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Seungkwan finds out first, because she watches it happen.
They’re having dinner, a normal, routine thing. Hansol thinks he eats at their apartment more than his own place, a testament to his lack of cooking skills and slight dependency on Seungkwan as a human being, a slight dependency on her takeout choices and table settings, mostly. She looks across their spread of food with her eyes narrowed, twiddling with her necklace. She’s trying to meet Hansol’s eyes from where she’s sitting at the head of the table, but his gaze stays lowered to his food, shovelling bites into his mouth like he can’t feel her trying to make his head explode psionically. She turns to Jeonghan instead.
“I’m sorry, did you just ask him out? I think you just asked him out on a date. And he agreed.”
Jeonghan doesn’t look up from her phone, shrugging her shoulders as the audio from another video in her endless dinnertime scrolling sequence rings out. “It’s not that serious.”
Seungkwan white-knuckles her chopsticks, “Hansollie.” She says, gesturing between them as if to say, what the fuck? Do something, but he just shrugs in response, too.
“It’s not a big deal. It could be fun.”
“You have never once had fun together. You don’t know anything about each other. I don’t even think unnie knows your last name.”
“She knows my last name,” Hansol reaches across the table, snatches her phone out of her hands despite her noises of protest. She tries to reach out to take it back, but he hides it behind his back. “You do know it, don’t you?”
“If I answer correctly, can I have my phone back?” She asks in that whiny way that Hansol usually can’t stand– but most things are endearing when Jeonghan does them. It’s something about her big eyes and little smile, something about the intensity of the blush she applies and the freckles she carefully dots across the bridge of her nose. Hansol nods in agreement, and she sighs, “Aren’t you a Choi?”
Hansol hands her phone back, as promised. “See? We get along.”
Seungkwan is not convinced. In fact, she’s so unconvinced that she spends the rest of the meal grumbling about it under her breath. Jeonghan is clearly enjoying every moment of her distress and utter confusion. With every mumble of you don’t even like him, Jeonhan giggles Sollie’s so handsome, Sollie’s taking me out, and Seungkwan scoffs at her, says, what do you mean handsome? It’s a little hard for him not to feel offended at the last bit, but it doesn't matter.
Jeonghan insists on walking him out, and Seungkwan sneers, tells her she’s really hamming it up. Jeonghan just laughs, and Hansol’s hands feel so tense his tendons might start locking up across his knuckles, taut under his skin and making his fingers twitch into weird shapes.
“Any ideas on where you’ll be taking me?” Jeonghan lingers at the end of the stairs. She’s taller than Hansol even in her sandals, crossing her hands behind her back and leaning down in anticipation of his answer. “I’m not so fond of surprises.”
“Aren’t you the one who asked me out?” Hansol’s trying to tease, but then he looks up at her, suddenly shifty under her gaze. She never spares him glances, usually, much less the full power of her stare, weighty and pressing on his shoulders, making him feel even smaller. “I haven’t thought about it.” He has to look down to his shoes before he starts blushing. "What do you usually like to do? When people take you out?”
“Oh, you know,” a grin creeps across her face, “candlelit dinners, expensive wine. Dress codes, waitstaff in ties. All that.”
“Okay, well. I can’t afford shit like that.” He laughs, “Do you like anything more within the broke college student range?”
“C’mon Hansol. Be a gentleman.” She tilts her head at him, takes a step closer, “Don’t you wanna treat a girl like me to a nice evening?”
“I mean, I guess. But I work at a bookstore.”
Jeonghan giggles, and it’s mildly threatening. Hansol has gotten most of his information about her second-hand, through offhand comments and stories told over pitchers of beer by Seungcheol, through late-night text messages about her antics from Seungkwan. The most important note he’s picked up is this: Jeonghan is an angel on this earth, but she’s also, undeniably, an apex predator. “Alright, then. I like pretty much everything. I’ll settle for as low as two dollar signs on Google. Or something worth doing.” She doesn’t give him room to respond before making her way back into their apartment. Hansol walks to the bus stop with his thoughts overriding the sound of his music.
Minghao finds out next, because Minghao always manages to end up with their nose in Hansol’s business. They’re on the couch when Hansol comes home, halfway through a novel they’re only pretending to read. Hansol can feel their eyes on him as he hangs up his bag, kicks his shoes off, and trudges into the kitchen to fight water down his parched throat. A page turns, and then turns back. Hansol meanders to the couch to join them, and Minghao doesn’t look twice at him, but their breath catches a little in their chest. They turn the page again.
Hansol asks, “How was your night?” and Minghao hums “Good.” in response. They turn another page. They’re not even trying anymore.
“You wanted to talk about something?” Hansol tries. He’s really trying here.
“Nothing, really. Why?” They’re still not looking up from the book. The characters are small and dense, filling every inch of the paper. Minghao reads fast, but not this fast.
Hansol says, “You’ve been staring at me since I came in.” and Minghao shakes their head.
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Okay, not staring with your eyes,” He grits out, frustrated by their dodging, “but your brain waves are… pointy. I can feel that you want to ask me something.”
Minghao finally snaps the book shut, their cover blown. “I heard you’re going out with Jeonghan-unnie.”
Hansol blinks, “How do you know that? It happened, like, half an hour ago. It’s barely even a thing yet.”
“Seungkwan tells Junhui everything. Junhui tells me everything. News travels fast when no one can keep their mouth shut.” Minghao smiles, and Hansol cringes. “Don’t worry, I won’t add fuel to the fire. I’m just curious. You two don’t really get along, so it’s a strange turn of events.”
Everyone seems to think this way, and Hansol can’t understand it. Hansol gets along with everyone, or he thinks he does. There’s a certain tendency he has to look suspicious of people, of their actions that he doesn’t quite understand. He’s never been good at hiding anything, his reactions are always too honest. Minghao calls it resting bitch face-adjacent. Resting Hansol Face. Hansol just thinks he lacks self control, can’t keep his face steady even if his life depended on it. They’re one to talk, anyway. “Why do you say that? Do I give off that vibe? That I don’t like her, or something?”
“I don’t think you come off that way. It’s more– how do I put it?” They open the book back up, flipping through the pages to get to where they actually left off. “You guys are actually very similar, and I think that’s part of the problem. You’re parallel, so you never see each other coming. You don’t really talk, and when you do, you bicker.” They’re picking at the corner of the page absent-mindedly, never one to treat their books with care. “I guess that’s why it seems weird.”
“Parallel. Hm.” Jeonghan does have a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. She’s got a lot going for her: timeless beauty, talent, humor– but she’s slippery. Doesn’t take anything seriously even when she has to. Sticks her hands in places they don’t belong. Seungcheol treats her like a martyr. Hansol thinks she needs to grow up. “I just don’t get her. Maybe this will help.”
“I think you’re skipping a few steps, going straight to taking her on a date.”
“It’s hardly a date. You know Jeonghan. She’s always messing around.”
“Alright,” Minghao shrugs, putting their glasses on and returning to their reading, “if you say so.”
Hansol isn’t sure what’s going on anymore.
Seungcheol wakes him up at 5 A.M. from halfway across the world. No regard for their 12-hour time difference, no regard for his beauty sleep that he finally fell into after staring at his laptop all night. His head hurts, and he’s pissed, and Seungcheol is yelling at him for some reason.
“And what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Wha?”
Seungcheol scoffs through the speaker. Hansol can hear traffic in the background. He can’t remember if she’s in New York or London this time, delirium overriding any valuable thought processes. “You are not seriously going on a date with Jeonghan.”
“You jealous?”
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Sorry, I had to.” Hansol laughs, sitting up with a stretch, “Why is everyone being so weird?”
“Hansol, if the two of you start dating, I think the world is gonna end.”
The assumption, the same one that everyone seems to be making, just makes Hansol groan. It’s too early in the morning for Seungcheol’s whining, too early in the morning for him to be struggling to defend this stupid little date that isn’t even a date.
“Why are you all so annoying? So what if I am?”
“Oh shit. So it’s really not Jeonghan messing around?”
“No, what the fuck?” Hansol figures Seungcheol wrestled the information out of Junhui, who’s never been good under pressure, especially from her, “That’s such a stupid bit, even for Jeonghan.”
“What are you guys even gonna do? Compare Fiverr rates?”
“I’m taking her to a bar. You’re annoying as hell. I’m hanging up now.”
Hansol tosses his phone back on the side table where it belongs, body heavy but mind racing and restless. Could they really be that different? For as much time as Hansol spends around Jeonghan, he can’t say that he knows what she gets up to on a regular basis. He knows the facts, knows stories about her, knows that she likes to dump her entire side of rice into her jjigae instead of eating it separately. Seungkwan loves her so much, and Hansol guesses that he does too, by extension. She always pays for the drinks on their movie nights, and lets Hansol steal her leftover snacks and her usual place on the couch so he has the best view. She’s kind, but mean. Beautiful, but crazy. Maybe he’s gotten himself into something he can’t control.
When the night of the date comes, Hansol is in his usual attire: a shirt he drowns in, shorts with buckles and pockets all over, and the beat up Vans he’s been shredding on his grip tape since he was 16. He’s dressed down, appropriately so for the pool-hall-slash-bar-slash-music-venue he suggested they check out. He picks Jeonghan up at her apartment like a gentleman. He’s expecting Seungkwan’s face to pop up first, because Jeonghan always takes a catastrophically long time to get ready. There is nothing in the entire universe that can prepare him for what the door opens up to.
Jeonghan is a vision in white, a flashbang. Hansol practically flinches. Pale skin covered in satin and lace, sheer tights, nothing more than a slip covering her body. She’s topped it all off with a fur-trimmed jacket, annoyingly thick platform boots, and glitter in her hair. Her perfume makes Hansol a little dizzy, over-applied and smacking him in the nose with mandarin and coconut.
“My god.” Hansol makes a face of disgust that he really can’t hold back. Jeonghan beams at him like it’s a compliment. “Do you get off on being taller than me or something?”
“Maybe.” Jeonghan shrugs, smug as ever. It kind of makes Hansol mad. “You’re cute to look down on.”
“Noona… we’re just going to play pool.”
“Well, then you’ll have a great view.”
Hansol scoffs, “You’re so unbelievable.” but he grabs her hand to help her down the stairs anyway.
The bar is practically empty when they arrive, save for an older guy sipping beer on a far corner barstool. The place is nice, overally, albeit a little seedy. The walls are plastered in local concert promotions and alcohol-induced graffiti in different hues of permanent marker. The owners still let people smoke inside like it’s the 90s, and Jeonghan sticks out like a sore thumb, despite her looking like she stepped out of a Courtney Love moodboard. Hansol almost starts laughing at her, until she starts racking up the balls like she could do it in her sleep. Then he starts getting nervous.
He misses the first six shots he takes. Debates telling her that he has to pee and ducking out of the back exit, but then she misses too, and it feels like the playing field gets leveled somewhat.
“You don’t talk much,” Jeonghan says, chalking up the end of her cue, “and you’re not so good at pool. You’re making this difficult for me.”
“I’ve never played before. I thought it’d lean more towards being endearing, like I was letting you win, but I’m just kind of embarrassed.” Jeonghan leans down to line up her shot, and Hansol’s eyes follow, down to the gap in her bodice where he can see her chest. She’s not wearing a bra. He doesn’t mean to look, but the fabric is loose and her boobs are just there. He’s only human. She sinks another ball into the corner pocket, and Hansol whips his head away. “I’m also just not sure what to talk to you about.”
“Well, there’s at least a little common ground.” she says.
Hansol closes one eye, like it’ll assist his aim in any way. His arms are all over the table, but Jeonghan lets it slide. “Such as?”
“We’re both trans.” She leans over the table, “We’re both gay. That's a start.”
“That’s not really that interesting.”
Hansol misses. Jeonghan snorts. “Well, we both love Seungkwan. And barbecue. We both like movies…” She leans down again, lines up her shot and takes it. “Oh, and you’re a writer, too.”
The billiards are still moving on the table, but Hansol is frozen. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve read your stuff. I can’t believe you thought you could hide it from me.”
“No you haven’t. I don’t let anyone read my stuff.” That much is true. Hansol guards his document archive like the walls of a palace. Moat, drawbridge, armed guards, the works. Hansol is a writer in the same way Minghao is an artist. That’s not to say they aren’t good, it just means they spend more time in an office cubicle than in front of an easel. That they spend more time talking about painting than actually doing the painting. Shitty pop-ups instead of gallery walls. Zine tabling until they nearly pass out from heatstroke. The plight of an art school graduate.
“I can think of at least one person who has. And they sent it to me.”
Of course. “Fucking Minghao. I told them to keep their mouth shut about it.”
Jeonghan smiles at him and makes some sort of noise. Hansol can’t discern if it’s disapproval or delight. “You should know them better than that. They want you to be this big star. I don’t blame them, you know.”
Her face is all twisted up, and Hansol’s stomach follows suit. Jeonghan runs her tongue over her teeth like she’s challenging him. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Hardly. I’m telling you that you’re good. Really good. You’re a writer, we have that in common. We can talk about that.”
“There’s not much to talk about. It’s not like I do it in any serious capacity. Not like you.” In fact, there’s really nothing to talk about. Jeonghan has been drowning in a sea of book deals since she was sixteen. The literary equivalent of a Boy Genius. Youth poet laureate by tenth grade, graduated by eleventh, her words hard-bound and in the hands of every girl with knee socks and a tote bag before she could legally buy a drink.
“You know you can if you want.”
“Okay, but I don’t. I don’t even wanna talk about this with you.”
“It’s not a big deal. I’m not gonna bite. Unless that’s what you’d like.” She makes a show of smiling with her teeth. She doesn’t have sharp canines or tearing incisors, but it’s still a threat, even if Hansol chooses to ignore it. “What’s the hangup? You should be proud of what you do.”
He’s not even sure what she’s getting at anymore. He never imagined someone so beautiful could be so exhausting. “It’s not about– it’s not that I’m not proud. Not everyone makes art to get famous or whatever.”
She stalks around to his side of the table, pressing their arms together, “Then why not at least try? I have like, four different publishers on speed dial.”
“Do you interrogate every person you go out with?”
“Only the ones that matter. Only the ones who squander what they have.”
Hansol can feel himself getting frustrated with her, scoffing, “I can’t squander anything if it’s not, like, my career goal. That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Oh yeah? What are your career goals then? Got a lot of ambition I’m not aware of?” She challenges, and Hansol backs down. There’s only one solid ball left on the table, and Hansol knows that he’s so far behind her at this point, there’s no coming back. He feels that way about a lot of things.
“You ask too many questions.”
“You’re a three-time dropout who gets paid minimum wage. Forgive me for being suspicious.” She punctuates her sentence by landing the 8-ball in a center pocket. She stares right at Hansol as she pulls the cue back, doesn’t even have to look to know she’s made the shot spot-on. Hansol sees red.
“I’m getting a drink.”
He’s not sure why it upsets him so much, as someone who prides himself on never really getting upset— blame it on the hormones, on a nerve being touched— but his jaw is sore from how hard it’s clenched as he approaches the bar. Hansol doesn’t get angry easily. Negative emotions are not his natural response to things, but there’s just something about Jeonghan. Her success, her nagging, her beauty, something. Something he can’t have, but desperately wants. The bartender says For you, ma’am, as he slides a pint of pilsner down the bar top towards Hansol. He doesn’t have it in him to care anymore.
All the tables outside are rusty and uneven, and Hansol isn’t sure if he’s up to date on his tetanus shot. It doesn’t really matter anyway. He plops down on the wooden chair and prays there’s no loose nails or splinters. He’s halfway through the beer when Jeonghan comes out to the patio. She stands in front of him, tall, white-hot, wringing her hands behind her back like she’s waiting to get scolded.
“You’re supposed to call your shots.” She says.
“Hm?”
“In pool. You’re supposed to call the shots you’re going to make. I kept letting you slide.” The corner of her lip curls, and Hansol breathes out a laugh, a little snort of disbelief.
“You’re really something, Jeonghan.”
She softens, her hands coming to cross in front of her chest instead of being hidden shyly behind her. “I’m sorry if I came off snobby. Uptight.” She wrinkles her nose at her own words, “I tend to do that. I was trying to be encouraging.”
“It’s not you. I just don’t like fantasizing about things I’ll never have. My brain gets all… floaty about it. And I get disappointed.”
Jeonghan sighs, pops her hip out like a disheartened mom. “Scoot over.”
“You’re not fitting in this chair with me. Just sit across.”
“I want to sit with you. Scoot over.”
“You’re annoying.” Hansol grumbles. He moves to the corner of the chair, his ass dangling over the ground just so she gets the most amount of space possible, so he can mitigate the risk of their entire bodies touching for the duration of her questioning.
“If you were to dream a little. If you could achieve your wildest fantasy life, what would it look like?”
“I dunno.”
She jostles him a bit with her shoulders, “C’mon. I know you’ve thought about it. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. I know you don’t want to be a fucking neurosurgeon.”
“I just told you, I don’t like talking about it.” Hansol takes a long sip, downs nearly half the pint.
Jeonghan is good at prodding. Getting under people’s skin seems to be among her many specialties. Her eyes do a lot of the heavy lifting, dark brown, endless, searching all of Hansol’s features as he seizes up under the force of them.
“I guess… I’d like to live in the countryside? To be where no one could reach me.” He says, lost in the swirl of her pupils, in the junction where onyx turns truly black. “Have enough money to write full time. Maybe I'd have a garden, or two. Maybe I’d learn Japanese and move to the seaside. Suzu, Onomichi. I miss the quiet. I miss being able to think.”
It’s the most Hansol has said all night. It might be the most he’s talked about himself to anybody in a while, much less Jeonghan. Her eyes light up as he speaks, and it makes him feel gooey, makes him press their arms together. “You can have that.” She tells him, “You can have anything you want.”
There’s the floaty feeling again. “Noona, eugh—” He tears himself away from her eyes, not wanting to get lost in the sparkle any longer. “It’s not the same for me.”
“Sure it is.”
“I promise you, it’s not.” Hansol’s throat has an itchy thing rising in it, like his body is fighting against what he’s trying to say. “I don’t… I don’t write things that move people. I don’t say anything grand, or impactful, or important. I’m okay with that. I don’t need everybody to tell me I’m great all the time. I don’t write for praise. I write because I have to. There’s— there’s nothing else.” He looks back to Jeonghan, can feel the warmth starting to prick at the back of his eyes. He’s not sure exactly why he wants to cry, so he won’t. Not tonight. “I’m not the worst, but I’m not the greatest, either. Don’t shove me into boxes where I don’t belong.”
“Mmmm.” Jeonghan hums, considering him, like Hansol is a sculpture she’s bidding on and not a person who just cut himself open in front of her. “You’re full of shit.”
“Huh?”
“Everyone loves praise and accolades. It feels good. You have a reward-based nervous system.” Scoots closer, like they could be any closer. Their noses are about to touch. “I could slap anything you’ve written on the desk of any publisher in this country and it’d be full of more life and depth than anything they’ve seen in six months. Doesn’t that feel good, Hansol? Isn't it nice to know you’re worth the trouble? Because trust me, you are.” She says it with a sort of finality that he’s not used to hearing from her, more familiar with the way her voice tends to raise at the end of her sentence tones like everything is a question.
“Jeonghannie.” He says. Nothing follows. He looks at her eyes again, at the wisps of her bangs and the way her hair falls over her shoulders. She’s skinny, feeble, her collarbones jutting out even when she’s not flexing her shoulders. There’s a curve to her back that can only be gained from hours spent hunched over a keyboard, bent over a desk annotating books. Hansol knows there’s a shredded copy of Maurice in her purse. He knows she’s more than her little quirks and quips. That there’s a softness to her that only exists in these moments in-between. Hansol is not immune to pretty things. He’s not immune to pretty things with something roaring under their surface, his fingers tingling with the urge to peel and pick at her. He’s an artist after all, isn’t he? “It’s insignificant.”
“It’s everything.” Hansol is staring. Jeonghan smiles. “You’re so stupid.”
She closes the gap between them with a hand gripping his chin, the underside of her acrylics pressing into his jaw. She has all these rings on, and it feels like they’re indenting into his skin, displacing the fat on his face from the force with which she’s grabbing him. The kisses themselves are light, sweet pecks of her glossy lips on Hansol’s, the carbonation of the beer still tingling on his tongue as she opens her mouth and digs her fingers into his mandible to pry him open too. He doesn’t know why they’re kissing, but he closes his eyes anyway, fists the fabric of her jacket. It’s over as quickly as it begins, Jeonghan pulling off and licking her lips like she’s trying to taste him again, and then wiping the spit off on her sleeve. She’s full of contradictions. She reaches across the table for Hansol’s beer glass, slick with condensation and nearing room temperature. She downs the rest of it in a single gulp. Hansol is mesmerized.
“What’s wrong with you?” He asks. She just smiles again.
“I had to see if you were good enough for a second date.” She says, and Hansol quirks his eyebrow at her.
“You’re serious? This is like, a date- date?”
Jeonghan laughs so hard she shakes Hansol at her side, slamming her hand on the table and making it rattle around. Hansol has to catch the empty beer glass before it tips over. “I don’t even know! I think I’ve decided that it is. I think I’ve decided that I find you interesting.”
“Why do you make it sound like you’re studying me?”
“I mean, maybe I am. But more trials are needed for me to come to a conclusion.” She runs her nail along the underside of his jaw again, and Hansol shivers. Maybe he’s not meant to understand Jeonghan. Maybe she’s not meant to be understood. “You know, it really is funny you put it that way. I’ve spent so much time around you, just watching. Listening. I guess it is studying. I’m analyzing you.”
Jeonghan is full of sharp corners. Her jaw, the points of her nails, her brain. She’s razor-edged and dangerous. Maybe Hansol should’ve been studying, too. Jeonghan kisses him again, parts his lips with her tongue, and he makes a silent promise to be a more diligent student this time. “Are you enjoying what you’ve learned? So far?”
Her fingers move up his cheek, tucking his hair behind his ear. Her eyes soften, and she tilts her head at him, “Do you like rom-coms?”
“All of a sudden?”
“I like them a lot,” she says with a giggle, and Hansol smiles. Another contradiction, the pretty poet girl obsessed with grunge fashion is a sucker for 90’s romance slop. It almost fits her, in a way. “And I think we’re coming up on the part where they play a horrible contemporary cover of a classic rock song, and we get our happy ending.”
Hansol holds his hand over Jeonghan’s on his cheek, leans into her. “This is the part where I get the girl?”
It makes both of them laugh, and Jeonghan sets their foreheads together, eyes scrunching up when their noses touch. She's beautiful, even if the angle makes her look like a little bug under a microscope. Her smile is easy as she says, “Yeah, Hansol. I think it is," and he can't help but kiss her again. When their lips come together, it's not sparks, not fireworks, but pieces of warm wax melting into each other. Mixing scents, mixing colors. Hansol is content, getting muddy and perfume-y, as long as it's with her.