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“I wish I’d dated more,” says Gunwook. “In high school.”
He shifts a little, angling himself towards Matthew. His torso blocks the lights of the bridge they’re crossing and the manager driving the van is paying no attention to either of them.
“You didn’t date?” asks Matthew. “You’re so hot.” It’s too straightforward, maybe, but Matthew’s working with limited vocabulary. He does his best with what he’s got.
“I was busy,” says Gunwook, and it’s too dark to see his expression properly. “But I always wanted a girlfriend.”
Here, in this in-between place, nothing feels real. They just recorded for Inkigayo. Ahead of them are three hours of sleep before their next schedule. Matthew’s too tired to do anything besides what he’s told.
“I’ll be your girlfriend,” says Matthew, deliriously. He laughs. He repeats it. “여자친구.”
“Don’t tease me,” says Gunwook, even though Matthew knows they’re both joking.
*
“Here,” Gunwook says, stopping outside the restaurant. “I used to come here a lot as a trainee.”
His face is more eager than a nondescript pork belly joint warrants, but Matthew understands. If they were in Vancouver, Matthew has a list of places he’d take Gunwook, but they’re not in Vancouver, and they’re not in Osan. Gunwook holds the door open for Matthew and guides him inside with a hand on the small of Matthew’s back.
“Two, please,” Gunwook says, but he doesn’t move his hand. He pulls Matthew’s chair out for him. He laughs too hard at Matthew’s jokes, puts the best bites of meat on Matthew’s plate. Reaches across the table to wipe a smear of sauce from the corner of Matthew’s mouth, grabs Matthew’s hand absentmindedly halfway through eating and plays with it — traces his knuckles, stretches his fingers, presses their palms together.
“So small,” Gunwook says.
Gunwook has always touched him — Gunwook hangs on to Matthew like some sort of emotional support object — but this is different. This is how Gunwook might touch a girlfriend, and Matthew feels something catch in his throat.
*
Filming 2 Days & 1 Night at Yonsei, Matthew stands so close to Gunwook while reenacting a scene from a drama that Gunwook’s chest almost touches his own. They walk from the snowy courtyard to the next filming location beside one another, the lines of their footprints in parallel.
“If you’re trying to play gay chicken with me,” Matthew says, “you’re gonna lose. I’m your girlfriend, remember?”
Gunwook frowns. Matthew has translated gay chicken literally into Korean, and apparently it makes no sense. “Play what?”
“Never mind,” says Matthew. “I just mean you aren’t going to freak me out. No matter how close you get.”
Gunwook smiles, and his cheeks are pink from the cold. He bumps his hip sideways into Matthew and turns his head up to the sky.
*
The dorm is empty and Gunwook revels, stretching out on his back on the couch and turning the volume up on a song Matthew knows Taerae hates.
“No durian,” says Gunwook, beaming, even though he hasn’t lived with Zhang Hao in ages. “No kissing sounds.”
“Did they really kiss in front of you?” asks Matthew.
“Of course they did,” Gunwook says. “Sometimes I was lucky if I left the room before — ”
“Nope,” says Matthew. “Nope, no thanks, don’t wanna know.”
“Does it bother you?” Gunwook asks. He sits up, his hair messy from the couch cushion and held in place that way by remnants of gel. “Them together?”
Matthew, who’d been cross-legged on the floor, crawls up to join Gunwook on the couch. He shoves his feet under Gunwook’s thigh. “It did a little, at first,” he says. “I didn’t want Hanbin to replace me. It was supposed to be our story, on Boys Planet. Not theirs.”
“But it doesn’t bother you that they’re two boys. Dating.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Matthew says. He pauses, feels the remnants of the day’s makeup clinging to his dried-out skin. “And I had a little crush on Hanbin, too, when we met. He was so nice to me. He always smelled good.” Matthew laughs, trying to lighten the mood, but Gunwook’s face is still solemn and focused.
“Do you like boys too, then?” Gunwook asks, eventually.
Matthew knows the answer. If he were in Vancouver, he’d give it easily. Here, in Seoul, it feels heavier.
“Yeah,” he says eventually. “I like boys and girls.”
Gunwook goes totally still. His knee against Matthew’s through the layers of their sweatpants is warm.
“Do you like me?”
It reminds Matthew of high school, and he wonders what he got to have in high school that Gunwook didn’t. He’d kissed a boy in the backseat of his sister’s car once, when she let him drive it to school. On the way home, they’d pulled over a few blocks from Matthew’s house and Matthew had reached out for him, pulled him close by the back of the neck. Matthew’s sister, walking the dog with her headphones on, passed by them five minutes later, and she’d whistled at them until Matthew rolled down the fogged-up passenger window to glare. That had been that.
“I like you,” Matthew says. “But I don’t get it. I don’t understand what we’re doing.”
“I told you,” says Gunwook. “I’ve always wanted a girlfriend.”
“I’m a man,” says Matthew. “I was joking, before — I can’t be your girlfriend. I can’t be anyone’s girlfriend.”
Gunwook swallows. “I think,” he says, and then stops. Takes a breath. ”I think I might also want a boyfriend.”
There’s a gulf, Matthew thinks, between what they’ve been doing and what Gunwook wants. There’s a universe between pretending your friend is your girlfriend and touching a boy in the dark. There’s a universe, and there’s nothing at all.
“What do you think?” Gunwook asks, after Matthew’s gone quiet for too long.
“I think you’re brave,” says Matthew, and he reaches out for Gunwook. He pulls Gunwook close by the back of the neck, and kisses him.