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On the commuter train this morning, Jeonghan fell asleep and dreamt, as he often does, about being nineteen years old and very ill with glandular fever. The non-dream version of this fever lasted nearly three weeks, which he spent tracking shadows in the ceiling above his bed until existence made little sense, until words and voices were nothing but pale patterns swirling on the surface of his awareness like an oil spill in the sea. Sometimes the sun would slice through the walls of the dorm room he shared with another first-year student, Seungcheol, and fry holes in his skull. Sometimes a rat would be sitting on the windowsill. Whenever there was a rat on the windowsill, Jeonghan would try to alert Seungcheol by attempting to speak, and Seungcheol’s pencil would cease its frantic scratching for a moment as he turned his head from his textbooks to watch Jeonghan struggle. Seungcheol has always been the sort of person who suffers the most from his own judgement of himself, and so he rarely left Jeonghan’s side while he was ill. Of course, it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if he had left Jeonghan’s side, since he couldn’t see the rats and since Jeonghan couldn’t tell him about them, but by sitting patiently next to a problem, Seungcheol seemed to believe, he couldn’t accuse himself of doing nothing to help.
“Can I sleep at your place tonight?”
Jeonghan asks this question as they’re standing outside a restaurant in a light snowfall. It’s a Friday evening in February. They’re twenty-six years old and almost two years out of university. They both have master’s degrees and are working mind-numbing office jobs in different parts of the city.
Seungcheol doesn’t look up from his phone. “Why?”
“I don’t feel like being drunk on the train. Can I stay with you?”
“Okay,” Seungcheol says.
Jeonghan’s shoulders ache dully from carrying around his work computer all day. He considers resting his backpack on the ground, but it’s all wet and snowy. “Do I need a reason to stay with you?”
“I said ‘okay’, didn’t I?”
“You asked why first.”
“Yeah. It’s been a long week, is all. I’ll probably go to bed straight away.”
“That’s fine,” Jeonghan says. “I won’t bother you too much.”
Seungcheol looks up from his phone with an expression like he wants to start an argument, but at that moment Seungkwan, Chan, Joshua and Mingyu emerge from the metro station across the street, waving their arms and shouting their hellos over the roaring traffic.
---
These dinners with their friend group were supposed to be a monthly thing, but have trickled out to a few times a year, at best. The ones out of school usually aren’t able to make it, so six out of thirteen is actually a pretty good turnout. Jeonghan (who somehow always finds himself an outlier) is the only one with a perfect attendance record. Seungcheol has missed most of the dinners, but every time it’s happened he has had a good excuse and has complained obnoxiously about it in the group chat.
Jeonghan keeps an eye on him now, watching for signs of a person he doesn’t know hiding within his best friend. But it’s the same old Seungcheol laughing in that way where his eyebrows scrunch up and he looks like he’s in pain, who then catches himself as the laugh dies down and looks troubled for a moment, as if overwhelmed by some sudden truth, then leans quietly back in his chair with a small smile, just picking at his food for a while, so at peace among his friends it’s like he is halfway asleep.
“Is it still cool if I come with you?” Jeonghan asks as they’re paying by the bar. He rests his chin on Seungcheol’s shoulder, breathing in the metallic scent of city air clinging to his coat.
“Yeah.” Seungcheol frowns at the card reader, like his four-digit passcode is a very complicated thing to remember. “Do what you want.”
---
Since helping with the move in April the year before last, Jeonghan has only been to Seungcheol’s apartment a handful of times. It’s a simple two-roomer with buckled floorboards but weirdly high ceilings. It had a nice, spacious feel to it when the days were long in spring, but in the dark of winter something is slightly off. It’s a bit like being on a ceilingless film set, with cameras scrutinising you from above.
Jeonghan dumps his bag by the door and heads straight into the kitchen. Seungcheol follows and pours himself a glass of water from the fridge, watching over the rim as Jeonghan crouches down by the cupboard where he knows Seungcheol keeps his liquor.
“What are you doing?”
“I like a drink to help me sleep sometimes.” Jeonghan holds up a fat bottle of whisky. “Is this any good?”
“It’s expensive,” Seungcheol says cautiously, in what is probably a half-hearted attempt to keep Jeonghan from wasting it.
“You want some too?”
“No. I’m going to bed.”
“Right, I forgot.” Jeonghan opens another cupboard to look for a glass. “You’re such a man these days, Seungcheol-ah. So responsible.”
Seungcheol puts his water on the counter and crosses his arms.
Jeonghan picks out two delicate teacups and sits down at the half-moon kitchen table. It takes maybe ten seconds, but then Seungcheol sits down as well.
“See—you wanted to say yes all along.”
“Check your hearing,” Seungcheol mutters. “I’m not saying anything.”
Jeonghan smiles. He pours them both a shot, but Seungcheol stubbornly doesn’t touch his cup.
He isn’t looking at Jeonghan either, instead staring off into the gloomy corner where he keeps the bin. A clock on the kitchen fan, which used to hang above Seungcheol’s desk in their dormitory and annoy the shit out of Jeonghan at night, ticks loudly and slowly in the pressing silence.
“Remember when I had mono?” Jeonghan asks, after a while of this.
“Sure,” Seungcheol says. “Why?”
“I had a dream about it.”
“About having mono?”
“Yeah.”
Seungcheol shakes his head. “You have fucked-up dreams.”
“What kind of dreams should I be having?”
“Fucked-up ones, I guess.”
“I bet fucked-up dreams keep us sane while we’re awake. It’s a balancing act.”
Seungcheol has been bouncing his leg under the table, but at this statement he suddenly stops. “Last week I dreamt that I drowned in the shower. I kept forgetting how to turn off the water so it just kept rising. I was so annoyed at myself.”
“For drowning?”
“Yeah.” He looks down at his hands. “Or I guess, for not knowing how to stop it.”
The harsh light above the kitchen counter hits him from the side and contours the clean slope of his nose, the fine lines by his mouth and eyes. He has gained some weight since Jeonghan saw him last, maybe a month and a half ago. The extra softness makes him look very young. It’s a curious contrast to everything else.
“Have you been to the gym lately?” Jeonghan asks.
Seungcheol looks up from his hands with a murderous glare.
“You look nice,” Jeonghan says.
“Will you just shut up?”
“I can’t help it.” Jeonghan points at his teacup. “I’m drunk.”
“You’re not drunk.”
“I had three beers at dinner.”
“Why can’t you say things like a normal person?”
“What ‘things’, exactly?”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m just having a drink with my friend,” Jeonghan says coldly. “You’re the one being an asshole.”
Seungcheol nods. “That’s why I didn’t want you here tonight.”
“You could have just told me that.”
“You would have been upset.”
“Not for long. I forget things quicker than you think. I’m worse than a goldfish, really.”
“I’m just so fucking tired,” Seungcheol says.
Jeonghan fidgets with his now empty teacup. His memory truly is bad in a lot of ways, but some things stick around. For example: After his fever died down when he was nineteen, there followed a period of maybe four or five months where he was incapable of functioning as a human being. All food tasted like plastic, so he took to eating only instant rice with soy sauce and drinking copious amounts of sparkling water. He fell asleep in lecture halls and on dates in movie theatres and in corners of busy house parties. He forgot to call his parents and was annoyed when they didn’t scold him for it. His clearest memories of that time are of Seungcheol dragging him along for walks around campus at strange hours of the day, to the laundromat or to the corner shop or sometimes just around the block. In the dream Jeonghan had this morning, he kept on rudely telling Seungcheol that he had no shoes to wear, and therefore could not go on a walk, but Seungcheol took off his own shoes and for some reason said he had found an extra pair in his bag.
Seungcheol is a giant hypocrite, Jeonghan thinks.
“I could probably make the ten fifteen train,” he says flatly, checking his phone.
“Don’t,” Seungcheol says.
“Hm?”
“It’s okay if you stay the night.”
“Oh, great,” Jeonghan says. “Where do I sleep?”
He follows Seungcheol into the living room, and watches in silence as Seungcheol tears the pillows from his couch and spreads a wrinkled bed sheet over the cushions. There are crumpled socks and crusty take-out boxes on the floor. A button on a gaming console glares an angry red in the corner. Everything smells a bit like soured sweat. But these are teenage sights and smells—nostalgic things, comforting things. Jeonghan knows he is going to sleep like a baby.
---
“Jeonghan-ah.”
Jeonghan buries his face into the back of Seungcheol’s couch.
“Jeonghan-ah. You wanna go for a walk?”
“What time is it?”
“Dunno, like two thirty.”
Jeonghan turns around, wiping some dusty breadcrumbs from his cheek. Seungcheol is leaning over the armrest, eyes huge and anxious in the dark.
“Okay,” Jeonghan says.
Outside, the snowfall has ceased and given way to a crisp, glittering stillness. The stars are out, which feels rare enough to comment on, but they say nothing as they start down the frost-glazed pavement at a leisurely pace.
If Jeonghan were alone, he would feel wary about walking down these streets at night. He would startle at every slammed car door or far-off drunken laughter and clutch his house keys inside his pocket if someone walked past him. Actually, he would feel wary about walking down these streets with anyone else in the world beside him but Seungcheol. Jeonghan always feels safe when Seungcheol is near. He has never had reason to ask himself why.
They turn left after a couple of blocks and enter a fairly large public park, with an empty playground and a sad, neglected-looking dog enclosure.
“I’m thinking of getting a dog,” Seungcheol says as they pass it.
It’s so cold that Jeonghan feels his breath in his throat. He wishes he brought a scarf. “Oh?”
“I’d feel less lonely with a dog.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“And I like going on walks.”
Seungcheol says this last part with such flat, almost factual certainty—it’s like he has barricaded himself on the dimmest bright side he could find.
“Can we sit down for a bit?” Jeonghan asks.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’m alright.”
They sit down on a wooden bench under a naked maple tree. There is no wind at all, just a muffled sound of cars and sirens in the distance. The closest light source is a gothic-looking lamppost maybe thirty metres away, which casts a spotlight-sharp glow over an overflowing bin. As Jeonghan watches something small and dark emerges from the mess of cigarette butts and crumpled fast-food wrappings—traces of already half-forgotten Friday night benders—and scurries off into some bushes.
“I dreamt about it again,” he says. “Just before you woke me up, I was dreaming about it.”
“About having mono?”
“Mmh. It happens a lot, actually.”
“I guess it’s a trauma for you,” Seungcheol says.
Jeonghan pulls his feet onto the bench, so he can hug his knees. His teeth ache strangely in the cold. He has weak enamel from drinking so much sparkling water when he was nineteen.
“You barely knew me back then,” he says. “We had been roommates for like two months, tops. I could have died from embarrassment because you wouldn't leave me alone. Because you wouldn’t just go away.”
“Where would I have gone?”
“Every time I opened my eyes, there you were. It was pure luck you didn’t get sick as well.”
“It’s not like we were kissing,” Seungcheol mutters.
Jeonghan gives him a sideways look. “I’m trying to say you’re a good person.”
“I know that’s what you’re saying. You’re being really obnoxious about it.”
“Then feel free to believe me.”
Seungcheol just shakes his head. “I wasn’t a good person back then. Especially not to you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?”
“It wouldn’t change the truth.”
“Okay,” Jeonghan says. “If you say so.”
Another half-minute of silence passes.
“You know what I was thinking earlier?” Seungcheol’s voice is softer now. “At dinner? I was thinking that the time I’ve spent with the people I love probably outweighs the time I have left with them. I will never see my family as much as I did before, when I was a kid. And I will never see you guys again the way I did before.”
“Time passes,” Jeonghan says.
“What do you do, when you feel like that?”
“Is that rhetorical?”
“No, I’m genuinely asking.”
Jeonghan blows warm air on his hands to hide his surprise. Seungcheol almost never asks him questions, or if he does it’s in some brusque, vaguely patronising tone like he expects the answer to annoy him.
“When I feel like that I call someone,” Jeonghan says. “I ask if they wanna get a drink. Or if I can sleep at their place. When I’m lonely I try not to wallow—I try to see someone and have fun.”
“You said you were too lazy to take the train.”
“Well, I’m not good at this shit either.” Suddenly he feels hurt. “You always believe me when I’m lying and never when I’m not.”
“Because you say things weirdly! It’s never actually ‘hey, Seungcheol, you wanna get a drink?’, it’s ‘hey, Seungcheol, I’m gonna drink in your kitchen and I don’t care if you join me or not, but by the way if you don’t join me then you’re a boring piece of shit.’”
“You shouldn’t listen to me when I’m like that.”
“I never listen to you. But you act all sad if I don’t play along—it’s exhausting sometimes.”
“Sorry.”
Seungcheol is quiet for a moment. “Well. I’m sorry I’m not any fun.”
“You’re plenty of fun.” Jeonghan finds Seungcheol’s hand on the bench and squeezes it, but Seungcheol quickly shakes himself free.
“It’s freezing,” he says, standing up. “Let’s go back inside.”
They head back towards Seungcheol’s apartment in silence. As they pass the overflowing bin, Jeonghan peers into the bushes.
“A rat,” he says.
“Where?”
“It ran away.”
“Then why mention it?”
“Why not? I like rats.”
Seungcheol says nothing to this, but when Jeonghan glances to the side he catches the last traces of a smile.
---
They sleep almost until noon the next day. Jeonghan has a family thing that evening and should perhaps want a couple of hours of his weekend to himself, but Seungcheol’s slumped form in a corner of the couch, on top of Jeonghan’s bedspread, where he landed half an hour ago after stumbling out of his bedroom looking dizzy and with his hair on end, somehow has him asking if there is a good breakfast place nearby.
They end up going to a café on the street corner, a small place with handwritten menus and tealights burning on the tables. Jeonghan remembers having lunch here two years ago, when they had finished the last drive with things from their university dorm to Seungcheol new apartment. He also remembers his own complicated emotions on that day: annoyance at the sentimentality of it all, at the hard work of moving, at Seungcheol’s inexplicable look of abandonment as they loaded boxes into his tall empty rooms; a pervading impatience to be done with it all. Back then, Jeonghan was convinced that the future would be better than the past—that not having Seungcheol’s eyes on him all the time would make his head clearer, that he would be a better person and a better friend if he could just get some space every now and then to breathe.
Lately, he has begun to suspect that the problem wasn’t a lack of air, but too much of it. So much oxygen that he couldn’t see how it was keeping him alive.
Breakfast today is a calm affair. They sip coffee and watch cars pass outside the window.
“I’ll come by again,” Jeonghan says later, as they’re saying goodbye on the pavement. He gives Seungcheol a one-armed hug, patting his back a few times to not make it lingering and awkward. Seungcheol is wearing the sweatshirt he slept in, since they just walked down the street. His skin is warm through the fabric.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, frowning with his hands in his pockets as Jeonghan pulls away. “Just don’t show up out of nowhere.”
“When have I ever done that? I asked you twice yesterday, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t really ask.” Seungcheol looks down at the ground. “You never ask me anything unless you know I’ll say yes.”
Well, learn to say no then, Jeonghan thinks coolly, but doesn’t say out loud.
He doesn’t want Seungcheol to learn anything.
He wants the two of them to stay exactly the way they are, forever. Stupid aches and all.