Archive of Our Own ^beta

You’ll never recover from that kind of devotion.

     Leah Horlick

***

Soobin has known Yeonjun for fifteen years.

He’s known him since he had red hair, eyelines smudged around his eyes. Since he had the chopped blond hair, too short to his own liking, complaining his ears off about how he couldn’t wait to wait for it to grow back. How Soobin had stood against his sink, helping him rinse the dye off as he became Yeonjun again; black-haired and a little toothy. Just like when he was a kid.

Soobin has known him forever. 

So, it hurts slightly more, being here in their balcony, smoking their lit cigarettes as Yeonjun tells him he’s in love with yet another man. It’s someone their age this time, at least. Someone he sees around the shop, always carrying a guitar on his back, glasses perched on his nose. Kind of a Clark Kent variant.

“You’re not in love with him,” Soobin says, because Yeonjun never does. All of them has always been fleeting, passing by them in a blur. Yeonjun is never in love with any of them, but he always thinks that he does.

“I am,” Yeonjun says. Nodding. Determined and resolute. He has that look in his eyes that Soobin wishes he doesn’t understand; something gut-like and instinctual. Like he means it with all he has. “He talked to me, you know. He told me he liked my nails. That they’re pretty as hell.”

“He didn’t say that.”

“He did! You never fucking believe me,” Yeonjun huffs, pushing their shoulders together. Annoyed. Tonight he looks a bit like he’s on fire; the jitters of his hands like licks of flame, the smile on his lips like the fucking devil. Soobin has always thought it mesmerizing, despite being scared of it. It’s not the threat of being burned that terrifies him- it’s knowing that he would jump inevitably. Eventually. He would do anything for him, even chasing after hell. He wouldn’t even think twice, is the thing. 

“I do believe you. But you fall in love too easily. What else do you know about him besides the fact that he plays the guitar?”

“He chews gums,” he says, almost too quickly, as though he’s watched him do that very thing for hours on end. He probably has. “There are dents on the sides of his nose when he takes off his glasses. Just slightly, a little nudge on the skin.”

There is a scar near Yeonjun’s eyebrow; a detail that always catches Soobin’s attention. It’s not that profound, but every time he looks at him he glances at it- like an itch he doesn’t know how to overcome. He stares at him, and the scar stares at him back. Something so insignificant about Yeonjun that Soobin can’t help but fall in love with, over and over again across the years. An urge in the fist of his palm to touch him there, his thumb caressing the scar like an open wound; like a lover would. It’s stuck in the bottom of his throat, everything that he feels for him.

He wants to tell him I’d do anything.

I’d do anything so you’d look at me too.

“Those aren’t inherent things about him,” Soobin says.

Yeonjun turns to him, incredulous. “Well, give me some time to know the guy. Then I can tell you something inherent.”

Soobin laughs even though it hurts. He’s used to it by now, swallowing around his want to indulge in Yeonjun’s desire instead. One day Yeonjun will find his perfect man. Right now they are still standing at their balcony and their elbows are still touching. Soobin still has this, at least.

The cigarette between his fingers spews smoke around them, making the air fog and buzzy. He inhales it deeply in his lungs. It hasn’t stung for a while, not since he started smoking with Yeonjun years ago, fucking around with Soobin’s father’s pack and finding out that it feels nice, how the nicotine curls around their tongues and how it makes the world slower, kinder. It makes his eyes water, too. Hot and irritable. 

It makes him feel invincible and also powerless.

Maybe Soobin likes that.

“Sure,” he says, because there’s nothing else to be said. Yeonjun is going to fall in love with Clark Kent, and Soobin is going to watch it fester into nothing. Then he is going to get his heart broken, just like he always does. Soobin is always there to pick up the pieces, bare hands gathering shards and getting cut. But he’d do it for Yeonjun. He’d do it for him a thousand times over. He thinks that’s just the kind of friend that he is. “Tell me about it in a month.”

“You’re giving me a deadline?”

“Yeah.”

Yeonjun shakes his head, stealing the cigarette from him and putting his mouth around where Soobin’s just was. It makes Soobin look at his lips and his teeth. How the cigarette rests around him, the deft way that he holds it, the casualty of breathing it in and blowing it out into the night sky. He looks beautiful, a meteor of some sort. The end of the world. A heartbreak in its delicate destruction.

Watching him like this, Soobin thinks he can do it forever. Just standing beside him as Yeonjun smokes and Soobin prays to a god. The altar of their world, their bodies in the air and their neighborhood is safe and sound.

“You’re an asshole,” Yeonjun says, looking at him. Though there’s a grin there on his mouth, hidden behind the cigarette. Something familiar; something like molars.

Soobin takes it, whatever he can take. They are best friends. That is always true, in spite of Soobin’s feelings.

He will always have this.

He smiles, “I know.”

***

Clark Kent looks like an angel with a boyish smile, but it makes him look super earnest. When he laughs, his eyes scrunch into a line, always making him squint when he looks at Yeonjun; a blob of light that Soobin cannot dissolve. It’s pretty fucking miserable, because Yeonjun is absolutely smitten.

Soobin watches from a distance. The music store that Yeonjun works at is a nice place with slow and fizzy atmosphere. There’s a song playing at all times, all kinds of them, from ballads to rock to jazz. Soobin likes hanging around here, mostly just to accompany Yeonjun when Soobin is off his shift, leaning against his counter as customers come in and go, the bell at the door signalling their entrance and departure.

Yeonjun has always been good with people. It comes naturally to him, something intrinsic that he never had to learn, not like Soobin. He smiles sweetly to everyone, handing change and helping them around to search for specific records or musical equipment. An ease to his interaction that is seamless and so magnetic.

He never minds waiting for him here, bringing him dinner and walking home together until he finishes his shift. It’s one of Soobin’s favorite ways to spend his time. It always has ever since he could remember- simply sitting with Yeonjun and talking with him, staring at the light above them as the clock ticks away and their existence is bound in each other’s presence. Their lives have always been intertwined like this; the act of their knees touching, their elbows knocking, the air filled with nothing else but their breaths.

Soobin would never have it any other way.

Clark Kent is here again at the store today, his guitar still slung on his back. He’s asking Yeonjun about something in a hushed tone, as though it is a secret. Soobin stares at the smile in Yeonjun’s eyes, leaning forward just slightly behind the counter so they can talk a bit closer.

Soobin pretends he doesn’t notice. He pretends to avert his gaze, busying himself with looking into the selections of guitars. He can’t really focus on anything else, though. It’s bonkers since Yeonjun has always had his boys, and Soobin has always been here anyway. And yet his heart still thumps painfully under his ribcage like this is the first time.

“ — oh, your nails are new,” Clark Kent says, his laugh a bit airy. “They look nice.”

Of course they do. Soobin painted them a few nights ago, very carefully holding Yeonjun’s hand within his own palm, swiping the nail polish with complete precision. It was difficult because Yeonjun was incapable of staying still, but Soobin still tried his best. He always does whenever Yeonjun’s previous painted ones are already fading and flaking off. Soobin has been Yeonjun’s nail painter for a really long time. He takes that title seriously.

“Yeah? You think so?”

Clark Kent nods; the smile on his mouth blinding. Soobin wishes he’s as beautiful as this, too. Then maybe Yeonjun would be tempted to look his way. 

But Soobin has always been just Soobin. Nothing else. Nothing more.

“Yeah,” he says.

Soobin pushes deeper into the store, further away from the conversation until he can only hear glimpses. They talk a bit more about brands Soobin doesn’t recognize, and then music they’re both into. A shy laugh as Yeonjun asks him if he’s in a band.

It goes smoothly. Soobin doesn’t need to see it to know that Yeonjun has scribbled his phone number into a piece of paper, and that Clark Kent has done that squint again as he looks at him, maybe already really enamored with him. It’s not difficult to be, he knows Yeonjun is just like that. It never takes long for people to melt into his presence. Clark Kent is no exception.

Later, when Soobin comes back to Yeonjun’s counter, he’s grinning ear to ear, the one that lights his whole face up; like a lantern in a dark, lonely hallway. Something about how bright the shop is, and yet it doesn’t compare to Yeonjun, right here as he’s on the cusp of falling in love again.

“Found something inherent about him,” Yeonjun says, looking smug and satisfied. Soobin presses closer until he’s right in front of him, just like Clark Kent was by the counter, posing as another customer. The shop is doing pretty well, but it’s also not a place to hang out, so there will always be moments like these when the hours are slow and they have the shop to themselves. Sometimes he wonders about what would happen if their stars had collided differently and they had met like this; Soobin as a stranger, with a guitar on his back, too. Yeonjun with his wide-eyed curiosity and his perfect smile. Maybe Yeonjun would have looked his way then, if they had never met as kids and they were never friends.

Soobin thinks Yeonjun would never love him back, even in those other realities. Maybe he would have looked at him, their fingers brushing as Soobin handed him cash. Maybe he would have scribbled his phone number too, asking him about his band with that tender glint in his eyes. But he doesn’t think Yeonjun would have ever loved him back.

He thinks this is all they would ever be.

Doesn’t matter how it begins.

In all their lives, Soobin will always be Soobin.

And Yeonjun will always be beautiful.

“He’s in a band, has been playing guitar since he was, like, four years old. A prodigy of some sort.”

Soobin chuckles, raising his eyebrow. Unamused. “We already know that, though. He always comes here, he always carries his guitar. Of course he likes music.”

“Loves music,” Yeonjun corrects, grinning with his teeth. “It’s his life dedication, you see.”

“Yeah, yeah. Tell me when you have something more interesting.”

“He invited me to one of his shows,” he says without a beat, eyes almost boggling out of his skull. His tongue is pinched between his teeth. He has that look in his gaze, kind of maniacal, kind of reckless. It’s the kind that Soobin has seen a thousand times before when he’s excited about something, or when he knows he’s almost there, whatever it is he’s trying to grasp. A glaze that burns through Soobin’s skin, because he knows Yeonjun is almost always right. “Next week. You’ll come with me, right?”

Soobin rolls his eyes. The music playing right now is old and romantic, some saxophones with flutes. It makes him feel like he’s in a movie, except he’s not the romantic lead. “And be the third wheel? Why would I want to do that?”

Yeonjun tilts his head, watching him. “Aren’t you curious about the kind of music he makes?”

He’ll give him that. If he had to guess, he thinks Clark Kent makes boring, sentimental music. Not that that’s bad in general. He just thinks that’s predictable. Of course the clean-cut, sweet guy makes safe music. Not that fucking interesting.

“We can come seperately,” Yeonjun suggests. “You can come with Jisu.”

“As if she has the time.”

“Come on, it will be fun!”

“You can tell me all about it after the date,” Soobin says, wanting to do anything else. He’d rather die in his sleep than watch Clark Kent up there on the stage looking like a god. Maybe he is the perfect man for Yeonjun, the one he’s always wanted. Maybe this is the time that it goes right for him.

Soobin doesn’t want to watch it as it happens.

He will be happy for him, he always will. He just doesn’t think he can stomach it, being there for their first date.

“Are you jealous?”

Soobin feels his stomach tighten as Yeonjun looks at him playfully, teasingly. Nothing groundbreaking about it. 

“You will always be my star,” Yeonjun continues, giving him a small smile. Something too earnest about it, like a vulnerable truth. He puts his hands in the middle of the counter as though he’s going to reach out to Soobin, but he doesn’t. They just stay there, motionless. “He doesn’t compare, really.”

“Bullshit.”

Yeonjun laughs, so loud it echoes throughout the store. He storms past the counter to stand beside him, their elbow meeting again. Leaning against the wood as they stare at the front door where people pass by; a whole other universe out there in the city, but they are here, shielded from everything else. Yeonjun’s skin pierces him; hot, pungent. Close.

“I know I mess around a lot, but I’m serious. You’re the best artist there is.”

Soobin shrugs, doesn’t really want to talk about it. Yeonjun should go back behind the counter in case a new customer comes in. But he doesn’t move. 

“I don’t really do anything.”

“You’re an artist, are you fucking crazy?” Yeonjun says, looking at him with those wide eyes; a disbelief that Soobin would ever say that. “Your songs are stunning. You sing from your heart. It’s, like, you’re born for it.”

“Something inherent,” Soobin says.

Yeonjun smiles; the gradual movement of it captivating. “Yeah, exactly.”

Despite everything, Yeonjun is his best friend because he’s always made Soobin felt special. He knows him the best, inside out, something about their muscles and organs being created from the same mold. Maybe they have just known each other too long, but it’s the bond that Soobin doesn’t think he can ever have with anyone else. The familiarity between them has always felt inherent, even though he knows it’s simply from all the years that they have been together; all their shared stories and secrets, the knowledge that they have been kids together once. He can’t have this with anyone else; not the years, not the history, not each other’s bones.

He knows Yeonjun loves him.

He always feels it right here, like this.

“Maybe you’ll like him better than me,” Soobin says, trying to sound nonchalant. He’s just being playful, just like Yeonjun is. But he feels his voice cracking under the attempt.

Yeonjun shakes his head. “Not possible. You’re, like, the gum under my shoe.”

“Am I supposed to feel flattered?”

“I’m saying I’m never getting rid of you. You’ll be the first, no matter what.”

Soobin can’t help but laugh, not knowing how else to respond to that. Yeonjun has always been a sweet, honest person. He tells Soobin whatever he’s thinking, never putting his guards up around him and always very open to compliments like this. Soobin doesn’t have this kind of relationship with anyone, not even Jisu. Maybe this is one of the reasons why they have stayed together for so long. Yeonjun that speaks his mind, and Soobin that always lets it. It’s never awkward, simply a genuine moment. Soobin thinks if it was anyone else, he would feel squeamish and strange. But this is just Yeonjun.

“Well, you haven’t listened to his music yet,” Soobin reminds him.

“I guess the verdict’s still out, then.”

Yeonjun looks at him. His hair is back to black, but Soobin thinks he misses it when it was red, looking like flames. Makes him look like how he’s supposed to be; something fiery and alight, something reckless but also warm. He also misses the blond because it makes him look soft, like he would be malleable on his palm. 

But black hair makes him look even softer, younger. As though Soobin is looking through a mirror to the past when Yeonjun was eighteen and Soobin loved him then, too. The version of Yeonjun that is raw and real, the most vivid that he’s ever been. Right now, some of the strands have fallen to his forehead and Soobin wants to pull them back.

But he doesn’t. 

“I guess,” Soobin says.

***

The next week during Clark Kent's show and their first ever date, Soobin meets with Jisu.

He tells her that it’s been a while since they hung out, but he knows that she knows the real reason why. She doesn’t say anything and lets him around her apartment, melting into her couch as he stares at the ceiling. She does her paperwork while Soobin just breathes, enjoying her company even when they are not really talking.

Soobin scrolls through his phone, wasting the day away. He doesn’t wait for Yeonjun’s messages because he will get them later when he’s finished, but it hangs in the air like it’s his death sentence; wanting to know so desperately if Clark Kent is the one or not.

He knows it doesn’t matter at the end of the day.

If it’s Clark Kent or somebody else, Yeonjun will meet the love of his life.

“You want to go out to eat?” Jisu asks him when the sky is a bit dark, looking like it’s going to rain. Soobin hasn’t moved an inch. He thinks he wants to forget about everything that has ever happened in his life. Wanting to be unaware and oblivion.

He knows it doesn’t matter, but his heart still stings nevertheless.

It’s fucking stupid, he knows.

“Let’s just order something. Looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Wouldn’t that make the atmosphere nicer?”

Soobin shakes his head. “No.”

Jisu peers at him over her glasses. She only wears them when she’s working on something, otherwise she just squints at everything. Soobin always thinks she looks silly like that. 

“You’re moping,” she says.

Soobin shakes his head again. “Not really. I’m just not in the mood.”

“Who’s the man this time?”

Soobin sighs, already knows the whole day that she will ask eventually. He watches her tidy her stuff and tie her hair into a ponytail as she walks over to him. Sitting beside him as the couch dips. Her warmth is welcomed. He doesn’t realize that he’s been shivering until she’s pressed against him.

“Your work’s done?” he asks instead.

Jisu nods. She looks tired with dark circles around her eyes, but otherwise she looks just fine. She has always looked just fine ever since they were kids, always good at hiding her feelings in lieu of having to be vulnerable with other people. Soobin is one of a few that she can confide in freely, but even then he knows she still needs the nudge. She’s the type who doesn’t want to burden anyone, even when it’s family. Soobin thinks he’s made to be burdened by her, and yet she still would rather keep it inside first before ever letting anyone know what she’s feeling.

They have known each other for twenty-five years, right from their mother’s womb. Despite being twins, Soobin never sees the resemblance between them. He thinks they look like cousins at best.

“Yeah, I’m done.”

“Have you been sleeping?”

Jisu blows out a breath and fall back to the couch, fully dissolving into the cushion. She cut her bangs a month ago, deeply regretted it, even though Soobin thinks they look normal on her. Those bangs flop on her forehead.

“Not really,” she says after contemplating it. “I think work’s stressing me out.”

She works in a big corporation, handling people’s taxes. He doesn’t really know anything about it. She’s always been the smarter one out of the two of them; always been ambitious, diligent, optimistic. Soobin is the brunt of it, the other counterpart who doesn’t have it figured out yet.

After graduating, he applied as a waiter in a cool restaurant and has worked there since.

Maybe Soobin is just easy. Safe. He’s been ordinary all his life, so it’s hard to believe that he can be anything else but that.

Meanwhile Jisu is magnificent and has always meant to reach for the skies.

“You should find time to rest,” he says kindly, following her motion and dissolving into the cushion. She looks at him with sad eyes. 

“I know. I think I don’t know what else to do.”

“Why not?”

Jisu shrugs, playing with the lint on her shirt. “It’s just, kind of, routine? What else can I do if I don’t work?”

“What would you do if you had the time?”

She thinks about it as she stares into the space. He can almost hear the grinds of the wires in her brain, an almost overdrive. She has always fascinated him, just because they are so different from one another. But in quiet moments like this, he feels that she’s his sister; simply from the loudness of her silent thoughts.

“I don’t know. Read a book. Finish a series. Cook something elaborate and nice. Find a life partner.”

Soobin scoots slightly closer so their shoulders touch. His form of comfort. She leans into the touch immediately. 

“You can still do that,” he says.

“Yeah, but it would be hard.”

“You can’t find another job?”

“This one’s…. nice,” she says softly, tangling her fingers together on her lap. “Stable, you know. I think I just need to find my footing, then I guess I’ll adapt and be fine, like I should already be.”

Soobin does understand. It’s not like she can just let it go, especially when it’s a good thing going on for her. Not so simple to cut off something worthwhile. 

“Take it easy,” he says. He’s not very good at this kind of thing, but he always wants to try. He hopes that she knows that.

Jisu nods, giving him a faint smile. “I will. Just. Really fucking hard right now.”

“I know. Sorry I can’t help much.”

“You’re already helping.”

“Yeah, well, sorry I can’t do more.”

She bumps their shoulders together, getting even closer to him than before. Sometimes, just breathing with her helps ease his mind- just knowing that he will always have her with him even if the world is burning.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she says.

“Which one?”

“Who’s the man with Yeonjun this time?”

Soobin really wants to smoke. 

So they move to her window overlooking the city, pinching cigarettes between their fingers. She learns to do it later than him, in university when everyone was drinking but she only wanted to smoke. She said alcohol made her feel like shit, but this calms her down better, like a sweet, intoxicating thing.

“He might be it this time,” he confesses, inhaling the smoke deeply until he feels it inside. Rain is starting to fall, just like he predicted. A wet sound with thunder cracking far away. Droplets on the window make random patterns. 

“Like, the one?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s that great?”

“Yeonjun seems to think so,” he says, so he tells her about Clark Kent, about his guitar and his band, about the ocean in Yeonjun’s eyes. He tells her about how it feels to watch them together, how it feels different than the rest. How his gut twists in the shop when they are talking.

“But you say this all the time,” she says. “You always say that they hit it off, and then they break Yeonjun’s heart anyway.”

Soobin shrugs. Maybe. “But I don’t want him to break his heart. Don’t you think it’s time that he has it? The man he’s looking for?”

She watches him, the smoke engulfing in her mouth before she lets it out. She looks like him like this, when she’s under dark light, within shadows. Reminds him of all the times they stay together in her room when their parents were fighting downstairs and the TV was on. He thinks he will always remember that, caressing her hair as he told her about beautiful fairy tales when their house was burning.

He would do it when she couldn’t. Taking turns to be the anchor when the other is sinking and drowning. That’s always been what their relationship is like.

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

Jisu looks out the window. “What about what you want?”

Soobin wants a lot of things. When he was a kid, he dreamed of becoming a star, the single explosion in the sky. He dreamed of the spotlight so bright he would get lost in it, like the most spectacular bliss. He used to dream of bigger, beautiful things, like the stars and the moon and the planets. Soobin always wants.

He remembers being young and loving Yeonjun in a simple, carefree way. Wanting to be near him and play with him on the sand, wanting to hold his hand as they walk through the playground. Everything about him has always been about Yeonjun, the unquestionable fate that they are always going to be friends.

He wants a lot of things. 

He wants Yeonjun.

He wants to be the man that Yeonjun wants.

“Maybe I need to look somewhere else,” Soobin says eventually, knowing one of these days that it will come down to that. He can’t wallow in this forever, even though he doesn’t mind it. He’d love Yeonjun forever if he can, being his trusted companion and never loving anyone else. He wouldn’t beg to be reciprocated; still staying close to him despite that. But that’s a nice fantasy. In the real world he’s going to have his own life. “Maybe I need to, you know.”

“Move on?”

Soobin stares somewhere far away in the city. “Yeah.”

Jisu presses her lips together in a tight line. She looks heartbroken for him. It almost makes Soobin laugh, but he knows she wants the best for him. He knows that if she could, she would pry these feelings from his chest with pincers, taking it out and freeing him from this love. But he would never ask that from her.

“Do you think you can?”

“Maybe not.”

Jisu considers this for a while, taking a few puffs of her cigarette before speaking again. “I don’t want you to use people, though. I don’t think that’s fair for them.”

Soobin figures that will happen. He would try earnestly to find other people and he would still see Yeonjun in everyone. In the end, no one will ever be enough still.

“I know. I don’t want to do that either,” he whispers, feeling the lump in his throat harden. He thinks about Yeonjun in Clark Kent’s show right now and having the time of his life. He can see it in his head- that infectious smile on his lips, how he’s swaying to the music in bliss. “But if it ever comes- a new love. I think I would try, really hard. To welcome it.”

“Do you think you will love them like you love Yeonjun?”

Soobin thinks he is capable to love other people. He thinks his heart is big enough for that. But he doesn’t think it will ever be the same.

“No,” he says simply.

Jisu nods, expecting it. She steps closer to him and fixes his hair, her eyes looking at him intently. She’s simultaneously his big sister and little sister, too. Half his soul, half his heart, half his blood. He thinks if he never had another love, then he would be enough as long as Jisu is here.

Soobin will be fine.

He’s always been fine.

“I hope you find it then,” she says softly, her skin against his. “A love that doesn’t hurt.”

But I don’t know what that feels like, he almost says. What does that feel like?

***

Soobin can’t remember how they came to be roommates.

It might have been him who asked, it might have been Yeonjun. He thinks it was an unspoken thing, a conclusion they both agreed to without saying anything. He remembers that it wasn’t much of a hassle. Suddenly they were looking for an apartment together, and that was it. None of them asked each other the big question. A given that they were going to live together; something like a promise.

Soobin comes home to their apartment that night, feeling sick.

It’s dark, but he knows that Yeonjun is here. His keys are in the bowl. His shoes are placed neatly on the rack. But there’s a pair that he doesn’t recognize next to them, fancy loafers that look brand new and shiny.

Clark Kent is here.

He walks to the their kitchen and doesn’t turn the lights on, letting himself be shrouded in the emptiness. Pours a glass of water. His fingertips press against the glass, cold and used.

This is not something he’s not used to.

Yeonjun brings his dates home. He brings them home and takes them to his room, his door closed the whole night. He’s always respectful about it, always letting Soobin know in advance and is never too loud. But the walls are thin, and Soobin is still aware of everything, anyway.

He pretends to not know, finishing his glass of water and walking to their living room. He sits at the edge of the couch and stares at nothing. He doesn’t want to be in his room. He thinks it’s worst that way, knowing that he’s only a room away, hearing all the cracks between them and how Yeonjun’s bed creaks and creaks like a heartbeat thumping. All the sounds is an image to him.

Soobin hears it- Clark Kent talking in whispers, and Yeonjun breathing hard like he’s been running. It’s slow and desperate, the sounds of bodies moving and tangling with heat. Soobin knows, but he doesn’t want to. He wears his earphones and plays a random song on repeat, letting his eardrums blare and sting.

In another life, Soobin would still be in love with Yeonjun.

In another life, this is still the life that he’s lead, loveless and pathetic. When he thinks about it, he doesn’t want to change a single thing. It hurts but it’s fine, the only thing he’s ever known.

Who is he if he doesn’t love Yeonjun?

Who is he if he doesn’t want him?

He thinks he wouldn’t be Soobin.

He stays there on their couch, closing his eyes and letting his exhaustion lull him. His heart is snapped in half, again and again and again. Crunching underneath shoes. Crushed into soil. Melting into an inconsolable, irreversible thing. 

Soobin tries not to think too much about it.

It never matters what he feels.

***

Yeonjun falls in love with Superman, inevitably.

He smiles bigger, a bit more dopey than before. A shine in his eyes that makes him look like the sun, the most incomparable thing in the planet. He looks beautiful when he’s like this.

Soobin is happy for him.

“He wants me to come to his show again,” Yeonjun tells him during breakfast, his hair still messy from sleep. There’s a puffiness in his cheeks that reminds Soobin of a simpler time. 

“What music does he play?”

“Rock, if you can believe it. He’s the guitarist, obviously. Then they have a singer and a drummer.”

“Right.”

“They’re called Misery Moves Me.”

Soobin rolls his eyes. He doesn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. “Corny.”

Yeonjun gasps, holding his chest dramatically. He’s laughing, though, the sound ringing in the apartment, an easy, graspable thing. Soobin wishes it’s always like this.

In the back of his mind, he remember the sunlight through the curtains of Yeonjun’s bedroom, years ago when Soobin didn’t know what he wanted. He remembers how golden he looked; how much it felt like he was going to feel that way forever.

He hadn’t always understood that he loved Yeonjun.

But he had always loved him; an unnamable, effortless feeling in the center of his chest.

“You’ll change your mind once you watch him,” Yeonjun says, getting a whole spoonful of food into his mouth. Chewing loudly and obnoxiously. He doesn’t eat that way around anyone else. “He’s so good. Like, so good. An unbelievable amount. So, so good.”

“I get it.”

Yeonjun smiles at him. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” he says, because he always does. He understands, is the thing. He understands why Yeonjun likes Clark Kent’s sleek hairdo, the juxtaposition of his clean attire with his rockstar persona. He gets why Yeonjun are smitten with these men, because they are so good, and he deserves them all.

He’s not sure if they deserve him.

None of them ever will. 

Yeonjun talks a bit more of Clark Kent- all the plans they have made in passing. Getting coffee, going on a road trip, maybe a concert. It makes his skin flushed.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” Yeonjun asks him suddenly, but Soobin knows he’s not really asking. They both know Soobin is either just going to hang around the music shop or go home immediately. He doesn’t have any energy to do anything else. 

“Maybe I’ll watch a movie,” Soobin says. He probably will do it. He probably won’t. He doesn’t quite know either. He thinks he will do whatever it takes to forget everything.

Yeonjun nods, staring at their table. He looks good, like light in flesh. Like Soobin could touch it and feel it; its impossible tenderness. But he knows he won’t.

“Okay,” Yeonjun hums, staring at him now. “Or do you want to go out? Have a drink or something?”

“With him?”

He shakes his head, that smile never leaving his mouth, as though the mere mention of Clark Kent makes him feel alive. “No, just the two of us.”

For fifteen years, Soobin has never said no to him. 

***

Yeonjun is a lightweight.

Soobin is, too.

They are both not a good drunk, easy to get tipsy; only a few shots in and his head is already spinning. It’s always been this way forever, drinking secretly in Yeonjun’s room, laughing so loud it felt like they were going to wake up the whole world up.

He remembers being in that bed, Yeonjun curling to his side. He remembers the warmth still, how it was like they were inventing it into creation. He held Yeonjun’s shoulder and pressed him closer, the bravery he wouldn’t have had if he was sober. But Yeonjun didn’t push him away.

They fell asleep like that, drunk and sleepy and safe, sharing the same bed. The same breath. The same blanket and tangled legs.

The next morning, Yeonjun was still with him.

Soobin remembers it. He remembers it so vividly. 

They don’t end up going out. Yeonjun knows him too well, seeing the look in his eyes after his shift and simply understanding that Soobin isn’t in the mood to be in a crowd, especially not in a club where it’s clammy and hot, the smell of sweat and alcohol overpowering the music. Yeonjun knows him, so he doesn’t say anything but crack open a bottle of vodka they have left in their fridge, pushing it to Soobin’s open palm.

“Let’s have a party for ourselves,” Yeonjun says, smiling.

Their apartment isn’t big, a space made just for the two of them; two rooms with a living room that blends very closely to the kitchen. It’s not much, but Soobin likes it because it feels like home- the easy walls and the easy floors, how nothing is ever more than mundane. He realizes, along the way, that it is only home because Yeonjun is here. His presence that lingers; the sliver of shoulders that Soobin can see when the door to his room is slightly ajar, the food he puts away for later. The notes he scribbles in a piece of paper, because Yeonjun wants to be a poet, a scholar, the best that has ever been.

He plays music from his phone because they don’t have a speaker. They have a cheap one but the sound is terrible, too shrill and too hoarse. He turns on an old song, something with those saxophones again. They ring around the apartment, making Soobin feel like he’s somewhere else. Not in a shitty apartment in a small town, but a place far away nothing will ever touch them again.

There are times, like this, where Soobin thinks about them, a life where they are together and Yeonjun loves him back. He has buried his feelings deep inside of his stomach, but it’s easy for him to indulge again, if only for a second when Yeonjun is looking at him back.

“Come on, dance with me, Bin,” he says, pulling on Soobin’s elbow so they can stand face to face in the middle of their living room, the music blasting low.

“You’re silly,” Soobin tells him, can’t help the affection in his tone. That makes Yeonjun smile brightly; a beautiful, precious sight. There are also times like this where Soobin doesn’t quite know how to bear being in love with him. It weighs as heavy as his own soul.

“I’m an expert,” Yeonjun replies, the smile growing bigger with teeth. He takes a big gulp from the beer as he holds it tightly around his hand. Soobin watches Yeonjun’s lips closing around it; the sticky substance dripping all across his chin. Soobin wants to wipe it off.

He doesn’t.

They dance in their poor excuse of a living room. Not seriously, but simply swaying their bodies to the music as they pass the bottle to each other. Sharing the same drink, feeling the heat of their mouths on the cold glass. Soobin wants to stay here forever; this haze where it isn’t real, the impossibility of what it means when Yeonjun touches Soobin’s shoulder and gets even closer.

He indulges, only for a second. It’s hard not to when Yeonjun’s hand moves to his neck, cupping the side of it with the warmth of his skin. He’s so close. Soobin wants to touch him too.

Yeonjun looks up at him, his eyes crystal clear. A recognition in his gaze, as though they have been on the same page the whole time. Soobin doesn’t really know what to make of it. They have been like this since they were young- best friends who grew up together, so closeness and intimacy were never difficult topics to breach. Yeonjun has always touched him. It doesn’t mean anything.

Soobin, on the other hand, never knows how to.

He doesn’t think he trusts himself enough to touch him back.

As Yeonjun puts both of his hands on Soobin’s shoulders, near the jut of his neck, he realizes that he’s asking for a slow dance. 

“May I have this dance?” Yeonjun asks him, raising his eyebrow. He smells like alcohol and it should be disgusting, but he also smells like his perfume; something musky and soft. It’s addicting because it’s familiar, a scent he knows he will always get when he comes home.

Soobin takes another big gulp. The bottle is almost finished, no longer so heavy. He already feels his head swimming. He’s tipsy, he thinks. 

“That’s not how it works,” he says. “You’re already trapping me in a dance. You can’t just ask me after.”

“I have manners.”

“You have no such thing.”

“Asshole,” Yeonjun whispers, putting his head on Soobin’s chest. He breathes him in deeply. “You smell nice.”

Soobin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He’s still holding the bottle of vodka, the coldness seeping into his palm. Yeonjun looks comfortable hanging on him, like he’s a buoy in the sea. 

“Thank you,” he says, stupidly.

After a while, Soobin wraps an arm around Yeonjun’s back, careful not to jolt him too hard. He doesn’t let go of the bottle, doesn’t want to break this soft moment where Yeonjun is delicate. It’s an embrace in the middle of the living room, even though Soobin is too afraid to hold him completely. His palm is wrapped around the bottle, not on the flesh of Yeonjun’s spine, where he so desperately wants it to be.

The vodka is kind of like his shield. Protecting him from himself.

“Are you okay?”

Yeonjun presses his cheek on Soobin’s body, as though he wants to melt into him. It’s quiet, the way he breathes. Like he’s trying not to startle a big, scary monster.

“I don’t know,” he replies, his fingers tightening around Soobin’s neck. “I’m a bit drunk.”

“Me too.”

“I think I’m… worried, I guess,” he continues, and Soobin watches as Yeonjun closes his eyes. He’s not really dancing anymore, even when the music is still playing in a shuffle. Similar sounding ones. The saxophones and the flutes. “About him.”

“What’s the matter?”

“What if it doesn’t work out again?”

Soobin feels it, the shadow underneath that question. Yeonjun has loved a lot. He never holds back when he loves people. He gives them everything he has, no questions asked. He remembers the wedding that never came, the ring he had to give back. He remembers all those times Soobin came home to Yeonjun sitting in their couch, his eyes bloodshot and heavy.

It’s done, Bin, he always said.

Yeonjun loves a lot and loves deeply, but none of them has ever made him happy.

“You love him?” 

Yeonjun lets out a laugh, dry and exhausted. “Not yet.”

“Will you?”

He considers it for a second. Some of his fingertips touch the hair on the back of Soobin’s neck. Absentmindedly. “Maybe.”

Soobin has thought about it before, telling him about what he feels. In conversations like this, sometimes he wants to blurt it out: I think I can treat you right. I think I can make it work, the both of us. I think I can close off your wounds with my bare hands, so you can forget everything that has ever hurt you.

But he doesn’t think their friendship can handle it. A rejection. He thinks Soobin will try to be okay with it. He knows that in the end it will kill him. 

He doesn’t think he can endure ruining this.

He’s okay letting it linger, as long as Yeonjun can still have a friend. 

A shoulder to lean on.

A body that will love him unconditionally, despite everything.

“He will love you too, I think,” Soobin tells him honestly. He pulls him closer by the waist, his arm locking him inside the embrace. Still not really touching him at all. Yeonjun hums quietly, like he’s falling asleep. “If it gets there. I know he will.”

“And if he won’t?”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“Right,” Yeonjun whispers, a hint of a smile in it. “My knight in shining armor, so violent. Would you start a war for me?”

Even if he was sober, he would still nod. “You know I would.”

“Very valiant,” he slurs, nuzzling his cheek into Soobin’s shoulder. “Very brave, very courageous….. Very wise.”

“You’re drunk.”

Yeonjun laughs. “Yeah.”

“Bed?”

“Not yet,” he says against his shirt, warm and comfortable. Soobin would hate to move at all.

“Okay.” Whatever you want.

So they stay like that for a long time, the songs changing five-six times until it completely shuffles into a loud, obnoxious song. That startles Yeonjun awake, his eyelids slowly opening again. But he’s still holding into Soobin’s neck, completely reliant on him to stay upright. 

Soobin’s hand is numb from still holding the bottle; every shred of coldness has been absorbed into his skin. He doesn’t how to let it go, as much as he doesn’t know how to let Yeonjun not when he’s perfect, right here in his arms.

Yeonjun’s face is so close again. Only a few centimeters away from him, Soobin knows this is what it would feel like if he were to kiss him. It burns him alive, this simple act of wanting. Disgust curls around his spine. 

He shouldn’t want his best friend like this.

Yeonjun doesn’t know that he wants him like this.

“Bin,” he says softly. “Sleep, please.”

Soobin obliges and helps him walk to his room, even when he’s stumbling himself too. It makes them both giggle like losers, their feet knocking each other’s until they finally get to Yeonjun’s bed. Soobin lays on his back and stares at the ceiling, sighing when he realizes he can’t see anything at all. He feels the bed dip as Yeonjun gets himself comfortable.

“Fuck, sorry,” Yeonjun starts, cringing. “Sorry I always get so weird when I’m drunk.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know…. I get so honest. And clingy. And, like, super vulnerable. I know I’m already like that usually, but it’s like. Worse.”

Soobin shakes his head, though he knows Yeonjun can’t see him. He is floaty. Not-that-good floaty. Like he’s losing control of his limbs. But he’s on Yeonjun’s bed. He’s safe here.

“It’s fine. It’s always fine, you know that.”

Yeonjun lets out a breath. “Yeah, I know.”

The world shrinks for a bit, here. Becoming small and weightless, the size of his palm. It becomes bearable and easy and simple. Soobin can hear the sounds of the city outside, but he’s not there, he’s here, laying like a starfish with Yeonjun beside him.

His reality is fine when it’s contained like this; the two of them against the big world.

“Bin.”

“Jun.”

That makes Yeonjun chuckle. Between them, his hand finds Soobin’s wrist, pressing a thumb into his pulse. Just slightly.

“Just to be sappy one last time tonight,” he says gently, his breath hitched in his throat. “Thanks for being my friend. Like, really. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Soobin smiles in the dark. Warmth spreads in his chest. Being regarded by Yeonjun at all is his greatest possession. It doesn’t matter how painful it gets sometimes, but knowing that they are best friends always makes him happy.

He’d take this heartbreak over not being his friend at all.

“Me too.”

“You’ll be fine without me,” Yeonjun says, his tone suggesting that he’s just fishing for compliments. Soobin has played this game for far too long.

“Totally, one hundred percent fine,” Soobin lies, shrieking when Yeonjun pinches his skin. But he goes on, earnestly this time. “I think I’ll be dead without you.”

“You’ll live forever,” he says, like a promise.

Soobin is content with this, he thinks, if only the world was the size of Yeonjun's room. If they could go back to being naive and young and knowing nothing else but each other. 

They were ten, and now they are twenty-five.

That is a bliss in itself.

Soobin longs to be content with it, even when his heart is selfish.

With you, he wants to say. As long as it’s with you.

***

Jisu sets him up with Shin Yuna.

She’s a friend of a friend, younger than both of them. She’s still studying in college in her final semester, in the midst of writing her master's. Tall, even taller with heels, and she has a smile that shows off her teeth. When they meet in front of a bar, she gives him a brief, casual hug. 

“Hey.”

Soobin smiles. “Hey.”

It’s been a while since he went on a date. He doesn’t usually go on one- not on purpose, anyway. He’s not the type to go out of his way to find a date, only if they are presented in front of him. If he stumbles upon a person who seems clearly interested, then Soobin never shies away from it, always willing to give it a try.

None of them has ever become more than that. Maybe two dates at best, if he’s lucky. They usually end in a good chat with good food, and sometimes he will bring them home. He doesn’t particularly enjoy hook-ups- nothing interesting to him about sleeping with strangers. But it happens, very rarely, if he’s drunk and if he’s sad, and if the other person doesn’t care about him too much either. It’s just heat to him; filling his room with noise and emptying his lungs out of a heartbreak that will never heal.

Shin Yuna is very pretty. Her hair is dark red, just like the shade of Yeonjun’s a couple years ago. When she speaks, her voice is light and melodic, as though she’s constantly singing.

“You seem distracted,” she points out, leaning her chin on her palm, watching him quietly. The bar is dim-lit, shadowy and romantic. Its yellow tint hits her on the face.

Soobin is guilty of that. Something about the swirl of his drink makes him feel sick. “I’m sorry.”

Yuna sips her drink slowly, eyes not leaving his. “Something’s on your mind?”

“Nothing you’d like to hear.”

“Try me,” she challenges.

He doesn’t quite know what is appropriate to tell her. She looks like a nice person, and she also deserves a good, proper date. Not one where he’s distracted the whole time. He’s not even sure what he’s thinking about; not really transfixed about anything at all. Just the big, general idea of Yeonjun. A blob that makes out his face and the golden light in his room a few years ago. Which has been a running theme for a really long time.

“You deserve a better date,” he says honestly, because he doesn’t want to drag this on into something he isn’t even sure he wants to commit to. He’d rather be called an asshole tonight than be a perpetual asshole for the days to come. He shouldn’t have said yes to Jisu’s offer. He just didn’t think he would still feel like this, over and over again. “Nothing against you. You seem wonderful. I’m just.”

Despite his better judgement, Yuna simply clinks her glass with his. “Not really into it?”

Soobin opens his mouth, surprised. “Something’s on your mind too?”

“Yeah,” she admits, biting her bottom lip. Staring at the condensation on the surface of her glass before she swipes it off with her finger. “I’m going through a break up, actually. My friends thought it was a good idea for me to put myself out there again. See the world in a different lens, or whatever. Turns out I’m not quite there yet.”

Soobin nods, understanding it. At least they’re kind of in the same boat. “Bad break up?”

She sighs, and nods. “The worst.”

“Want to talk about it?”

So, she talks about it.

They get progressively drunk throughout it, Yuna taking shots every time she tells him about a particularly horrible tidbit about her ex. Her face is folded as she recites it all back, like she’s tasting something sour. He nods in sympathy, feeling his head spin too, trying his best to listen to her intently. He should stop getting drunk over Yeonjun. One of these days he’s going to regret it.

“I miss her, though. Like a stupid fucking person,” she whispers, very quietly- like a mist. She’s not looking at him, maybe somewhere far away only she knows. To a memory. To a feeling that feels like a suffocating place. “I know we weren’t working out. It sucks that we weren’t working out.”

“Of course that upsets you,” he says kindly, putting away his drink. He’s drunk enough for the two of them. “Doesn’t make you stupid.”

Yuna glances at him sadly. “Maybe. I just. Miss her. Like, a lot. I keep wondering about another life. How maybe, we would work out there, maybe I was enough, maybe she was enough. Is that how it works? What if it never works out anywhere? What if I am always the wrong piece of the puzzle for her, the girl who was wrong, imperfect, destined to never be it? I don’t want to think about that.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re here, in this life,” he says, looking at her. “And it didn’t work out.”

A flash of hurt passes her face; not at him, but at her own glass, at the reflection of her red hair and red-rimmed eyes. “What didn’t work out for you?”

Soobin is always a bit embarrassed about his feelings. It’s not noble or dignified. He’s harbored it for years with little to no witnesses, bleeding on his floor because of his own damn fault. It makes him feel guilty and dirty; a liar taking advantage of his best friend, holding him while he’s drunk, sleeping in his bed, letting Yeonjun touch his neck while he wants him no friend should.

He never thought he would ever tell him, because he always told himself that he would get over it. 

He remembers the moment it clicked. 

One day during the summer, Yeonjun fell on the asphalt and scrapped his knee. Soobin cleaned the wound up diligently, staring at Yeonjun’s face wincing in pain. There was something about the way the sun caught Yeonjun’s hair. How he was still the brightest thing for him.

Did it hurt? Soobin had asked.

Yeonjun had shaken his head, even though he was frowning. No.

It’s okay if it hurts.

Yeonjun had smiled, staring at him back. It hurts a little bit, he admitted.

Soobin had known then. A pang in his chest that was always there, but he couldn’t stop looking at Yeonjun’s hair; how it tangled with the sun, and how beautiful he was, and had always been.

“It’s unrequited,” he says, simply. Almost shamefully.

Yuna quirks her eyebrow. “How do you know it’s unrequited?”

Being asked the question, Soobin doesn’t really how to answer it. He’d say a million different reasons for why he thinks Yeonjun doesn’t love him back, but it boils down to the fact that he just knows.

He can’t bear thinking about it, too.

Getting his hopes up would kill him. He knows that.

“He’s dating someone,” he tells her. “He’s always dating someone. And I’m always- here.”

“Maybe he doesn’t why that you love him,” Yuna says, trying to sit upright again, though after a few attempts she decides to slump back on the table. 

Soobin fixes his gaze on his own hands. His head is swimming, so everything he’s tried to repress becomes sharp with clarity. He can pretend as hard as he can that he’s fine with how things are, but when it’s quiet and dark, the desire in his heart is suffocating, like it’s eating him alive. 

He can pretend. 

He can always pretend.

But when the facade is off, he knows he’ll spend the rest of his life exactly like this.

Loving Yeonjun and watching him love other people.

It hurts, when he allows himself to feel hurt.

“We’ve known each other forever,” he tries to explain, his voice coming out hoarse and way too candid. But it’s already out of his mouth, and she’s already served her heart on a platter. So might as well. “I’d know if he loved me back.”

“Wouldn’t he also know, then? About you?”

Maybe. He’s considered it before.

But Yeonjun wouldn’t do the things he does if he knows. He wouldn’t tell him about all of his boys, about Clark Kent and his glasses. He wouldn’t slow dance with him and share the same bottle of beer. He wouldn’t live with him if he knows that Soobin has been in love with him since they were kids.

“He doesn’t,” Soobin says, but doesn’t explain. 

Yuna doesn’t pry. She clinks her glass with his again, and takes another shot.

When they part ways, standing in front of the bar again, he looks at her seriously for the first time tonight. Her eyes are glazed and her lip gloss is smudged. A piece of her heart will always be kept with Soobin, between the palms of his hands. He thinks a part of him is with her too.

“How are you getting home?”

“My friend will pick me up,” she says, then leans closer to him before giving him a full hug. She circles her arms around his shoulders, letting him smell her sweet cherry perfume. He hugs her back. They stay like that for a while, a couple of strangers on a date that wasn’t quite a date.

“Sorry for tonight,” he tells her, giving her an apologetic smile. “But I had fun.”

She pats him on the cheek. “Me too. You have my number, right?”

“Yeah.”

“If you ever need someone to talk to about him, I’m all ears,” she offers, and Soobin lets out a hefty breath. He doesn’t realize how much he’s been holding everything in. “We’re the same, after all.”

Soobin nods. “Yeah. Same offer.”

Yuna beams at that. “Okay. Thanks. See you around?”

“See you around,” he promises.

***

“You look horrible,” Choi Beomgyu tells him.

Soobin just nods. He’s felt it since the morning, his hungover burning his skull and his tongue dry and patchy. It’s uncomfortable, being in his own skin, like he’s trying to escape his bones and nerves. He tries his best to wake up, eat breakfast, and go to work like nothing is wrong. Yeonjun eyed him quickly across their dining table, only asking a quick How was the date?

It was fine, Soobin had answered. Because it was fine, like everything was always fine.

“Yeah, got really drunk a few nights in a row,” he answers, staring out at the windows. Being twenty-five has been different entirely than what he expected. He thought that it would feel like waking up, past clarity to something like recognition. Maybe he thought he would feel like a different person with completely different limbs and a different heart, but all he’s realized the whole year is that he’s been the same person all this time. He’s still seventeen years old Soobin. Still twelve. Still nine, still six. He’s still the amalgamation of all the people that he has been his whole life, only now he is more aware than he’s ever been,

that he probably will never change.

He’s a static, a flatline, a whole lot of nothing.

Standing in the middle of this restaurant, only a few customers left in the middle of the night, he thinks he’s running out of time.

What is left to do in his life?

When this is all he has now, what else is in store for him?

Sometimes he thinks he’s stuck, even though he’s not. He knows he can move, traverse the planes of the world, jump through fences into places he’s never seen. But he doesn’t know how to move. He’s been here his whole life, and he doesn’t know how that feels.

Beomgyu quirks an eyebrow, intrigued. The apron he’s wearing is kind of askew, the strap on his left shoulder. There’s a stain on his shirt, orange-y. Maybe the ketchup.

“Good drunk? Bad drunk?”

Soobin sighs. He doesn’t want to talk about it. But there’s currently nothing to do, and Beomgyu is his ride-or-die here. His chosen co-worker. He’s the only one who is his age, only a year younger. Everyone else is way older or just graduated from high school.

“Bad,” Soobin decides.

“Why?”

Soobin leans on the wall, letting himself be engulfed in tohe shadows. “I don’t know. It’s just bad.”

Beomgyu nods as though he understands what he’s talking about. He’s always been kind of mysterious, in a way that he can be anything at all. He’s loud and cheerful, but he’s also solemn and thoughtful. All of these sides to him, and Soobin can’t really figure him out.

But he’s really nice.

“Sure,” Beomgyu says. “How bad?”

“Really bad. I threw up, and then I didn’t move for a while in the bathroom. Thought I was going to die.”

“Damn. You got your heart broken?”

Soobin half shrugs. “Not really. But also kind of yes.”

A laugh escapes Beomgyu’s mouth, unexpected. When he looks at him, there is laughter in his eyes too. “That’s a super complicated way to put it, do you know?”

“It is a complicated thing. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. Just hard to talk about.”

“You don’t have to,” Beomgyu says, offering him a small smile. He crosses his arms and watches the windows too, all the world passing them by. Soobin feels infinitely small in his infinitely small world. Everything else is so much bigger than him. “Is it about the man in your song?”

Something akin to a punch hits him in the chest. He hasn’t thought about the song in months, put away for later because he was scared of it. It was too honest, he thinks, even though it was true. Everything he feels for Yeonjun is in the song. The tiny version of it. The condensed, safe part of it.

Soobin was scribbling some of the lyrics on a napkin one day, trying to get it out of his system. He knew that if he waited until he got home that he would forget it all immediately. 

Beomgyu saw, and they talked about it for five minutes.

He doesn’t think he would remember.

“Yes,” he says, eventually. No reason to lie about it. 

Beomgyu nods again. “You don’t have to tell me more.”

“Okay.”

Then Beomgyu talks about something else the rest of their shift, like a reassurance that Soobin really doesn’t have to talk about Yeonjun if he doesn’t want to. It’s such a nice act that Soobin doesn’t mind listening to Beomgyu talk his ears off about his new Dungeons and Dragons campaign that he plays with his boyfriend Kai, even when he doesn’t understand anything about it. He tries so hard, but Beomgyu speaks so fast and so passionate that all of the new information gets jumbled in his head; all of them probably wrong.

“What’s a tiefling?”

“You know, like, a demon. Infernal. With horns and everything.”

“Okay.”

“My character is one- she’s red skinned, but not too red. Her horns are quite big. She has a big scar across her eye from a nasty fight she had a couple years back.”

“Sounds cool. And what’s a rogue?”

“Kind of like a spy, I guess? In the simplest way to describe it,” Beomgyu replies, flipping around chairs, wiping sweat off his temple. It’s finally closing time, and they don’t have to whisper and be hidden in the shadows to have a conversation. “A rogue sneaks around, steals, proficient in lying, all that stuff. It’s the best class to play in D&D. Sometimes I feel it’s cheating, since it’s so fucking good.”

“Why?”

“They have so much advantage. Especially in combat, because you get a sneak attack, which is an ability that you get, I guess. So you get an extra attack after you already have your regular attack. Pretty fucking cool. And if you are already a high-level rogue, then you get something called Reliable Talent, which means you, essentially, always succeed in a roll.”

Soobin still doesn’t quite get it. He gets that it’s a game. It sounds similar enough to the games he plays in his phone, but he still can’t wrap his head around how it works. “Okay, I get why you think it’s cheating.”

Beomgyu beams, his eyes boggling out of his skull. “Right?”

“So are you a tiefling or a rogue?”

“Both.”

“You can be both?”

“Well, tiefling is the race, and rogue is the class. And you have to be both of those, so.”

“Nice,” Soobin says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and Beomgyu laughs in his face. It does the trick and make the air slightly less stuffy, slightly less like an alcoholic drink, fizzy and ridiculous. He’s just finishing his shift. He’s not somewhere out of his league.

When they are done, Beomgyu opens the door for him and stops in front of the restaurant to look at his face. Contemplative.

“You’re either a bard or a paladin,” he tells him.

None of those words mean anything to him, so Soobin stares at him blankly.

“Bard, because you’re a singer. Paladin, because you’re devoted.”

The night air is light, like a caress on the skin of his face. It makes him squint a little at Beomgyu. Everything around him dissolves into a blur.

“A paladin devotes their life to a cause. Sworn to an oath. An unwavering faith,” he goes on, pointing at him with his chin. Somewhere in the direction of his heart. “That’s kind of like you, isn’t it? Except you’re devoted to the man in your song.”

Soobin breathes from his mouth. 

He’s written about Yeonjun all his life. He’s written about the shadow of a touch, of a kiss, of a palm on his neck. He’s written about a grazed knee on the asphalt, how it only leads to a clarity in the middle of summer. Soobin has always written about Yeonjun, in the phantomness of him, ungraspable and unreachable, despite always being the nearest star in his orbit.

He’s only ever written him like he’s a silhouette. An unattainable silhouette.

But that song.

That song is his heart on a platter.

His love letter, in all of his fifteen years.

“And what does that make him?” he asks. “If I’m a paladin?”

Beomgyu half-shrugs, like it’s obvious. “Your god.”

***

“You’re not going to come?”

Soobin shakes his head. “I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

“It’s not a date, so you won’t be a third wheel,” Yeonjun explains, looking at him with big eyes. He’s standing right in front of their window, so the sunlight creeps around him like a halo. He looks beautiful. But he is always beautiful.

“Still. You guys are together. I’m just. There.”

Yeonjun grumbles, and slumps on their couch with the dramatics of an old man. Soobin raises his eyebrow at him, but he can’t help the fondness that seeps out of it.

“I just want you to watch him play,” he reasons, giving him the best pout he can manage. Soobin isn’t immune to it, despite his adamant procalamations that he is. “We’ve been dating for a month, Bin, and you still haven’t been to his show? Rude.”

“Why does it matter? I’m not the one dating him.”

“Yeah, but I want you guys to know each other.”

Soobin shouldn’t push, but he still does. It’s like poking a wound because he knows that it would sting. “Why?”

Yeonjun tilts his head to the side, incredulous. “What do you mean why? Of course I want my boyfriend and my best friend to meet. Why wouldn’t I want you guys to get along?”

Soobin has done this a lot of times before. Getting to know Yeonjun’s boyfriends better, making small talk through the counter in the kitchen, drinking beer together late at night when they sleep over and Soobin is still awake. It’s always like a game in his head, a tactic, because he doesn’t know how to navigate unless he thinks of it like a bridge he needs to jump over. Every conversation beats, every questions, everything leads to wanting to make Yeonjun happy. He doesn’t actually mind it. It’s just difficult at times, when he knows he has to swallow it all down.

Especially now, knowing that Clark Kent seems to be serious.

He’s serious the way Yeonjun’s groom-to-be was serious.

He’s serious the way Yeonjun’s ex-fiancee was serious, the one with the velvet box for the ring. Maybe he is the perfect man, the one he’s looking for all this time. The real one. The real thing, the love of his life.

“Fine,” Soobin says, giving him a grin. It is endearing that Yeonjun is so excited about it that he leaps up to push a fist on Soobin’s shoulder. Beaming brightly, loudly. Soobin wants to see him like this for the rest of his life. “Promise you won’t abandon me, though?”

Yeonjun shoves his shoulder again playfully. “Never.”

“Fine,” Soobin says, indulges him. He never learns the alternative.

It earns him a smile on Yeonjun’s face, so it’s worth it. “Fine.”

Clark Kent comes over again that night. Soobin should probably start calling him with his real name.

Kang Taehyun greets him at the door, looking dapper. He’s wearing a three-piece suit and a tie that hangs a bit loose around his neck. His guitar on his back, his glasses on his nose. There’s a smile on his mouth that has become familiar to him. A dimple on the corner of it. Something gentle in his eyes, too.

Soobin understands, more than anything. He understands why it’s Kang Taehyun, for Yeonjun. 

“Hey,” Taehyun beams. He looks like he’s in a good mood. His hair is dripping wet, a reminiscent from the rain a while ago. Fog conceals his glasses, but through them Soobin can still see how happy he is to be here. Soobin understands that too.

“Hey. Yeonjun’s in the shower.”

“Okay.”

Kang Taehyun is comfortable in the apartment, going to their couch and immediately putting down his guitar case and his bag. Leaning closer to the wall to see himself in the mirror, tidying his hair, cleaning his glasses. And then he goes to the kitchen and takes a glass for himself before pouring himself some good cold water.

Soobin probably shouldn’t be watching him like this, but he can’t help it. He’s curious, is what he is. Taehyun has been around for a while, but they haven’t really talked. He knows little things here and there from Yeonjun’s mouth, or from the glimpses of whispers when Taehyun is in Yeonjun’s room late at night and Soobin can hear them talking. It’s usually quiet so he never makes out any words, but he knows it’s something deep and tender, probably stories about childhood or about work or about dreams. It gets to that careful, hushed tone, because you’re terrified if you speak slightly louder that it’s going to break that thin, fragile moment. You want to keep it there, that little bubble of gentleness. You want it to keep you safe.

He doesn’t try to listen, but they share a wall. He knows when they’re talking.

He knows when they’re doing anything but talking.

So, he’s been familiar with Taehyun, even when he hasn’t been in his proximity like this. He knows him in theory. He knows him when he was Clark Kent, the stranger in the music store.

But he’s Kang Taehyun here.

“Yeonjun said you have a show,” Soobin opts for small talk, though he does want to talk to him. If he’s really the guy for Yeonjun, then Soobin needs to start to bridge the gap. 

Taehyun swallows his water in big gulps. When he puts it down, he looks at Soobin, for what feels like the first time ever. “Yeah. Are you going to come?”

Soobin nods. “I’m looking forward to it.”

There’s something that Taehyun does, that little squint when he’s staring. He’s doing it with Soobin too, the slightest twitch around his eyes as he gazes at him. It’s not malicious. It’s… curious, just like him.

“Yeonjun told me you play too,” he says then.

“Oh,” Soobin says. He wasn’t expecting that. “I do, a little. Not like you, of course. I just play for fun.”

Taehyun chuckles at that, stepping closer to the counter. It separates them both, Soobin on the other side standing in the part where it blends to the living room. Taehyun is draped with the kitchen light, a bit dim and orange. 

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” he says, charming. Like a boy band member being interviewed; the laugh earnest and easy. Soobin really, really gets it. “I play for fun too, just- you know. Sometimes on a stage. It’s also, like, very early. We get ten people in the audience, if we’re lucky.”

“I haven’t performed seriously in front of people before, so. You still beat me to it.”

Taehyun keeps that smile on his face when he puts the glass down the counter. “You write too?”

“Here and there, yes.”

“What do you write about?”

“Things,” Soobin answers, shrugging. It doesn’t matter what he writes. He stares at their fridge behind Taehyun’s head. All the post-it notes that Yeonjun pinned with magnets. Some of them aren’t even relevant anymore, like schedules that have already passed but they haven’t bothered to take them down. Some of them have been there forever, like LET’S DO IT ALL ONE DAY AT A TIME!!! and the one that has been Soobin’s favorite forever:

I hope you have a nice day, Soobin :D 

Taehyun quirks an eyebrow. “What kind of things?”

“Feelings. Memories,” Soobin continues, doesn’t really know how to talk about his music. It’s not really music either.

The corner of Taehyun’s lip lengthens. “What kind of feelings and memories?”

Soobin needs something to hold. Right now he’s empty-handed. The water from the shower is still running. 

“What do you think?”

Taehyun thinks about it, though it looks like he already knows what the answer is. “Feelings and memories from a muse.”

Soobin doesn’t quite know how to handle Kang Taehyun. He’s different than the rest. The others have always been a bit uptight or disingenuous. Kang Taehyun is interesting, he’d say. Entertaining.

“Something like that,” he says. 

Taehyun nods, tracing the rim of his glass with his finger. “Yeah, same.”

“You have a muse?”

“Always,” he says, a glint in his eyes. “I’d like to hear your songs, one day. If you allow me.”

Soobin is quick to shake his head. Their apartment feels small, suddenly. When he thinks about Taehyun’s stage, he thinks about being so alone. “Oh, I’m too embarrassed to share them with anyone.”

“Why not?”

He can tell him about the talent show, back then when they were thirteen. Everyone was supposed to volunteer to do something, anything that they want, as long as they can do it on stage and in front of everyone. All the students had different ideas. Some of them wanted to do a monologue, some of them wanted to sing. Some of them wanted to an acrobatics act.

Soobin remembers wanting to play his guitar and sing a song.

His song.

Yeonjun decided to read a poem that he wrote. They practiced together night after night, sleepovers where they didn’t end up sleeping at all, only doing their shows in the confines of each other’s rooms. Sometimes it was on Soobin’s bed. On other days it was on Yeonjun’s, being on top of the sheets as they imagined being in front of their friends, putting on the greatest act the world had ever seen.

It was a stupid song. 

But it was his.

At the day of the talent show, Yeonjun read his poem confidently. Every syllables pronounced correctly. The spotlight on his face, making him look like a real star. Soobin remembers clapping the loudest for him.

When it was Soobin’s turn, he wanted to throw up.

He had practiced for so long, but up there- he felt so fucking small with his guitar, and the microphone was too low so he had to adjust it himself. The chair creaked when he sat on it. And he had always been a quiet child, always a bit peculiar, always slightly off than everyone else. Being there where everyone could see him, he felt like that child. He felt that it was true.

So he sang his song.

He hadn’t tuned his guitar correctly enough so the sound was a bit clunky, but otherwise it was fine. He sang his song, got applauded loudly, and when he came back down he knew that he did it. It was totally, utterly fine. Nothing egregious happened. He did sing his song. He was brave and confident, and he did it like a champion. 

But he was still so wrong.

He wasn’t smooth, he wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t a star. He was always just Soobin.

Nothing else. Nothing more.

He was always just going to be Soobin.

It hurt then, realizing that. That no matter what he does, he will always be himself.

“They’re nothing special,” Soobin says earnestly. “You’re not missing out on anything.”

But Taehyun only looks at him. “I don’t believe that.”

It still hurts, he thinks. This is just a conversation. Harmless. It shouldn’t hurt, but there’s a gaping hole in his chest that he’s never wanted to address. He still doesn’t want to.

“Well,” he says, wanting to say more, but he doesn’t. He usually doesn’t.

Taehyun looks like he wants to reply, the answer laid around the tip of his tongue. He thinks better of it and just nods, drinking his water again. Soobin looks away.

***

It’s everything that he imagines, being in Kang Taehyun’s show. Or at least very close to it.

The bar is dimly-lit, not that big, and every scraps of sound makes Soobin jolt. Glasses clink and laughter brew. Musical equipment clashing together, boomed through the speakers. It feels a bit like traffic: out of control and sporadic, nothing he can expect. 

Yeonjun dresses up for tonight, wearing one of his cute sweaters and sleek slacks with shiny loafers. It’s probably a bit much for a gig like this, but he looks pretty- his face bright, his lips pink. His hair is styled perfectly to the side, and he’s beaming. Soobin can’t stop looking at him. Doesn’t matter that he looks at him everyday.

“We should buy some eggs,” Yeonjun says suddenly, like a figure surfacing out of water.

Soobin blinks. “Huh?”

“We’re out of eggs,” he explains matter-of-factly. 

“Okay…?”

“We’re out of milk, too,” he goes on with a sigh, crossing his arms as he watches the little stage where Taehyun’s band is preparing the stage. There are two other people with him, a girl with short bangs (similar to Jisu, but even shorter), and a boy who smiles like the sun, hair clips on his hair. They look exactly like what Soobin expected for a band called Misery Moves Me would look like.

Taehyun still has that ease he exudes, a confidence that seems effortless. Smiling even when no one is watching, helping his bandmates tune the sound and check the microphones. He’s a star even he’s not in the spotlight. Simply existing.

“Your boyfriend’s about to perform and you’re thinking about groceries?”

“Just in case I forgot!” Yeonjun says, reaching out to smack Soobin’s palm. It’s too light to really mean anything. “Also, they’re not performing yet.”

“After the show?”

“What?”

Soobin is a bit distracted. He stares at the scar near Yeonjun’s eyebrow like it is new, like it is not a wound. It strikes something in his chest, the realization that it’s been there since he met him fifteen years ago. His voice comes out croaky, pathetic. “The groceries.”

Yeonjun’s nods, his gaze lingering on him. He doesn’t say it though, what he wants to say. “Yeah, sure.”

He presses his cigarette to his lighter. He doesn’t plan to drink, but he doesn’t want to be completely sober either. At least the sting is a distraction, the weight of smoke rolling in his lungs. As the girl with the bangs flick the microphone and her sound reverabates through the bar, Soobin inhales deeply until he’s dizzy enough to forget.

Yeonjun cheers the loudest, even though it’s a casual performance- just a white noise for the patrons. The band plays in a way that looks like they have been on stage for years, a kind of simplicity in the way fingers move through frets and drumsticks hit on cymbals. She sounds good, maybe a bit shaky, but it’s earnest, immersive, her eyes closing when she delivers her lines. It may not be a big stage, but they play like it is- as though the audience is bigger than the universe. Soobin can feel the passion, that it doesn’t matter where they are singing as long as they are singing together.

It’s good.

Kang Taehyun is good, Soobin admits.

He watches him play his guitar, the sleek way his body leans back a bit to accommodate his movements. His hair isn’t gelled today, messy and flailing on his forehead. A different person entirely than the one from the music shop, looking shy and polite. Right here he’s out of his shell, completely unclad, raw, the man he’s always been. 

Soobin takes a drag of his smoke. Holds it in his chest, longer than he’s used to. It prickles inside of him, like a fire igniting. 

When he turns his head, Yeonjun is swaying his body to the beats, his head thumping. He’s holding a drink in his hand, and he sips it every time there’s a pause in the music. He’s looking at Taehyun completely, having his full attention; a slow starstruck expression.

But Soobin can’t stop looking at Yeonjun.

This is what he’s done all these years- staring at Yeonjun when he is unaware. It still takes his breath away. He thinks Yeonjun is the most beautiful when he’s like this, happy and carefree, the lights draping all over his skin. It catches around the strands of his hair. It reminds him of the years they spent in the school playground, running around with their arms wide, letting the wind embrace them. Back when Soobin loved him and didn’t know what it meant.

He thinks he loves him because he’s his best friend.

He loves him because he’s known him longer than he doesn’t. He loves him because back then when Soobin was all quiet after the talent show, Yeonjun looked at him like he understood. Even when he didn’t say anything at all.

They had taken the bus together and the silence was heavy. Soobin stared at the windows the whole ride, and it was only when Yeonjun let himself in his room that he asked him the question.

Why are you sad? he had asked, his eyebrows furrowing. 

I don’t know, Soobin had replied.

You were nervous?

Soobin had nodded. He still wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the floor. Shame burned his throat, and he felt like the biggest loser in the world. Nothing bad happened.

Nothing bad happened, he knew that.

And yet he still failed. He knew he did. He knew that he couldn’t be anything else but this.

I wasn’t good, he had whispered, his little confession. I will never be good.

The rest of the night, Yeonjun stayed by his side and told him that he thought he was amazing. That he was sitting on his seat, so overjoyed because he was so proud of him. Soobin hadn’t cried even though he wanted to, and Yeonjun rested his shoulder against him. He had always touched him like that. Easy and uncomplicated. Soobin never knew how to reciprocate that.

I think you’re the best there ever is, Yeonjun had said softly. I promise that will always be true.

What if I’m no longer the best?

Yeonjun had looked at him with a smile, like he had said something ridiculous. For me, you always are.

Soobin glances at Taehyun on stage, the fucking smile on his face. The way he looks like he’s having the best time of his life, sweat dripping off his temples. The laughter that cannot be heard, but you can see it in the lines of his mouth. Something inherent about him.

He puts the cigarette between his lips again.

Smoking. Drowning.

***

Yeonjun is warm against him.

The bus moves through the night slowly, jolting them like a lullaby. The blur is quite beautiful outside, flashes of light from cars and neon signs from stores passing. It is beautiful because it is so insignificant, so fast, so unimportant. Soobin watches those colors slip in a blink of an eye. He was never going to grasp them, but he watches them anyway.

There’s time before they arrive. There’s time before they stop by to the convenience store to buy eggs and milk and open the door to their apartment. There’s time here in the bus. 

It’s mostly silent.

People are whispering, and the music blaring through the speakers is low enough that it just feels like a vibration. Yeonjun is breathing next to him, slumping in his seat. Their knees bump together in that warm, familiar way.

“Are you going to throw up?”

Yeonjun shakes his head, half of his eyes closed. “No. Just dizzy.”

“You’re not going to throw up on my shoes?”

He rolls his eyes, smacking his thigh. “Fuck off, I’m not that drunk.”

“Well, considering your alcohol tolerance….”

“I’m not that drunk,” Yeonjun says again, more serious. He attempts to look intimidating, and Soobin knows that he is capable of doing that- he has a sharp jaw and strong eyebrows, but Soobin has never been scared of him. Especially when he’s just playing around like this. If anything, it makes him feel fond. “I just need to stay very still for a while.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Fuck off, you’re ridiculous.”

Soobin laughs. “Sure.”

“Bin?”

“Yeah?”

Yeonjun swallows around nothing, and then levels his gaze. Sits up a bit straighter. “So, what do you think?”

“About what?”

“You know what.”

Soobin thinks about it. He doesn’t really need to, because he’s made up his mind. He still tangles his fingers together, pressing his thumb into his skin. It’s fine.

It’s always been fine.

“I think he will make you happy,” he decides on that. He speaks of it so carefully. Maybe that way it won’t break his heart again. He thinks about all the times they have had this conversation before- Yeonjun asking him about what he thinks about a man he’s dating. Soobin always tells him the truth. If he thinks someone isn’t good enough, he will say it, though he dresses it a bit nicer. I think he should pay more attention to you. I think he’s great, but I don’t like the way he talks to you when he’s irritated. I think he’s fine. I think he likes you a lot. “He’s a good musician, too. It matches well with your writings. You can collaborate, be superstars together.”

Yeonjun’s smile blossoms prettily. The lights from the view outside hit him; pink, purple, blue, a burst of everything. He looks like all that Soobin wants.

“You’re ridiculous,” he echoes, though this time there’s no bite to it at all.

It makes Soobin laugh. “I think he’s good for you,” he goes on, meaning it wholeheartedly. 

“Yeah,” Yeonjun says, his lips curling into a bigger softer, more delicate smile. The most beautiful sight, for him. In the deepest, desperate part of his heart, Soobin still dares to want it so badly. Just to touch it with his thumb, tracing the shape of his smile with his bare skin. “Me too.”

They spend the rest of the ride silently, reminiscent about that trip back home after the talent show, except this time Soobin isn’t sad and Yeonjun is happy. Riding the bus together is always their thing, sitting closely and warmly if there are still seats available. Other times when it’s crowded, they have to stand up, face-to-face, still close and warm.

“I wrote a poem, by the way,” Yeonjun says in the convenience store, right in the dairy products aisle. It’s so jarring to adjust to the new light here, instead of the dim, soothing one in the bus. This one is invasive and bright, as though you are under oath. Yeonjun looks so vivid here, like a dream becoming real, like Soobin can reach out and touch him and the world will not split in half. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to write it for a while,” he says, looking to the rows of milk on his left before taking one of them in his hand. He leans on the shelf with his arm and watches Soobin quietly. “Didn’t know why it took me so long to figure out. It’s just- a feeling, I guess, that I wanted to pinpoint.”

“Can I read it?”

Yeonjun turns his head away and smiles sheepishly. “I’m kind of embarrassed. It’s kind of corny.”

Soobin steps closer to him, then nudges his shoe with his own. “You are already corny.”

“Rude.”

“I mean it positively. Come on, you know how I feel about your poems.”

“And what is it that you feel?”

Yeonjun has that look in his eyes when he’s waiting for compliments, because he knows that Soobin will always give them to him. It’s so sweet, so Soobin doesn’t even have to think about it for too long. It’s easy to look at him and find what he feels.

“Serene,” he says quietly. “I think your poems paint a picture. Like I’m there, like I feel what you want to feel, whatever it is.”

Yeonjun opens his mouth to reply, but he closes it again. “That’s too nice.”

“It’s true.”

“Well,” he says, his cheeks flushed pink. “Thank you.”

“So can I read it?”

Yeonjun gives him a small smile before leaving the aisle suddenly, Soobin following him close behind. He notices that they’re walking towards the back where eggs are stored. 

“I mean, I can read it to you,” Yeonjun says.

“Okay, read it to me then.”

There’s not a lot of people here this late into the night, just their voices dragging through the walls. It makes everything they say sound like a confession. The air conditioner is cold and biting.

Yeonjun bites his bottom lip with his teeth. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

Soobin squints at him, baffled. “When have I ever laughed at your poems?”

He shrugs, looking sheepish again, as though Soobin hasn’t loved every single thing he’s ever written. He knows Soobin will always think that he’s magnificent and beautiful.

“Maybe you’ll start now,” Yeonjun lilts.

“Not possible,” Soobin says seriously, staring as Yeonjun sighs and takes egg cartons before pushing them into Soobin’s hold. Like a silly distraction. Soobin just lets it.

“Fine.”

“I’m waiting.”

Yeonjun does that slow grin, like he thinks Soobin is ridiculous and annoying; though all of it is draped in fondness. Eventually, he walks away from him again and finds comfort in one of the shelf full of snacks, somewhere on the edge of the store. Hidden from the rest of the world.

He’s not looking at Soobin, even as he stands beside him. Against each other, as they were in the bus. Yeonjun scoots close so their arms bump.

“Ocean waves in December, I think of you,” he starts in a whisper. It is spoken softly, like he’s pleading in a dream. “The blue water against the sand and the birds in the blue sky. I watch the world moves in desperate wonder.”

He grits his teeth for a second there, and Soobin sees it as clear as day, the beach and the water, the wind on his face as he looks at the horizon. The crass sand on the soles of his feet.

“I think I miss this memory, even when it is not a memory. I think about it all the time, our feet drowned and our hands apart. I think about you. 

I think about the ocean. I think about you by the ocean, your skin also blue.”

Yeonjun looks at Soobin then, his lips pressed in a thin line. In his gaze is something unrecognizable to him. 

“You are holding my hand in this memory. You are looking at me.”

Yeonjun ends the poem there, his mouth shut again. After a beat, his eyes land back on the floor.

Soobin’s breath hitches in his throat. It feels like he just got the wind knocked out of him. “What’s it about?” he asks in a whisper. He doesn’t know why he’s afraid to speak louder. “A memory?”

“Not a memory yet,” Yeonjun corrects, a small smile tugging on his lips. “It’s, like, something that you want for so long, a desire that you’ve kept so safe inside of your heart that it solidifies into a memory. You’ve longed for it your entire life. It becomes a memory to you. It is something so inherent about you.”

“That desire?”

Yeonjun nods, looking at him. “Yeah.”

“You want to go the beach?”

“It’s not really about the beach. I just picture it as a beautiful day with someone.”

Soobin is still holding the carton of eggs. It’s so stupid, but he can’t stop thinking about that image in his head. The beach with the sky. The beach with the ocean waves. Yeonjun running around in the sand, his laughter louder than everything.

He can feel that image on his fingertips.

“Who do you picture it with?”

Yeonjun hums and stares at his shoes for a long time. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to have that memory. Doesn’t matter who it’s with.”

“Well, you have Kang Taehyun now,” Soobin says, the image breaking. It’s never going to be Soobin there, in that memory. He allows it for a second, and then lets it go.

“Yeah.”

They stay like that for a minute, simply standing together in a corner where no one can see them. Soobin can tell that Yeonjun is feeling vulnerable because of the poem, so he lets the moment sit between them tenderly.

“It’s a beautiful poem,” he tells him softly. “You’re an amazing writer. I always think so.”

Yeonjun rolls his eyes. “Thanks, I guess. Whatever. Stupid.”

“You’re so bad with compliments, and yet you want them all the time. What a strange man.”

“Fuck off,” he says, though he’s laughing with no malice to it. It makes the corners of his eyes scrunch in a cute way. “I don’t want compliments all the time.”

“Yes, you do. You want me to tell you pretty things but you call me stupid when I do.”

“That’s because you are stupid, Bin,” Yeonjun whispers, like it is a scandalous secret. And then he steps closer, tugging at his wrist so he can do the same. He looks at him expectantly. Soobin isn’t entirely sure what he’s expecting. “But what do you think?”

“About what?”

“The poem,” he says.

“It’s beautiful,” Soobin repeats, because maybe Yeonjun wants to hear it again. He’d say it a thousand times over if that’s what Yeonjun wants from him.

But Yeonjun shakes his head. “But do you like it?”

“Of course I do. I like everything that you write.”

Soobin doesn’t understand why Yeonjun is still looking at him, his jaw clenched. A flash of that strange foreign feeling in his eyes. 

“Okay,” he says, voice small.

“I love it,” Soobin tries again. He doesn’t want Yeonjun to get the wrong idea, just because Soobin isn’t the best at vocalizing what he thinks. So he stays there in front of him, holding his gaze. “It’s beautiful, like everything that you write.”

It’s beautiful like you, he wants to say.

Yeonjun seems happier with that answer; a twinkle in his eyes. “Yeah?”

Soobin nods, always resolute when it comes to him. “Yeah.”

The air grows thicker in that pause, and Soobin suddenly remembers where they are. They are still in the corner of a convenience store, the overhead light blaring. Yeonjun is so close, as though they are slow dancing again in their living room and they are leaning in to close the gap.

“I just wanted you to like it,” Yeonjun admits softly, smiling up at him. 

“I always do,” Soobin promises.

This warmth envelops him tightly. Soobin thinks he doesn’t know what else to feel for him but this, an overwhelming shudder that breaks under his skin. It claws against his spine and his ribs, making room for Yeonjun to encompass him so completely.

He wants to kiss him.

He wants to hold his face, tell him he’s the most beautiful to him. How pretty he is when he looks at him. How much he thinks of him as his god- his only devotion in this life. 

He wants to move. He wants to touch him back; the hand that is still on his wrist. 

But he only looks at him.

***

I have belonged to you in a way you haven’t to me

     Anaïs Nin