Chapter Text
It wasn’t until they had already reached high school that Jun realized the feelings he was developing for Jihoon were different from those he harbored toward his other friends. Truthfully, he should have noticed what was happening earlier, but he didn’t until it was far too late. Not that he could have stopped it. Not that he would have wanted to stop it. He just should’ve known what was coming.
To him, it seemed like one day he went to sleep a carefree soul, and the next he woke up unable to think about Jihoon without feeling like his guts weren’t guts at all, just weird blobs of gelatin shaped like organs and crammed in his body. At first he thought maybe it wasn’t anything, but that was quickly proven to be false when every time he was around Jihoon, which was often, he would be overcome with the desire to reach out and touch him: ruffle his hair, grab his wrist, put a hand on his shoulder. He tried experimentally being near to his other friends to see if the same thing happened, but no dice. In addition to having no desire to lay a finger on any of them, they all thought he was “weird as hell for standing so close for no damn reason” and wanted him to “back up before I jam my elbow somewhere you don’t want it.”
Of course, it wasn’t really a sudden change like he deluded himself into thinking it was. In a way, it was like learning to read. You learn the letters, you piece together the words, start to make sense of them in your head; it happens so gradually, but one day you just have the abrupt realization you can do it. Maybe if Jun had realized he was learning to read, he wouldn’t have been so shocked when the squiggles on the page started meaning something.
It didn’t help that they were still in a sort of awkward transition from babyhood to less-babyhood, stretching out their limbs and carving out their faces and making their necks slick with sweat every time they had to talk out loud in class. Jun’s hands were still sticky from the melting Skittles in his pocket when his legs started getting too long for that same old pair of jeans, and he hadn’t failed to notice the way Jihoon’s once softly rounded cheeks withered back a little into something sharper of a jawline over the summer between their final year of middle school and the start of freshman year.
It was only about two awkward, muggy August weeks before anyone started to catch on to the hitches in his breath whenever Jihoon came within a three-foot radius, and obviously, it had to be Soonyoung, the one guy with his eyes always peeled and a nose for discerning information unlike any other. “You couldn’t be more obvious if you had a sign taped to your forehead,” he’d said once after witnessing Jun let his eyes follow Jihoon for just a moment too long when he split away from the group to walk home.
“Obvious about what?” Jun asked, failing to play dumb as he took one last glance at Jihoon’s departing back and only cementing Soonyoung’s words further.
“Dude.” He looked over his face for a good minute before responding, wheezed out a sympathetic sigh, dropped his voice. “I know you like Jihoon.”
“You what?” Jun sputtered, saliva catching in his throat behind that ever-sharpening Adam’s apple and making him choke. “I don’t, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said unconvincingly, not quite able to bring his eyes to Soonyoung’s for more than a millisecond at a time.
“Come on,” Soonyoung had said, reaching up to give him an uncomfortably warm pat on the back in the already too-hot afternoon. “I see the way you look at him. It’s like you’re a little kid seeing the moon for the first time.” There wasn’t much else Jun could do but sigh and admit defeat, look down to watch his feet scrape along the concrete in a pair of shoes that were starting to get too small.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” he said quietly, nearly a whisper above the dull screaming of the cicadas around them. This was long before Soonyoung had the idea to place bets on anything and everything he thought he knew before everyone else did, so he agreed without much thought, finally removing his hand from Jun’s overheating back.
“I won’t,” he promised, “but you’re lucky they’re all so dense. Especially Jihoon.”
Jun hadn’t thought Jihoon was dense, but then again, there were a lot of things he hadn’t thought. He hadn’t thought he spent that much time looking at Jihoon until the day after Soonyoung confronted him. Their conversation only made him far too aware of every single action he performed when Jihoon was around, and he caught himself absentmindedly staring Jihoon’s direction somewhere around twenty times in a single class period, like a compass magnetized to point toward him whenever it got turned around. Jihoon didn’t seem to notice even once, and that’s when Jun started to think that maybe he was a little dense.
He was a lot of things, Jun noticed. He was brief when he wanted to be, which he usually did, and he never minced words, not even with teachers or kids he’d never spoken to, and Jun thought there was something scarily brave about that. He wasn’t mean, but he wasn’t nice, either. He had a heart of gold only when he felt like showing it, but he would never own up to it later, unwilling to let anyone think he was a good person for more than a second before shooting them back down. He was beautiful in a kind of nebulous way, some subtle grace in his features that Jun could never quite pin down but also couldn’t stop trying to find, and he was smarter than he let most of them think he was. And he was just a teensy bit dense.
There was no chance with Jihoon. There was less than no chance, actually, not with a guy so adamant about maintaining the aloof sort of friendship he’d had with everyone for years. Given how long they’d all known each other, ever since they were little kids, it wasn’t a stretch to use the term “close friends” to describe the bunch, but Jihoon always made sure he was just one step farther away than anyone else, and nobody really knew why. They figured if that was the way Jihoon wanted to have things, that was the way he would have them. No questions, no arguments, no explanations.
Jun decided he would just let his feelings die down and fade away as all feelings eventually do, or should do, if you spend a long enough time acting like they aren’t there. He knew it was for the best, too, only it was hard when he saw Jihoon almost every day and it was hard when his heart sped up on its own and it was hard when he got string cheese stuck in his braces and Jihoon laughed out loud in that unbelievably captivating way that he always did, all wide smiles with his head thrown back. It was so, so hard, but he still convinced himself every day that he could do it even though he knew he couldn’t.
He was in the middle of doing a terrible job at acting like he didn’t have a steadily growing crush on Jihoon when Jihoon’s birthday rolled around and he actually decided to have a party for once. It was a small party—just the seven of them, because adding anyone else would be pushing it—and everything was going fine, just a bunch of dumb boys doing dumb boy things, until someone had the bright idea to play truth or dare, only the first of many times they would go on to play that stupid game. Soonyoung swore up and down that he wasn’t the one who came up with playing it, but when you knew Soonyoung like Jun did, you knew it couldn’t have been anyone’s idea but his.
They gathered into a little circle, and Jun really did try his best to sit anywhere but next to Jihoon, but he ended up beside him anyway, droplets of sweat beading on his forehead as he forced himself to look anywhere but to his left, knew if he took even a glance at the boy sitting there he wouldn’t be able to move his eyes again for far too long. As the game dragged on, he could see out of the corner of his eye that Jihoon really wasn’t interested, and part of him was a little hopeful that he would end the game himself before anything happened to justify the terrible knot of nerves in Jun’s stomach. Naturally, he could never be so lucky.
“Jihoon,” Soonyoung called from the opposite side of the circle, “truth or dare?”
“Dare," he declared boldly, and Jun knew that mischievous twinkle in Soonyoung’s eyes couldn’t mean anything good.
“I dare you to kiss one of the people sitting next to you,” he said, and Jun felt his heart sink all the way down to his stomach and then continue straight through the floor.
Please pick me was the first thing he thought, immediately alongside No matter what you do, don’t pick me. He didn’t know which one would be worse, and he didn’t want to know. On Jihoon’s other side sat Jeonghan, handsome as always despite the hairs that had started to spring out of his face without warning, and on one hand, Jun thought he might be able to deal with it if it was Jeonghan; he was kind of already seeing someone else, so Jun was sure nothing would happen between them if Jihoon kissed him once.
On the other hand, though, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of Jihoon kissing someone else in front of him just as much as he knew that if Jihoon kissed him, he would never be able to get over this stupid crush that he never even wanted. The only way it would work out in his favor was if Jihoon asked for a different dare, and it seemed for a few seconds like he might. This seemed like the kind of dare Jihoon would never want to do anyway, and for just a minute, Jun got his hopes up that he would ask for something different, something better, like holding a headstand for thirty seconds or chugging a two-liter of Mountain Dew. Aforementioned hopes were shattered completely when he saw movement just past his left arm, watched Jihoon turn to face him head-on.
No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t tear his eyes from Jihoon’s face when he started leaning closer. He didn’t really want to, either, not when their faces had never been so close before and the chance to take in all of his features from so near wasn’t likely to present itself again. A tiny freckle under his left eye that Jun had never noticed before was almost the only thing he could focus on. Too scared to make eye contact because what if Jihoon could see right into his brain and know how much he wanted to kiss him all the time? Too scared to look at his lips because he’d seen them before, knew how soft they would seem, and what if something showed on his face that made it obvious he was glad they would be pressed against his own in a matter of moments? He probably looked so nervous anyway, wiping the moisture from his palms on the carpet, but maybe there was a chance Jihoon wasn’t noticing it, too focused on getting the dare over with.
Time stopped when Jihoon reached up to rest his hands on Jun’s shoulders. Impossibly and unfathomably, there was nothing else in that moment, not a single other event in the entire universe. Not as far as Jun was concerned, at least. The only things he knew were pounding silence flooding his ears and the scorching heat rising under his skin, burning him where he felt Jihoon’s fingertips through his t-shirt. He’d have sworn he was blacking out if it weren’t for the clear image of Jihoon’s lips as they moved forward toward his, slower than slow can be, an unimaginable slowness, so slow he died and came back a million times before they had moved forward an inch.
Time stopped again when their lips finally made contact. It was only for a short moment, but at the same time, it was the longest period of Jun’s entire life, ten infinities strung together, dragging on in a bittersweet forever as Jihoon’s mouth lingered over his, lips just as soft as he always thought they might be but never expected to know for sure. When he pulled back, Jun was completely breathless, utterly winded despite what a chaste peck it was. He was afraid to breathe and ruin that solitary second of togetherness, to exhale and blow it off into oblivion.
He watched Jihoon blink a few times as he leaned back to his seat and pulled his hands from Jun’s seared shoulders, pretty eyelashes sweeping over his cheeks in subtle curves, and Jun knew immediately that he was totally and undeniably fucked. No amount of digging would get him out of the Jihoon-flavored pit he’d fallen into, and while he couldn’t do much but hate the hopelessness of it for himself, a large part of him didn’t mind. He thought it might not be all bad being so taken if it was Jihoon’s spell he was under.
“This game sucks,” Jihoon said bluntly, folding his legs back underneath him. “I don’t wanna play it anymore.”
Jun didn’t remember what they did after that. All he recalled was how unbearably hot his face was for the rest of the evening. Even during his walk home when the late November air drew goosebumps on the rest of his skin, even when he splashed cold water from the sink onto himself before going to bed, even when he flipped the pillow over to the cool side and tried to catch some sleep. His cheeks smoldered with a white heat straight through the night until they finally dampened in the morning, but they only warmed back up every time his thoughts drifted to the party.
“I saw you staring at Jihoon again in biology,” Soonyoung whispered when they paired up in geometry the following Monday, masking his words with the rustling of the textbook’s pages. “I thought you were trying to let it die out.”
“I was trying,” Jun confessed softly, “but it wasn’t even working. And now it’s just hopeless.” He stared at the mess of shapes inked on the paper, seeing everything but failing to understand what he was supposed to be looking at. “What the hell are we supposed to be doing right now, anyway?”
“Why is it hopeless now?” Soonyoung asked, scrawling illegibly and unhelpfully on a piece of paper.
“You know damn well why it’s hopeless now,” Jun hissed, snatching the pencil from Soonyoung’s unsteady hand. “Why the fuck would you give him that dare?” Their teacher’s ears perked up at his word choice, and she shot a stern warning glance to let him know that she was prepared to issue a detention at any moment. Soonyoung just chuckled.
“I knew he wasn’t gonna kiss Jeonghan, that’s why,” he boasted quietly, reclaiming his pencil. “I did you a favor.”
“Favor, my ass,” Jun sighed, glaring at the array of triangles in the book like this was somehow their fault. “I’m boned, dude.” He raked a hand through his hair and made a mental note to get it cut soon. “Why Jihoon, of all people?”
“Well, you know what they say,” Soonyoung said in a hushed voice, nodding sagely. “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends’ noses.”
“How is that relevant right now?”
“You can’t pick your crushes, either.” Jun opened his mouth to shoot something back, but the voice of their teacher cut across the classroom before he could.
“If you boys don’t stop talking, I will find you new partners myself.”
“We’re working, ma’am!” Soonyoung called cheerfully, a very bold lie in front of the entire class, and lowered his pencil back to the paper to continue writing in reformed Greek or Wingdings or whatever the hell unintelligible gibberish he was attempting to do the assignment in.
“Why do you have the world’s worst handwriting?” Jun asked quietly, and Soonyoung’s glare in return could have cut his hair for him.
“If you don’t help me figure out these damn triangles, I’m telling Jihoon everything,” was all he said, and that was enough to get Jun to focus on the assignment.
It might have been smooth sailing if Soonyoung had been the only one to catch on, but as winter break grew nearer, Jeonghan’s eyes began to open as well, the pink dusting Jun’s cheeks almost constantly no longer able to be disguised. Realistically, it probably still would have sucked if only Soonyoung knew, but it sucked twice as bad when the population of people who were clued in on his not-so-secret secret doubled.
They agreed to meet up at the mall on some Saturday in the first half of December to shop for Secret Santa gifts, though none of them were quite sure how well that was going to go if they were all in the same place. When Jun arrived to their designated meeting spot, the weird statue by the food court of a guy lifting twelve shopping bags and pushing a stroller with his foot, Jeonghan and Soonyoung were the only two who had arrived already, chatting quietly until Jun strolled up in all his gawky tallness.
“Hey, Jun,” Jeonghan greeted with the same soft half-grin he’d worn for as long as Jun could remember. “Jihoon isn’t coming today.”
“Okay,” Jun said, because Why are you telling me? seemed suspiciously defensive, only because it would have been suspiciously defensive, and he didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel more upset or relaxed, but Jeonghan didn’t give him much time to think about it.
“Jesus, you may as well be wearing a neon sign that says ‘I like Jihoon’ in big ass letters,” Jeonghan sighed, shaking his head. “It’s like you don’t know if you should be relieved or disappointed, and it’s all over your face.”
“Did you tell him, you jackass?” he spat at Soonyoung, but he just raised his hands defensively.
“He didn’t have to tell me,” Jeonghan explained tiredly, grabbing Jun by the shoulder and pulling him down onto the bench. “You’re so obvious. It’s like you want everyone to know. And they will, trust me.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do?”
“I don’t know, dude. Get better at acting?” Jun groaned. Get better at acting, indeed. Sure, it might help him keep his secrets a little bit longer, but pretending wasn’t going to make him feel any better. Just as he heard footsteps coming up beside him, Jeonghan spoke again. “I lied, by the way.” Before he had time to ask what Jeonghan was talking about, the sight of a too-familiar figure approaching dangerously close in his periphery gave his heart the idea to try and beat its own record for beats-per-minute.
“Lied about what?” Jihoon asked stiffly, shifting his gaze between the three of them in suspicion. “Oh, hey, Jun,” he said, and Jun thought he might just drown in those eyes.
“Hey,” he replied lamely, and while Jeonghan did not groan aloud, it was plain as day on his face that he wanted to.
Jihoon was wearing a sweater with sleeves that were just a little bit too long, graceful fingers poking out beautifully from beneath the cuffs. Jihoon had wonderful hands; Jun had always thought so. They could play piano and clarinet and guitar, they could tap out little beats on the classroom desks. They could do anything. They were wonderful, gorgeous hands that did wonderful, gorgeous things, and he wanted more than anything to hold them, even if for just a second, a fleeting breath of time, so that maybe he could feel wonderful and gorgeous, too.
“Have a fun trip to the bathroom, Jihoon?” Soonyoung jabbed, snickering, but Jihoon didn’t seem to give a shit.
“It was the most fun I’ll have all day,” he deadpanned. “Anyway, what did Jeonghan lie about? Aside from the stuff he always lies about, I mean.”
“I never lie.” Jihoon just raised his eyebrows. “Fine. I told him,” he said, and Jun felt his chest tighten because what if he tells the truth oh my god, “that Wonwoo broke his foot.” Jihoon scoffed at the same time that Jun exhaled the most relieved sigh he could muster without being expressly obvious.
“What a dumb thing to lie about,” Jihoon mused. “Wouldn’t Jun be the first one to know if that happened?” he asked, and Jun realized that he was probably right. He was the closest to Wonwoo out of all of them, so it would only make sense for Wonwoo to tell him first if he didn’t tell all of them at the same time. “You’re a dumbass, Jeonghan.”
“The dumbest,” he agreed playfully.
“When are Seungcheol and Wonwoo gonna get here?” Jisoo asked, and for a moment, none of them realized that he hadn’t even been there in the first place. With unbelievable delay, Soonyoung snapped his head around, wide-eyed.
“When the hell did you get here?” Jisoo quirked a brow and smiled his weird, knowing smile, eyes flicking to Jun for no more than a moment before meeting Soonoung’s gaze again.
“I got here right before Jun did,” he said, and that was when Jun realized that his secret was only becoming less of one the longer he tried to keep it.
Shopping in a big group turned out to be the worst idea ever, because everyone was just bent on trying to guess who was shopping for whom, so after causing uproars in three separate stores, they decided to split into smaller subgroups to make things easier. After fierce deliberation designed to protect everyone from knowing who their Secret Santa was, they formed two groups of two and one group of three. Jihoon and Seungcheol comprised pair number one, and pair number two was the hellish duo of Jeonghan and Soonyoung. Jun was roped into roaming around with Jisoo and Wonwoo, which was great because it meant he couldn’t slip up in front of Jihoon, but he would almost rather have died than been forced to put up with Jisoo’s abundant suggestive glances and eyebrow raises and sly smiles.
“Would you stop looking at me like that?” Jun asked when Wonwoo split off from their little trio in Radio Shack to go check out the headphones. He had to buy for Jihoon, so headphones were the gift that made the most sense; Jihoon went through pairs of them like it was his job.
“Like what?” Jisoo said, arching his eyebrows, same smug smirk still plastered on his face. “Like you have a big ol’ crush on little ol’ Jihoon?”
“Please,” he whispered, “do not say anything about it. I really mean it.”
“I think we both know that you can trust me much more than you can trust Jeonghan,” he said confidently. Somewhere on the other side of the mall, Jeonghan sneezed. “Or Soonyoung, actually. I’m the last person you need to worry about.” Jun sighed, clenching and unclenching his fists uncomfortably, sweat already dewing on his palms at the overwhelming prospects of Jeonghan letting something slip. “Listen,” Jisoo muttered, suddenly serious. “I already noticed weeks ago.”
“What?” Jun yelped, and Wonwoo glanced over in concern before turning his attention back to the two identical pairs of earphones in his hands.
“It was just a suspicion,” Jisoo continued, “but you confirmed it today.” He fixed his eyes on Jun, hard and unmoving, seeing right through him just like everyone seemed to be doing without much trouble. “It’s unbelievable that Jihoon hasn’t noticed anything yet,” he said as if Jun hadn’t already heard that a million times, hadn’t already told it to himself until he felt like throwing up. “You’re gonna have to do something.”
“But I can’t do anything,” Jun returned, something halfway between a whine and a sob, voice cracking in that embarrassing way that it wouldn’t stop doing. “It’s hopeless and you know it.”
“Well, you can’t just do nothing,” he said, and Wonwoo trudged back to them with a pair of newly-purchased headphones hanging in a plastic bag around his wrist before Jun could formulate an adequate response.
Do something, do something. It was always about doing something, but Jun didn’t want to do anything. He just wanted to be left alone. He wanted his heart to act like a heart instead of a hummingbird and his lungs to act like lungs instead of bubbles and his stomach to act like a stomach instead of a kaleidoscope of butterflies. He wanted his brain to understand that it was impossible and give up for good. He wanted to sleep until being around Jihoon didn’t make him feel like the world didn’t have quite enough air in it. He wanted a lot of things, but mainly, he wanted to get over these dumb feelings and leave them behind them so he could be around one of his own friends without feeling like his chest might cave in on itself.
The shopping trip ended uneventfully. Since Jun had to buy for Jeonghan, he considered getting him some tape to keep his lips sealed, but decided instead to get him a few pairs of weird socks since he seemed to really like those all of a sudden. Jisoo went way over the twenty dollar limit and bought Soonyoung the Naruto movie, rationalized it by saying they would probably watch it together anyway so it was partially a purchase for himself. The group reconvened for only a brief moment by the statue before separating to go back to their homes, Jihoon slipping away without more than a word of parting, leaving Jun’s ears wanting to hear more of his steadily deepening voice no matter how much he wished they wouldn’t.
The semester ended with the usual stress that always accompanies the ending of a semester, and the date for the Christmas party creeped up not too long after. It was at Seungcheol’s house like always, two days before Christmas this year instead of one because he apparently had all of his forty-fifth cousins sixteen times removed coming into town Christmas Eve and there just wouldn’t be space. They all crowded into his living room to do their usual Christmas business of inhaling every single cookie Seungcheol’s mom had made with their growing boy appetites and yelling at the video games they played on the TV.
Jun didn’t have it in him to join in like in years past. Of course, in years past he hadn’t been so preoccupied with trying to keep his eyes off Jihoon that he ended up ignoring everything his friends were saying, ignoring the game, and ignoring his own thoughts when they drifted back to Jihoon inevitably. He sat back on the couch and tried not to be too conspicuously detached from the festivities, tried to look like he was just waiting on his turn for the controller, but if his previous failures at subtlety were any indication, he probably wasn’t doing a very good job.
Eventually, they abandoned their game and crowded together into a small circle on the carpet to start the gift exchange. Seungcheol’s dad brought in the gifts from the closet where he’d stashed them on the arrival of each boy, generating a nice little pile in the middle of their loop. By the grace of either god or the devil, Jun somehow wound up next to Jihoon again, and he couldn’t stop himself from noticing how nice his fingers looked peeking out once again from under the cuffs of an oversized sweater. He fiddled with the poorly taped edges of the festive paper just barely covering his gift, which Wonwoo had done an extraordinarily shitty job of wrapping, and his hands looked so delicate yet strong at the same time, elegant but sturdy. His own hands paled in comparison, just bony collections of joints covered in skin. They were different machines altogether, like apples and skateboards, and his were nowhere near amazing enough to hold Jihoon’s.
They went around the circle opening gifts one by one, and it became apparent very quickly that Jun and Wonwoo were the only two who had obeyed the twenty dollar rule. Soonyoung got Seungcheol the whole DVD box set for some show the rest of them had never heard of, and Jeonghan got Wonwoo the first two books in a series he was interested in reading, hardback, which had to be at least thirty bucks. Next to everyone else’s gifts, Jeonghan’s three pairs of novelty socks looked like an insult.
“Who got me these?” he asked, holding one pair up to the light, decorated to look like hamburgers. It had become customary for each Secret Santa to reveal himself as the gift he bought was opened, so Jun raised his hand timidly, heating up when he felt Jihoon’s eyes on him. Jeonghan smiled brightly, folding the socks back together and setting them on his lap. “Thanks, Jun. I’m gonna wear these all the time.”
“That was a good gift,” Jihoon whispered, nudging Jun’s side with barely enough force to be felt as Soonyoung began tearing the paper off his Naruto DVD. Jun gulped hard, his ribs catching on fire where Jihoon’s elbow exerted its gentle pressure, unable to do anything but offer one silent nod.
Slowly but surely, the circled worked its way around until it was Jun’s turn to open his present. He carefully peeled back the heavily-taped wrapping paper, trying to discern what was inside without being too obvious about it. It wasn’t very small, and it was kind of heavy, but he had no clue what was going to be inside once he finally got all the paper off. When the wrapping was out of the way enough for him to see what he was unveiling, he was certainly surprised.
It was a shoebox, and while it seemed pretty clear that there would be shoes inside, he was still stunned to find them there. A crisp pair of low-top Converse, black and clean, lights from the tree reflecting weakly off the shiny white toes. He took one gingerly out of the box, sliding his fingers along the canvas. It was a little bit bigger than the size he actually wore, but his feet were probably going to grow some more anyway and his current shoes were too small for him to argue. He looked up dumbly from the shoe, still thumbing the laces, and surveyed all his friends’ faces.
“Who…?” he began, but he couldn’t bring himself to finish. He was too touched by the receipt of a gift he’d so desperately needed ever since everything he had to wear started shrinking while it was on his body, and he couldn’t choke another word out. Beside him, he watched Jihoon raise his hand with the smallest of grins. It wasn’t much—no teeth, no crinkles in his eyes—but it was enough. It was enough to bring Jun back to square one, to destroy the very last clinging shred of hope that he would get over Jihoon, though he’d already thought that was gone long ago. It was enough to remind him once more that he was totally and undeniably fucked.
The rest of winter break went by in a blur. Jun wore his new shoes all the time, just in case his feet got too big for them, so by the time classes resumed, they were already a little worn, scuffed lightly around the edges of the soles where he didn’t quite pick his feet up enough on the sidewalk, but still mostly new-looking, the polished white toes reflecting distorted filtrations of the light that hit them. His feet grew just a little bit in the time between Christmas and the first day back at school, and he desperately hoped they wouldn’t grow too much more, but his body hadn’t exactly been cooperating with him lately.
Bitter January air gave him a good excuse for the redness warming his face every time he saw Jihoon, but it only worked as long as they were outside; every other time, it was “oh, I was just running” or “isn’t the heat on a little too high in here?” or “I think I’m getting a little sick, that’s all.” But January couldn’t last forever, and neither could its air. It melted into a chilly February and then into a mild March, meanwhile Jun’s cheeks only got redder and his limbs longer.
Neither his body nor his mind was on his side as April oozed in with all its spring air, stretching his legs too much for all of his shorts and whisking his teen brain away to far-off daydreams in the middle of class behind moony gazes Jihoon was bound to notice at some point. Something about spring really got to him that year, made him feel like flowers were blooming on his ribs every time Jihoon glanced his way under the gently warm sunshine, made him see faces in the clouds that he knew wouldn’t be there because the clouds could never do enough justice. When the final bell rang on their last day in late May, he wasn’t sure whether he should sigh in relief or longing.
That summer between freshman and sophomore year brought big changes. His growth spurts stopped him at a cool six foot even, and his braces finally moved aside to make way for a bright, toothy grin he didn’t know he would ever have. Soonyoung blackmailed him into going to his dance classes with him, and his body morphed from an in-between adolescent frame into the broader, more certain build of a man. Lean muscles stretched along his arms and legs and back, pushed his spine further upright and pulled his shoulders into a flat line. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he couldn’t help but marvel at what he saw, no longer the same gawky kid whose palms got slick talking to cashiers.
He could see it in the way people looked at him. He could see that people were looking at him, saw girls’ eyes widen just a little bit when he passed by them, turn to whisper to their friends when they thought he couldn’t see them. “You’ve gotten so handsome,” his mother said to him once, ruffling his hair, and he thought she was right. Confidence was suddenly something he knew very well, overflowing from his every pore, radiating from his smile. As long as he was feeling good, nothing could bring him down.
Toward the end of the summer, Soonyoung convinced Jihoon to come to some of the dance classes without giving Jun a heads-up. When he walked into the studio and saw Jihoon present and stretching, his heart stuttered, suddenly inept at articulating the simple beats it took just to keep him alive, and he felt like he was back in biology, staring hopelessly and wistfully across the classroom at a dream he would never get to touch. Confidence, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the same anymore, no more timidity and hiding. He set his bag down and strode over assuredly, desperately trying to untangle the bundle of nerves coiling in his stomach. He could do this.
“Jun?” Jihoon said when he was close enough. “You look different,” he remarked, and Jun knew he couldn’t do this. Different how? he wanted to ask. Good different? Bad different? And where was all that damn confidence now? He didn’t need it when he went to the grocery store or the post office, but Jihoon shows up and it’s mysteriously disappeared, gone along with his cool and calm, like it was never there in the first place. He’d forgotten how much he liked the sound of Jihoon’s voice on his name, how much he liked those little dimples he got when he creased his mouth, how much he liked Jihoon in general. The summer hadn’t felt long enough, but at the same time, it felt like far too long since he’d seen Jihoon, and he was right back to feeling like his bones were all made of putty before he could count to one.
When class actually began, Jun’s eyes were glued immovably on Jihoon. It didn’t take a genius to see that he had a natural talent for dancing. His movements were a little clumsy, but he had this kind of rhythmic flow behind them that was impossible to look away from, a mesmerizing fluidity that pulled Jun in, and as he watched him dance, he thought for the first time, I might be in love. His pulse increased alongside the thought, hammering away at his ears until they couldn’t pick up the beat anymore.
In love.
Might be.
He didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t bear to let himself without feeling like he was drowning on dry land. In love was the worst thing that he could be, but the only thing he could think to say he was. Confidence, indeed! When had confidence ever mattered at all? He could be a god walking on earth and he would still trip over words and fumble phrases because Jihoon would still be Jihoon, and that was all he had ever needed to be to make Jun feel like his insides were pudding and his brain was molten.
When he got home from dance class that day, he decided he needed to talk to somebody, and who better than his best friend? He picked up his phone and tapped out a message frantically, praying to anyone listening that Wonwoo wasn’t busy.
To: wonwoo
hey dude are u busy i need to ask u something
It wasn’t long before his phone buzzed and the screen lit back up. He snatched it into his hands hurriedly, eyes intent on the screen, fingers already typing furiously.
From: wonwoo
no what’s up
To: wonwoo
this is kinda random but how do u kno if ur in love w someone
He waited with bated breath for a text back, every second an eternity, until his phone finally alerted him of a new message again after what felt like years.
From: wonwoo
is this about jihoon
If Jun had been drinking anything, he would have choked on it, done a very real spit take all over the screen of his cell, and probably died.
To: wonwoo
what are u talking abt
From: wonwoo
everybody knows dude
From: wonwoo
except for like jihoon
He already knew he wasn’t exactly doing the world’s best job at hiding anything, but it was a solid kick to the chest to hear that his one secret was already common knowledge. He thought he might be sick if it weren’t for the lump in his throat keeping everything down.
To: wonwoo
did someone tell u. was it soonyoung
From: wonwoo
i could tell on my own kinda but yes it was soonyoung
From: wonwoo
seungcheol looked surprised tho so he probably had no clue
To: wonwoo
shit
From: wonwoo
sorry dude
From: wonwoo
but 2 answer ur q. im no expert so don’t quote me but u probably are
To: wonwoo
i probably am what
From: wonwoo
u know. in love
Jun stared at the screen until the words stopped looking like words and started looking like nothing, letters reduced to arbitrary lines before his eyes. Probably might be. He probably might be in love. That didn’t confirm anything, didn’t deny anything, and didn’t help. What do you even do if you probably might be in love with someone? Jun didn’t have a clue. He hadn’t been expecting to find himself in this flavor of pickle, and he wasn’t too fond of the taste.
He never wanted an unrequited crush to begin with, and now that like was turning into love, he wanted it even less. The overwhelming despair inherent in his whole situation made him feel like he was dying from the inside out, but at the same time, thinking about Jihoon made him feel so alive, like every breath was a gift and he was so, so lucky to be this close even if there were impregnable glass walls on every side.
How many years would it take? Surely he couldn’t pine over Jihoon until he got lowered into his grave. There had to be some sort of time limit after which his feelings would realize they were idiots and hit the road. It happened with all his previous crushes, and while none of them had made Jun feel like his heart needed a raise for working so much overtime, they couldn’t possibly be that different. A crush was a crush was a crush, even though Jihoon wasn’t just anybody, and sooner or later, he would have to get over this. Even if it took ten years, even if it took twenty. Someday had to arrive at some point, and Jun was just going to have to wait around for it.
Jihoon only came to about a week of dance classes, deciding he’d rather spend his final week of freedom wrapping up the summer work he’d neglected for two months. Jun couldn’t help but feel like he hadn’t gotten to see nearly enough of Jihoon dancing, but it wasn’t like he could just ask him to keep coming, especially when he had a good reason for not showing up. Jun himself had failed to keep up with summer work over the break, so for the last week before school started, dance was the only place he went, the majority of the time spent holed up in his room half-assing the ridiculous piles of assigned work to get it all done in time.
In his crunch to get everything done, he neglected to compare his class schedule with those of his friends, so on the first day of sophomore year, he walked in without a clue whether he even had classes with any of them. He lucked out having Jisoo in his first period Algebra 2 class, but after that, he didn’t see any of them for a while. Fourth period he had some one-semester gym credit he needed to graduate, and shortly after he walked in and sat down, he saw someone slide into the seat right next to his out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey,” Jihoon said as he slumped into the chair, and though it couldn’t have been more than two weeks, Jun felt like the last time he laid eyes on his face was eons ago, brain already foggy and covered in dust. His eyes seemed even more labyrinthine than usual, and Jun was having much too easy of a time getting lost in them. “I’m glad you’re in here. I haven’t seen anyone else all day.”
“Me too,” Jun bumbled, intensely aware of where Jihoon’s elbow was bumping his exactly. “Well, I had Jisoo in my first period, but that was it.” He tore his eyes from Jihoon’s reluctantly, glancing over the board at the front of the classroom. It outlined the course for the duration of the semester, but Jun’s brain was doing a less than stellar job of linking words to meanings with Jihoon so there and so wildly captivating.
“I know I already said this,” he began again quietly, commanding all of Jun’s attention, “but you really look different.” Jun took a look at him. It was only meant to last a second, but the sight of the small smile curling Jihoon’s lips held him against his will, robbed him of all his thoughts and left him alone and bewildered on the side of the road. “I didn’t think you would be the one to turn into a hot piece of ass,” he snorted, and the million butterflies in Jun’s stomach ripped themselves free one by one. Words died in his throat when he opened his mouth to say them, so he forced a dry chuckle and turned back to the chalkboard, only the words scrawled on it meant even less this time. The only phrases that registered in his brain were probably might be and in love, alternating in that order until he felt so woozy he almost couldn’t sit up straight. He didn’t know how long he waited for the bell to ring, but it seemed like hours went by before he heard its cacophonous chime.
“I hope you like the seats you picked,” grumbled the teacher as he rose from his chair, “because you’ll be sitting in them every day that we’re in this classroom.” Jun gulped, and he hoped it wasn’t loud enough for Jihoon to hear. Every day? So close? He didn’t know if he would be able to make it the whole semester. He didn’t know if he would be able to make it the first week. It was one thing when Jihoon was on the other side of the classroom, where his eyes might drift anyway if he was spacing out, but it was another beast altogether when Jihoon was right beside him, elbows dangling off the sides of the desk and fingers laced together beautifully atop it and leg bouncing lightly beneath it to an imagined beat Jun would love to hear. He could only pray that they would spend more class days out of the classroom than in it.
Fortunately for Jun, his prayers were answered. The first several weeks saw only a handful of days in the classroom, though he’d be lying if he said he listened to a word their teacher said on any of those days. He always found himself focusing too much on not gazing at Jihoon and missing everything, then ending up having to ask Jihoon what the hell they talked about and getting mesmerized by the way his lips moved around the words as he explained. He gathered tragically little information about whatever it was he was supposed to be taking away from the class, but he learned a great deal about Jihoon. How he always leaned to the right when he dozed off and how his eyes flitted around the gym ceiling when they were forced into exercising and how his heels always met the gym floor in even tempo when they walked laps around it. He also learned that there were a lot of things he didn’t know about Jihoon, and he wanted to unearth every last one of them.
Somewhere just after halfway through the semester, the whole class was corralled into some strange, carpeted room Jun had never been before and told to “partner up because we’re starting the ballroom dancing unit today.” Jun’s brain whirled around rapidly in his head. Ballroom dancing? They had a unit like that? Why? He didn’t have any answers, though, because he’d spent too much time not paying attention in class, and before he had time to register what was coming, a fierce mob of nearly all the girls in class was stampeding toward him. If it were a year earlier, he would have assumed they were going after someone behind him, but he knew this time that he was their only target and none of them were about to let him escape.
The second the girl at the front of the pack latched onto him, digging her nails into the flesh of his arm possessively, the rest of the crowd dispersed with obvious disappointment on their faces, turning reluctantly to partner with the rest of the boys, who now felt like secondhand knock-offs and wanted to push their fists into Jun’s nose at full force. Once all the girls had selected their partners, though, it became staggeringly obvious that the class contained way more boys, several of them still unpaired and looking around aimlessly. Jun noticed with a stutter in his heartbeat that Jihoon was one of them.
“Alright,” their teacher grumbled, crossing his arms, “some of you boys are gonna have to pair up together. No whining.” He eyed them coldly, then suddenly reached out to grab Jihoon’s wrist and raise it in the air. “Any volunteers for Mr. Lee?” he said, and Jun thought nothing but This is my chance.
“I’ll be his partner,” he said quickly, almost too quickly, suspiciously quickly, but if anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything. The teacher nodded gruffly, and Jun thought he saw relief in Jihoon’s eyes, but before he could move to join him, he was stopped by the sensation of nails driving just a little deeper into his arm.
“But you already have me,” the girl hissed. Her name was Yeri or Yura or Yoonji—Jun couldn’t remember which—and she had pretty brown hair that curled just a little bit at the ends and big doe eyes that reflected the gymnasium lights in a weirdly entrancing way and skin that glowed like spring no matter where she was. She also had nothing on Jihoon, not even close.
“I’m not the only guy in class,” he said, offering her a grin that he hoped was convincing without revealing his true motive and prying her fingers from his arm. “You’ll still have a partner.” She looked like she wanted to say something but also like she didn’t really want to argue with him, so Jun took that as his cue to detach himself and coast over to Jihoon, whom he wanted to convince himself looked just a little happy. With a substantial amount of grumbling, the rest of the class got paired off, and they began the instruction with little gusto.
“Typically, guys will lead and girls will follow,” the teacher began, tired eyes roaming the faces of the students without much enthusiasm, “but for you couples where neither of you is a girl, you’re just gonna have to pick one of you.” He drawled on, explaining something about the difference between the two, but Jun stopped paying attention when he heard Jihoon’s hushed voice.
“Do you want to lead?” he asked, and Jun’s brain was so full of other muck that he had trouble sifting the words out.
“I don’t care,” he mumbled back eventually. “You can lead.”
He inhaled sharply against his will when he felt Jihoon’s fingertips brushing his back, then exhaled as slowly as he could manage when he felt the whole of Jihoon’s palm press down flat. His back was burning, blistering under the touch, and he could feel the heat spreading to his face. He hoped against hope that Jihoon didn’t notice. Slowly but surely, Jihoon took his other hand and joined it with Jun’s, lacing their fingers together. Even though he could already feel sweat sticking to his palm, he couldn’t stop himself from having the thought that this was right.
Their bodies so loosely linked together. Only two points of contact, but two was enough. One was enough. It wasn’t like he’d felt empty before, but with Jihoon’s fingers between his, he felt so whole, like this was how things should’ve been in the first place, how they always should be. It seemed like this was some universal rule, and he was only discovering it now. The earth revolved around the sun and the moon revolved around the earth and earth’s gravity pulled things down with an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second and Jihoon held Jun’s hand and everything was as it was meant to be.
He lifted his free hand to let it rest lightly on Jihoon’s shoulder, a smooth slope extending from the base of his neck. His hand felt like it might catch something on fire, but he left it anyway, burning a hole through Jihoon’s loose t-shirt. They stood this way only for a second before Jihoon withdrew his hands, shattering the moment and breaking Jun out of his tiny reverie only to suck him back into those mystifying eyes.
“You should probably lead.”
Jun decided that he liked having his hand on Jihoon’s back, liked the feeling of the lean muscles moving beneath his palm. He decided the ballroom dancing unit could never be long enough because he wanted to do this forever, even if he did keep getting so overwhelmed that he lost the beat and had to shuffle to avoid stepping on Jihoon’s toes. “You’re a really shitty lead,” Jihoon told him once with a snort, and Jun thought he was mostly right, but he didn’t care. He would be happy being the worst lead in the world as long as Jihoon was following.
The ballroom dancing unit was only one week long. For the rest of the class, it seemed to drag on for a hellish lifetime, but for Jun, it was devastatingly short. His fingers felt lonely when they weren’t intertwined with Jihoon’s, and his hand felt cold and empty when it wasn’t resting on that smooth and surprisingly strong back. He would have given anything for just one more second, but nobody was offering to make a trade, so he was forced back into the classroom and the gym for the rest of the semester to mourn over the feeling he couldn’t shake of only being half full.
Quietly and gradually came the end of the semester, and if his physical education course had been anything else, he would not have made it out with an A. Exams came and went, and so did the Christmas party. That year for Secret Santa, he got Jisoo a set of bowties with hotdog designs and received from Seungcheol a CD he’d been wanting. It wasn’t disappointing by any means, but it certainly couldn’t hold a candle to the last year.
Jisoo decided that year that he wanted to have a New Year’s Eve party to celebrate his birthday since they were only a day apart. Everyone thought it was a grand idea until Seungcheol showed up with a few bottles of champagne he smuggled from somewhere—only the first of several times he would go on to do so—and then Wonwoo started to think that maybe it wasn’t such a grand idea. Nobody knew where he got them, but they weren’t quite in the mood for asking questions.
None of them had very much to drink, but it was enough. Enough to make their heads a little light and their eyes a little dreamy, enough to make time seem like it was passing inconsistently, enough to make their lungs feel like they were full of bubbles and their brains full of fireworks. It was enough, just barely enough, to make Jun think he had the guts to tell Jihoon how he felt, and as the passing minutes pulled them slowly but surely toward midnight, he did it.
There wasn’t quite a minute left before the year turned over when he found himself standing so near Jihoon that it made his chest ache, and he figured that might be as good a time as any. Jihoon was just standing there and half smiling with slightly drooping eyelids, clutching a nearly-empty glass that had once been full of champagne with a hand mostly hidden by the sleeve of one of the too-big sweaters he seemed to own so many of. He looked just as effortlessly and unbelievably breathtaking as he somehow always managed to, and Jun’s hand rose on its own to brush over his fingers with only the most ghosting of touches.
“Hey, Jihoon,” he said, leaning in so close he could smell the subtle hints of citrus from his shampoo. Jihoon’s eyes opened up a little more, and he turned to look at Jun head-on, dimmed lights twinkling faintly in his irises. Jun cleared his throat a little and brought his head forward again just slightly nearer, until his lips were immediately beside Jihoon’s ear. He let his eyelids flutter shut as he spoke in a voice so low, so hushed Jihoon might not have even been able to hear it. “I really like you.” It only took a few seconds for regret to sink its ugly, gnarled teeth in, and he leaned back quickly to gauge Jihoon’s reaction, but he couldn’t tell what was going on in the head behind that blank face. He never could.
A large part of him expected Jihoon to ask him to repeat himself, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He also knew his inebriated brain wouldn’t be able to make up a lie on the spot about what he said. He turned to leave before Jihoon could say anything, but Jihoon’s hand darted out and beat him to the punch, wrapping around his wrist tightly in an instant. Jun dragged his gaze back to Jihoon’s face, still unfathomably beautiful despite how lost it looked, and the distant sound of people shouting numbers floated vaguely into his ears through a sea of muddled thoughts and alcohol. All at once, the volume shot up drastically. Ah, it must be the new year, Jun thought, and that was when Jihoon’s hand slid from his wrist to his neck and pulled their faces together.
Time ground to a halt again, but aside from that, this was nothing like the innocent kiss they’d shared a year before at Jihoon’s birthday party. That time had been no more than two sets of lips brushing together, bumping into each other almost on accident, but what was happening now was a completely different beast. It was decidedly deliberate, mouths half open and eyes half closed as they really got a taste of each other for the first time, much more than just pairs of lips colliding in space. Jihoon’s fingertips melted into the skin on the back of Jun’s neck as he tugged down, gentle but surprisingly insistent, pulling their mouths together with unexpected intensity.
Jun hadn’t realized just how much he would have to bend down to kiss Jihoon, and it was kind of hurting his back, but he didn’t mind it. Not at all. He felt like the sun was being reborn smack in the middle of his chest, and he would rather break his back every single day for the rest of his life than grow old and die without ever knowing this feeling. Jihoon tasted like champagne and caramel and the word perfect, and his lips were like dreams shrouded in cotton candy. There wasn’t one thing Jun wouldn’t give to experience nothing but this sensation for the rest of his life.
Eventually, though, it had to end. When Jihoon finally drew back, the breaths of clean air burned going into Jun’s lungs, and Jihoon’s hand left a smoldering scar where it dropped from Jun’s neck. He pulled his back straight again and lowered his gaze to Jihoon’s eyes, trying to act like there wasn’t a star imploding behind his ribs, but looking into those dark pools made him feel too much like he was drowning, so he turned and walked off without giving Jihoon the chance to say anything. At least, that’s what he would have done if Jihoon hadn’t done it first.
There wasn’t much left of winter break after that, and he didn’t see Jihoon again. They were still friends, or he assumed they were, so it wasn’t like he could avoid him forever, but he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to see him in class on the first day back. He wasn’t sure what to say. Why did you kiss me? was a question to which he desperately wanted to know the answer, but Why did you walk away like nothing happened? was weighing much more heavily on his mind. Neither were things he wanted to discuss in a classroom, especially since he wasn’t sure how much he would like the answers.
The first day back was as relaxing as it could be, bustling into the same old classrooms with the same old crowd, all of whom had forgotten everything they ever learned in the weeks spent not in school. Naturally, it couldn’t stay relaxing for long. With the turn of the semester came his exit from a physical education course and entrance into a personal finance class, in the same period but a different room. A vague sense of déjà vu washed over him just before the seat next to his in the new classroom was filled, and he turned to see with a rapidly increasing heartrate that the face beside him was none other than the one that filled his every thought.
“Hey,” Jihoon said, voice like honey and silk and nothing at all like being kissed and immediately abandoned. “Funny how we’re in the same class again,” he said, and Jun didn’t think it was funny at all how his ribs felt too tight around his lungs, but he laughed anyway.