annoying about cleanness. Eunyung would have to clean his room too, and maybe sweep the living room floor. Should he prepare something to eat? Haejoon ate a lot. Maybe he should go to the convenience store while they still had some time before-
Knock, knock, knock.
“Oh, they’re here!” Juwan interrupted his own rant, smiling happily with no regard for the expression of pure horror in Eunyung’s face.
He didn’t even get to wash his hair yet! He was wearing his pajamas, for fuck’s sake, and Haejoon was about to come in and see him like that for the first time in months—
“Hey, guys,” Juwan smiled as he opened the door to Eunyung’s dorm. “What took you so long?”
Eunyung was too busy staring at the sink to look at them.
“The line at the supermarket was crazy,” he heard a girl’s voice say. It was Minju. “And we bought so much stuff, poor Haejoon had a hard time carrying all of it.”
Oh… Right. So Haejoon and Minju arrived together. They went to the supermarket together, too. They went to the same uni, so they must be really close by now. Yeah, of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? It was only natural that—
“Eunyung, we missed you so much!” Minju said.
Eunyung turned around to smile at them, trying not to stress so much about how much of a mess his hair was. It didn’t matter, after all.
“We?” he asked, smiling, as Minju hugged him. He looked at Haejoon, who was carrying at least ten bags of food by himself at the entrance, “Who’s we?”
Minju blinked at him, her smile turning a little mischievous, “Everybody, of course. Right, Haejoon?”
Haejoon opened and closed his mouth, “Um, yeah.”
Eunyung looked at him, forcing his smile to stay in place.
“Well, I’ve been here all this time,” he said.
As him and Juwan helped Haejoon put the stuff in the fridge or in the cabinets, someone knocked on the door again, and Minju greeted Marie and Hara. At least the chaos was overwhelming enough to soothe his anxiousness. At least he didn’t have to be alone with Haejoon or his thoughts or his thoughts about Haejoon right now. At least he didn’t have to be alone at all. Maybe he had missed these guys, after all, or maybe he was just painfully lonely. Thankfully, he didn’t have to think about that right now either.
Since it was summer and no one else would be around, they had all agreed on watching movies and eating a full meal at Eunyung’s dorm, apparently. He had to hear an earful about how he was heartless and didn’t care about his friends at all.
“Just because you’re a celebrity now,” Marie was pouting, “You forgot all about the sunbaes who were with you from day one.”
“You were even on a foreigner ad I saw on Instagram last week,” Hara said.
“Look who’s talking!” Eunyung tried to defend himself. “Ms. National Judo Team.”
Hara laughed and pretended to put hair she didn’t have behind her ear, “Oh, that’s nothing.”
“And that’s beside the point right now,” Juwan argued, “Which is: you should talk to us more! Haejoon is always sick with worry about you.”
All of the eyes in the room turned to Haejoon, who had a mouthful of tteokbokki right now, and could only look at Eunyung with wide eyes and a shocked face.
“Our point is,” Minju rephrased, “Please answer us on the groupchat so we know that you’re alive, at least.”
Eunyung felt weird. He appreciated them trying so hard to include him, but it only made him feel even more like an outsider. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there, ruining their perfect group dynamics. But he just laughed it off and promised to try and talk to them a bit more. He didn’t plan to actually do that, but it was enough to calm them down for now.
They ate and watched some movies and then ate some more. They were loud and friendly, and at least Eunyung could go along with them, even if Haejoon stayed awfully quiet throughout the afternoon. Maybe he didn’t want to be there. Maybe the others had made him go because they knew Eunyung liked Haejoon the best. What if they knew? What if Haejoon was there out of pity? What if he felt so uncomfortable he couldn’t even spare Eunyung a single glance?
“So, Hara and me, Minju and Marie, Haejoon and Eunyung,” Juwan was saying at some point, which caught Eunyung’s attention.
“What?” He asked, “What about me?”
It was already evening, somehow.
Juwan rolled his eyes at him, “Our sleeping arrangements, of course.”
“There’s enough empty rooms for everybody,” Eunyung tried to argue, “We don’t need to—.”
“Then it’d be no fun,” Haejoon said, actually speaking to him for the first time that day.
It made Eunyung’s stubbornness crumble a little. Since when did Haejoon care about fun?
“Okay,” was everything he managed to answer.
“Well,” Juwan said, “Let’s have dinner then!”
Eunyung managed to excuse himself for a bit just so he could take a shower. He needed a minute to himself. He needed to take a breath and relax.
He knew he liked Haejoon. He had known that for a while, although he couldn’t pinpoint the exact day and time. But he had always managed to keep his feelings under control, especially since he barely saw Haejoon at all lately. Now, though, after months of thinking about him and reluctantly longing for him, Eunyung would have to share a room with him again. And everyone acted like it was nothing, because it probably was, but to Eunyung it was everything. It felt like shit, to be honest.
When he finished his shower and came back to the kitchen, everyone was already waiting for him. For some stupid reason, the only seat available was between Haejoon and Minju, so he sighed silently and took his place between them, trying not to feel too self-conscious about all of this.
“You don’t have work tomorrow, right, Eunyung?” Marie asked while they ate.
“No,” he answered carefully. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing,” she smiled. “Haejoon is free too, but we aren’t.”
Eunyung blinked.
“So what?” he asked.
“I dunno,” Minju shrugged, “Maybe you guys—.”
“Minju,” Haejoon interrupted her. His face looked a little red, as if he was annoyed. “Pass me the kimchi, please?”
Minju giggled, and Eunyung frowned. They seemed awfully close, indeed. Haejoon could have asked Eunyung for the kimchi.
“Anyway, we should go to bed early today,” Hara said. “Young people should have plenty of sleep when they can, right?”
“Right!” Juwan agreed. “I’m actually quite tired from eating so much. We should go to bed ASAP.”
Eunyung heard Haejoon sigh. He didn’t know why he was so annoyed, but he decided he didn’t care.
“You guys are really getting old,” he said.
Bedtime was as chaotic as any other time with those guys, but somehow they managed to arrange everything. As soon as Eunyung closed the door to his room, his heart started racing like its life depended on it. Well, it kind of did, but, anyway, that wasn’t the point. The point was that he was alone with Haejoon in the room they used to share, and the air seemed heavy all of a sudden. Was it always so difficult to breathe in here?
“You didn’t dry your hair properly,” was the first thing Haejoon said.
Eunyung scoffed, looking at Haejoon with a sarcastic arch to his brows, “Sorry, mom.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—,” Haejoon looked away, embarrassed, “I meant to ask if you wanted me to dry it for you.”
Eunyung blinked.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Haejoon quickly shook his head. “Just, make sure to dry it properly so you don’t catch a cold. Anyway, I’ll take the top bunk tonight.”
Eunyung simply watched as Haejoon climbed to his bed, too stunned to say anything. He didn’t know why Haejoon would say that out of nowhere. Was this a normal thing to do for your friend you haven’t seen in five months? Dry his hair? Was Haejoon crazy? Or maybe Eunyung was reading too much into it. He shouldn’t read too much into it.
“Okay,” he said after what felt like a lifetime.
He did his best to dry what was left of the water in his hair with a towel, the room so silent he could almost hear Hara snoring somewhere in the house. Eunyung wanted to scream. He wanted to kick Haejoon out of his room and out of this house and out of his head. This was too much.
He felt so conscious of every little thing. The sound of Haejoon’s breath, the smell of his shampoo, Haejoon’s eyes on him. Why were his eyes on him? What was this all about?
“You’re really quiet today,” he said as he walked back to his own bed, unable to bear the silence.
“I’m always quiet,” Haejoon argued.
Eunyung smiled, “I guess so.”
More silence. It was suffocating. He wanted to talk so badly. He wanted to know so much. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask, to show Haejoon how much he actually cared. So Eunyung simply closed his eyes and sighed, praying that sleep would come to him eventually.
After what could be a minute or ten, Haejoon broke the silence once again.
“You’re really quiet today, too,” he said, in a small voice.
Eunyung opened his eyes, wishing he could see Haejoon’s face right now, but also happy he couldn’t.
“I think I’m rather quiet myself, actually,” he answered.
He heard Haejoon chuckle. Eunyung’s heart was about to explode.
“People always say you’re warm and welcoming,” Haejoon said, slowly, as if he was carefully considering each and every word. “But I think I’ve never met someone as cold and closed off as you, Eunyung.”
“Have you ever looked into a mirror?” Eunyung huffed, unsure of how to feel about that statement.
There was silence for a few seconds, while Eunyung resisted the urge to punch himself. Why was he so defensive all the time? He felt so childish.
It was awful. The boy he liked thought he was cold and closed-off. Great. To be fair, it could be a lot worse. Eunyung could be a lot worse than cold and closed-off.
“I guess you’re right,” Haejoon whispered. “But still, that’s not my point. What I’m trying to say is—,” he sighed, frustrated. Eunyung couldn’t tell who he was frustrated at. “I don’t know. I guess I just really wanted to… be let in by you.”
Eunyung felt his heart start to bump out of control, but his face remained the same, even if there was no one looking. His thoughts raced through his mind, leaving only confusion behind.
“What?” He asked. “Why?”
Haejoon laughed easily. “Beats me.”
Eunyung smiled a little at his honesty, but it was gone quickly.
“You didn’t call,” he muttered. “Not even once.”
He immediately regretted how hurt he sounded. He wanted to take it back, to laugh it off, and make a joke out of it. But Haejoon was quicker.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you didn’t, either.”
Eunyung closed his eyes. His head was starting to hurt. Everything was starting to hurt, his chest, his throat, even his nose. He took a deep breath, then another, but his chest still felt too tight.
“I didn’t know what to say,” he admitted.
“Just hi is enough, I think,” Haejoon said.
Eunyung felt his face burn for some reason. He rubbed his eyes, annoyed at how bare he felt. Haejoon was so annoying. Eunyung hated him so much.
“Okay,” he said, hating how unsure of himself he sounded. “Then… Hi, Haejoon.”
He felt so stupid. Like a little kid trying to impress someone. Like a pitiful, abandoned kitten trying to convince someone to love it.
Haejoon was silent for a while. When Eunyung was about to get up and throw himself out of the window, he felt the bunkbed rock as the other boy moved, balancing half of his body out of the mattress just to look at Eunyung’s face.
“Hi,” Haejoon said, smiling down at him, “Eunyung.”
Fuck, Eunyung repressed the instinct to hide his burning face with a pillow. He prayed it was dark enough in the room to hide his pathetic shyness, but it was a full moon today, and the silver light made the whole room look like a dream. It felt like one, too.
“You’re so embarrassing,” Eunyung spluttered.
“Why?” Haejoon asked, and when he realized Eunyung wasn’t going to answer that, he continued. “How have you been?”
There was so much Eunyung wanted to say to that. I’ve been okay. I have a lot of things I want to do now, and I have a lot of new friends. Someone punched my chin last week and it still hurts, but I didn’t fight back, I promise. I’ve been awfully lonely. I miss you.
But he settled for, “Fine. And you?”
“I miss you,” Haejoon answered, fast, “a lot.”
Eunyung’s eyes widened and he looked up at Haejoon in shock. He forgot how practical and to the point Haejoon was. He forgot how sweet he could be. He seemed a little mellower, too. Looking down at Eunyung with a silver halo in his hair, he almost seemed like an angel, offering him everything he ever wanted.
“It’s kind of weird, to be honest,” Haejoon continued, eyes still trained on Eunyung’s face, like a psycho. “How much I miss you, I mean.”
“Then,” Eunyung heard the feelings in his voice, the panic and the hopefulness, and forced them back down. “Then why didn’t you at least call me?”
That made Haejoon avert his eyes and lay down in his bed again, hiding his expression from Eunyung. Did I ruin it?, Eunyung cursed at himself. He probably did. He always did.
“I think I’m scared,” was Haejoon’s answer.
“Of me?” Eunyung hated how insecure he sounded.
“Yeah? I mean, no! Not… not like that. I mean, um. Wait, let me think.”
Eunyung waited. His chest hurt with too many crashing expectations. Was Haejoon afraid of having ties with him? Was Eunyung that much of a disaster, still? Was he scared to let people know that they were close? Even after Eunyung had changed so much? What else should he do? What else was he doing wrong?
“I’m scared, because,” Haejoon sighed, “what if I mess everything up?”
“Mess what up?” Eunyung was starting to get desperate. He didn’t understand what was going on at all.
A moment of silence, then two. He heard Haejoon take a deep breath before answering,
“Us.”
“What do you mean?” Eunyung’s voice was as small as he felt.
“I mean… I mean…,” Haejoon said, “our friendship.”
“Is that what you call it?” he almost laughed.
“Yes. Don’t you?”
Eunyung felt something bitter in his tongue. He laughed dryly. “I guess, yeah.”
The room was silent for a while again, only the sound of the wind chimes on the porch downstairs making its way in by the window. Everything was calm and cool, except for Eunyung. He was panicking and warm from head to toe. Maybe he should close the windows and turn on the AC.
Haejoon had come back to his bed, so only his voice reached Eunyung when he asked, suddenly, “Do you have a girlfriend right now?”
Eunyung let out a shocked laugh, “What? Why?”
“Do you?” Haejoon insisted.
Eunyung bit his cheek. He felt hysteric. Haejoon was so weird, it drove Eunyung crazy.
“I don’t,” he said, at a loss for what else to do.
Haejoon’s only answer was a quiet, “Oh.”
After all this time, Eunyung still didn’t understand what the fuck was up with this dude.
“Are you worried for the girls around me?” He guessed.
“I don’t think so,” Haejoon answered vaguely. “I’m just worried that you might have a girlfriend.”
“And why would that worry you?” Eunyung asked.
Haejoon was silent for a second before asking, “Aren’t you worried that I might have one?”
Eunyung blinked. He felt his chest tighten. He didn’t wanna know.
“Is that what this is about? You wanna brag?” He felt his own voice turning mean. “Did you and Minju finally—.”
“No,” Haejoon interrupted him firmly. “That’s not it. Stop making assumptions.”
Eunyung sighed, awfully, shamefully relieved, but also annoyed.
“Then what,” he whispered, suddenly tired of this conversation. “What do you want me to say, Haejoon? What’s this conversation even about?”
“Sorry,” he seemed genuinely apologetic. “I know I’m confusing. Sorry. I don’t know how to do this yet, I guess.”
“Do what?” Eunyung didn’t want to sound so frustrated, but it still came out like that.
Haejoon moved again, this time jumping off the bunkbed altogether and standing right next to Eunyung’s head. Eunyung, startled, rose to a sitting position and looked up at Haejoon, utterly confused.
“Can I sit next to you?” Haejoon asked, with a weird tone to his voice.
Eunyung didn’t answer, simply turning around to plant his feet on the floor, opening up space for Haejoon next to himself. He couldn’t look at him, so Eunyung just stared at the wall, waiting for his weirdo of choice to speak.
“Promise you won’t hate me?” Haejoon almost sounded like a kicked puppy, if puppies could speak.
“If I could hate you, I would’ve done that a long time ago,” Eunyung answered, serious.
But Haejoon found it funny, for some reason.
“I guess you’re right,” he laughed.
“You’re scaring me,” Eunyung confessed. “Did you commit a crime or something? Should we make a run for it?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Haejoon sighed. “It’s just… I don’t know. Maybe you’ll hate it.”
“Speak already,” Eunyung rolled his eyes. “Whatever it is, I hate this dancing around the topic even more.”
Haejoon took a deep, deep breath.
“As you know, I’m not that good with people,” he started. “We had a really rough start, and you made me mad countless times before—“
“Hey, that’s—“
“Let me finish, please,” Haejoon smiled. He turned sideways, looking directly at Eunyung, who could only give up and look at him back. “At first I thought my attachment to you was just because we were so alike. So lonely. We lived together, so I couldn’t help but be worried about you, and want you to do better. I thought it was just because we were forced to be together for a whole year, and that this feeling that pulled me towards you against all reason would go away after a couple of months away from you.”
Eunyung held his breath. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t speak, he could barely breathe. He could only listen, drinking Haejoon’s words as if they were water in dry weather, as if they were the meaning of the universe. As if they were everything to him, because, right now, they were.
“But it didn’t,” Haejoon said, touching the tip of Eunyung’s finger with his own, a touch so quick and delicate it was barely there. “To be honest, it only got worse. Uni life is really busy, but somehow I still found time to be worried about you, about how you were doing, if you were eating well, if you were sleeping okay, if you were behaving. And at first it was fine, because it’s normal to worry about your friends like that, right? Juwan said it was normal, and that he worried about you too. But then, it started getting a bit much. I started to wonder if you had made a lot of friends, and if you found someone so important that you forgot about me altogether. What if you met someone and thought Wow, this person is so much better than Haejoon? What if you actually hated me and were relieved you didn’t have to see me everyday anymore? I thought maybe you didn’t even think about me at all, because you have a job and a lot of friends and you probably have a new girlfriend and—“
“I don’t.”
“I know. I know that now, but thinking about you having a girlfriend seriously used to ruin my day, to the point I didn’t even wanna know if you actually did. Thinking about you telling someone else about your day, about your worries, about your feelings. Thinking of you actually opening up for someone who… wasn’t me. It pisses me off.”
Eunyung was at a loss. He was too afraid to assume whatever Haejoon was trying to say, even if he wanted to. It would hurt too much if he was wrong.
He hated feeling like this the most, so exposed and out of control, but somehow it was always like this when he was with Haejoon. Why did Eunyung like him so much when it made him feel so uncomfortable?
“You’re so stupid,” he shook his head.
“Am I?” Haejoon blinked.
“You are,” Eunyung was too tired to hold back the frustration in his voice. “If you want to be important to me so bad then why did you just vanish?”
Haejoon stared at him, eyes like a deer’s, wide and panicked.
“I’m scared,” he repeated. “You may not understand because you’ve liked people before but I’ve never felt—“
“I have never felt like this, either,” Eunyung tried to keep himself from screaming. He did not want Park Juwan and the rest of the crew listening to him right now. “Haejoon, I—I don’t know what you think of me, but, this,” he gestured to the empty space between them, “This is new to me too, okay? You know so much about me, you know how mean and awful I can be, how ugly and pitiful and pathetic and—“
“And kind, too. And beautiful and breathtaking and thoughtful,” Haejoon cut him off, his brows knit together in disapproval. His hands came to Eunyung’s face but stopped in the air, hovering awkwardly, just inches away from touching him. “And that’s why I can’t give you to anyone else, Eunyung. I want you all to myself. That’s so scary. A part of me wants you to have many friends and do a bunch of great things out there, but there’s also a part of me that wants to be by your side and witness all of that with you. I don’t want anyone else to be able to see all of you. I—I want to be the only one. I never felt like this. I don’t know what to do with it, I don’t know if it’s normal—.”
“Who cares?” Eunyung felt like crying from frustration. He took Haejoon’s cold hands into his warm ones, his aggravation surpassing his shyness. “Who cares what’s normal, Haejoon? Are you and I normal? What the fuck is normal anyway? It has nothing to do with us.”
He saw, felt, as Haejoon swallowed hard.
“But I’m afraid of who I might become if…,” he shook his head. “If you don’t want me like I do.”
“You won’t become anyone. You’ll stay as you are,” Eunyung tightened his grip on Haejoon’s hands, feeling the insistent burn on his cheeks spread through his neck and down his chest. He looked down as he said, “And you’re kind of a great guy, I guess.”
He felt Haejoon’s fingers twitch on his.
“I don’t know what to do,” Haejoon admitted. “I’m embarrassed.”
Eunyung couldn’t help but laugh.
“Now?” he huffed, daring to look at Haejoon’s face again. “You’re so clueless.”
“Am I?” Haejoon asked, seeming genuinely surprised.
“Yes,” Eunyung shook his head a little. “But I guess I am too, when it comes to you.”
He watched as the heat spread through Haejoon’s face. It was a rare, beautiful sight. Managing to embarrass Haejoon was like a win for him.
“Do you ever think about me too, Eunyung?”
Haejoon got a little closer, just a little bit, but enough to make Eunyung breath faster. Suddenly the room felt suffocating, as if the walls were closing around him. He felt the instinct to get up and run away now that it was his turn to talk, but Haejoon’s hands grounded him there. He had enough of running away from this. From Haejoon. From himself.
“Yeah,” he admitted, his voice tiny.
“What do you think about?”
Eunyung scoffed. “Just… Just about you. In general. Nothing specific.”
“Is that so?”
When he felt Haejoon’s hand starting to back away, he held them tight, close to his face, too afraid to reveal how much he was actually blushing right now.
“Actually,” he said, panicking. “I, well, I think about a lot of things. You never call me so I thought maybe you didn’t care at all. I was happy for you, though, so I didn’t want to ruin your day. We fight so much so I thought that maybe you were living a much more peaceful life without me in it. I was too ashamed to call you. I thought I wouldn’t bear to be such an insignificant part of your life now that you’re in uni so I couldn’t bring myself to try and be part of it at all.”
When he was met with silence, Eunyung blinked and looked up at Haejoon. He wanted to hide himself so much, to take it all back, to pretend this never happened at all and that he was never this honest. It didn’t help that the other boy seemed confused, troubled even.
“I know it’s dumb, but—“ he started.
“It’s not dumb,” Haejoon shook his head. “Thank you for telling me. It just baffles me that you could ever think of yourself as insignificant when you’re so… so you.”
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“Having you in my life and not noticing you would be like,” Haejoon said, frowning, “Like being in Mercury and not noticing the Sun itself.”
Eunyung blinked. He laughed, louder than he intended.
“What the fuck,” He said, giggling. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Juwan.”
Haejoon laughed dryly, “I think so too.”
Eunyung sighed. He could do this, right? He had done this many times before. Even if he was pretending before, he knew how to do it. He knew the words, the motions, the order of things. Or at least he thought he did, but everything seemed too superficial now. Maybe he should come back to the basics. Maybe it was okay to keep it simple. Maybe like this Haejoon would finally understand…
“Hyung,” he whispered. “I actually like you a lot.”
Haejoon got closer. Their foreheads were touching, their noses a breath away from each other. Eunyung’s heart could surely be heard by the whole building. Hopefully they were too busy sleeping to notice the insistent thumping of his chest.
“Can I,” Haejoon said, and then he pressed his eyes close for a second, cleaned his throat and tried again. “Can I kiss you?”
Eunyung tried to remember all the breathing technics the theater kids had taught him, but none came to mind right now. Should he use his diaphragm or his lungs to calm himself? Maybe both? He had no idea.
He could only whisper, “Do you like me too?”
“I do,” Haejoon nodded, bumping his forehead against Eunyung’s clumsily. “Very much so.”
“Then you can.”
And Haejoon did. It was a graceless, hasty thing, the first peck that he left on Eunyung’s mouth. The second one was longer, more intense, Haejoon’s hands going from his cheeks to his neck and then to his hair, probably unsure of what to do with them. Eunyung put him hands on Haejoon’s broad shoulders, his eyes still opened, trying to commit to memory the image of Haejoon’s concentrated face while he did his best to kiss Eunyung. It was cute. Haejoon was cute. He was so, so cute.
They separated for a second, enough to look at each other and giggle a little, but soon Eunyung attempted to close the space between them again. Maybe he was too eager, but he had been dreaming about this for a while, okay?
“Wait, wait,” Haejoon put his hands on Eunyung’s shoulders, holding him back down gently. His face was red all over, his lips soft and shiny, and Eunyung was going to collapse if he didn’t get to kiss him again very soon. “Are you my boyfriend now?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, equal parts shy and entertained. “Am I?”
“Do you want to be?” Haejoon frowned. He was always frowning at something. Eunyung had missed him so much.
“You’re so unromantic, Haejoon,” he smiled.
“Sorry, I… I’ve never liked someone like this.”
“Me neither,” Eunyung held his hand. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
“Yes,” Haejoon answered, quickly, and then shyly added, “Please.”
“You can’t throw me away,” Eunyung himself didn’t know if it was a warning or a pleading. Maybe it was both, “You can’t, okay?”
“I won’t,” Haejoon shook his head, then hesitantly reached out to put Eunyung’s hair behind his ear. “Please bear with me, too.”
Eunyung couldn’t help but smile.