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Dongmin lives about the most boring life one could imagine to have. While others dream of free time and moments of oddity, he would personally like to stop having unusual moments happen at work and to stop rotting in his bed from the amount of free time he has almost all day, listening to music or thinking up lyrics that will never get used anywhere else but in his own head.
His friend, Donghyun, or Leehan, as he goes by nowadays, is more busy than him, often auditioning for spots in advertisements or movies, shooting scenes as side characters or background visuals that take hours simply because of the amount of people involved.
That doesn’t mean that he’s the definition of busy, as they often end up hanging out together simply because there’s nothing for them to do but that. It only started when Dongmin started taking him to his audition spots and shoots because he didn’t have his own car and would use the metro for everything, but now it’s evolved to going to tourist spots together or long, winding trails that they get to walk for hours while talking.
They’ve even made life plans together, often imaginative and unrealistic, but there comes a few moments where thoughts are seriously taken into consideration. It’s become more unreasonable for them to not live together than to live together, and they consider everything down to what kinds of pets are reasonable to have— Donghyun can’t survive without having at least one fish, and Dongmin considers a cat or two, but has to rethink now that he’s going to be forced to live with a Corydoras in the same house as him.
And while they haven’t gotten the house yet, Dongmin’s apartment is a suitable situation for the moment. Maybe not this specific moment— because as he watches people prepare for New Year’s Eve and the many celebrations already happening across the world, he comes to the conclusion that he decidedly does not want to spend it alone. There’s not many people he can call for in the first place, but who better than the one person who plans to live in the same house as him?
He researches a few traditions around the New Years and closes his eyes too scour his memory for the last few years spent with his family, muttering ideas out loud to himself since he doesn’t have a second person with him to bounce ideas off of. After that, and little consideration for Donghyun’s current location, he picks up his phone again.
“Hey. Donghyun-ah.” No hesitation. No hello. Dongmin speaks as soon as he hears the click on the other side of the line, indicating Donghyun’s acceptance. “Do you want to come eat twelve grapes with me by this cliff I found yesterday?”
There’s silence on the other side of the phone, broken by a few birds chirping in the background and the sound of someone passing by. He should be at a shoot, one Dongmin is going to pick him up from in a few hours, and eventually, he speaks.
“Yeah.” He says. “Why not. What time?”
”After I pick you up, probably. I can bring something for you to change into. We have to go buy grapes, though.”
A few moments of silence, and then, “Alright. Bring my fish pajamas and a sweater.”
“Hey. Ready to get grapes?” It’s near eight in the afternoon, and despite it not being super late into the night he’s already dressed as if he’s going to bed, wearing soft, mismatched pajamas underneath a random sweater and slippers when he goes to pick Donghyun up from the shoot.
“Yep. Do I get to change in the back first?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind the possibility of people looking inside the car while driving on the way there.” He hums. “Get in.”
Donghyun nods, and it’s little time before they arrive at the grocery store, having knocked around in the back seat while changing and hair now tousled from attempting to take off his shirt while they passed over a speed bump. Dongmin reaches up, ruffling his hair and making it worse— so he does the same, attempting to fix his own with his other hand in the meantime. Sadly, Dongmin has pin-straight hair, so it doesn’t work on him.
The only two bags of grapes left in the store are either green or red grapes, and it’s surprisingly a big debate between them in which grapes to get as Donghyun believes that red grapes are sweeter while Dongmin hasn’t eaten any grapes other than green ones before, so he should know that green grapes are superior— they ultimately end up getting the red ones, because Dongmin steals a grape from each package and eats it to decide which one has the sweeter grapes.
”I told you,” Donghyun laughs, even though they’re already halfway towards the destination of the cliff. He reaches up, still attempting to fix his hair, and eats another grape from the package sitting directly in his lap. They’re unwashed and straight from the store, but nobody said that they needed to wash them, so they didn’t. He’s also holding a bag of McDonald’s in his lap, occasionally taking a fry out to eat and feeding Dongmin some on the way. It’s purely for sustenance, as grapes aren’t enough on their own, and by the time they reach the cliff there are no more fries.
”It’s sad that there’s so much light pollution. Looking at the stars would be kind of nice right now.” Donghyun says, pulling the hood of his (which isn’t actually his) sweater over his head. Dongmin hums in agreement, but he doesn’t have a clue what Donghyun’s talking about.
He reaches for the McDonald’s, placing it on the center console between them and in to grab his chicken nuggets. Probably childish, but he hasn’t had them for years and they’re better than the burgers there anyway. You can at least get what you expect out of them, and he feels a little like time has reversed once he takes a bite into one after dipping it into barbecue sauce.
“Are you gonna eat?” He asks, watching Donghyun as the man’s eyes dart across the sky. The window’s inner glare from the bright lights makes it hard to spot the few stars that he can see, and Dongmin stares the entire time he doesn’t answer.
He turns back, hands fumbling to find the bag for a few seconds, and Dongmin turns his attention to his phone when Donghyun looks up to try and make eye contact. “They forgot to give us our drink.” The other realizes, halfway through scouring the bag for his McRib. “We paid for that.”
”I know, I realized halfway through driving here.” Dongmin sighs, though he already looks like he’s gotten over it by the fact that he’s still focused on his phone. He clicks on one of the many timers counting down to the New Years, with a YouTube chat full of the same ten accounts spamming brainrot and niche internet references. “I paid for it, so it’s fine.”
Donghyun sulks. ”I know, but it’s still disappointing.”
Dongmin pats him on the back a few times, placing his phone back on the cheap, half-broken holder he got for it attached onto one of the air vents and turning it to face Donghyun more clearly. “It’s okay. We still have our food. And the grapes.”
Donghyun reaches in to eat one of the grapes, holding his food in his other hand. “What are the grapes for, again?”
“Good luck. That’s what I saw online, at least.” Dongmin takes one to eat as well, rubbing off the white outer dust before doing so. “You’re supposed to eat twelve in one minute as good luck for the next twelve months.”
“Is that possible? That’s probably possible.” Donghyun takes a bite of his McRib, and Dongmin reaches down to hand him a napkin for the barbecue sauce dripping off the side of his lips. He waits for the man to finish chewing, and his inner excuse is because there’s nothing else for him to do other than eat his own food— but it’s not like he needs to deny the fact that he likes staring at Donghyun. He’s pretty sure the other knows.
Donghyun swallows, “Do we get bad luck if we don’t finish all twelve grapes in under a minute?”
Dongmin blinks, still watching as Donghyun uncaps the only water bottle they have with one hand and takes a gulp to clear his throat. He watches as his throat bobs with the motion, and the sight gives him enough of a reality check to reach down and pick up another chicken nugget to eat. “No, I don’t think so. Nothing I read said that, anyway.”
Donghyun nods, and they sit in silence for the rest of the time they eat, occasionally turning to look out the window and take note of the surroundings outside of the car, heat on low and buzzing through the air vents as the timer ticks seconds by second. They’re considerably on time for waiting for New Year’s Eve, and Donghyun begins to scroll through social media and the various posts from acquaintances about spending the night at parties or with family, normally in a house full of people to enjoy with.
He turns, finding Dongmin staring, squinting through the front window, likely trying to spot the same stars he did earlier, and smiles. Both of their families are in Korea, so there would be no way for them to spend the night a similar way, but he’s not disappointed at all with what he’s got right now.
Dongmin’s the closest he’s got to family right now, and even then he might be closer, simply because of the amount of time they’ve spent through things normally one would believe to go through alone, imagined things together that usually, friends wouldn’t do. Not that they’re not friends— but that they’re more.
Dongmin turns to find his eyes. “You look like you just thought of something sentimental.” He murmurs.
“I did.” Donghyun states, his smile curling up into a grin. “You wanna know?”
“Not really.” A pause, “…What is it?”
”I’m really happy to spend New Years with you.” He says. Dongmin immediately nods, lips pursing, like he’s trying not to cringe out of the own fact that he knows it should be more heartwarming than so. “Like, really happy. I think I could spend all my New Year’s Eves with you.”
Still nodding, Dongmin turns towards the timer. He thinks, seriously, like he’s ready to drop a bomb over Donghyun’s head— except the bomb is just considerate, heartfelt words and a platonic love confession. Donghyun doesn’t expect anything back, because it’s already clear through his actions, but it’s entertaining to watch him try.
”I’m happy too.” He says, eventually. “We can spend every New Year’s Eve together when we buy that house. With the fish. And the cats.”
“Yup.” Donghyun responds, still grinning, to which Dongmin nods again, only smiling faint enough to be the uptick of his lips. He reaches over, fitting his fingers between Donghyun’s, and they hold hands until Dongmin reaches behind them to grab them a blanket he brought from his apartment to keep them warm.
Donghyun reaches to keep their hands together again, and turns his attention towards the timer. There’s only ten minutes left on the counter, and Dongmin reaches to start removing some of the grapes from their stalks.
“Are you making it easier to eat them?” Donghyun asks, heart full at the simple act of Dongmin attempting to remove the grapes with one hand while the other holds Donghyun’s. He decides to help, holding the connecting branches together while Dongmin pulls them off— all to keep their hands connected.
”Yeah. I don’t really believe in the luck thing, but it would still be good to try.” Dongmin mutters, and Donghyun hums in response. Of course, even though Dongmin apparently doesn’t believe in it, becomes serious as soon as the moment approaches, and inevitably believes in it more than he thinks.
They set out twelve grapes for each other, finding that they’ve eaten enough of them to be one grape short of twenty-four. Donghyun watches as Dongmin recounts them three times, each time leaning forward to try and spot another grape as if one will magically appear.
It never does, and ultimately Donghyun watches as the man silently moves a grape over to his pile so that he has twelve grapes instead of eleven.
“Should we make resolutions?” He asks, instead of pointing out the grapes. People get luck on New Year’s in other ways, anyway, so it’s not like they’re out of chances.
“Maybe, if you think you have any goals you can achieve in a single year.” Dongmin takes the now-empty bag of grape stalks and shoves it into the McDonald’s takeout they are now using as a place for trash, endlessly adjusting the fixed position of the grapes and making sure they stay separate as the time goes down. “I don’t really have any. Maybe besides calling my mom more.”
Donghyun gets flashbacks of his parents scolding him. “I need to do that, too.” He mutters.
They toss ideas of resolutions around, all of them circling around the common topic of family or money as they converse until the last few minutes of the clock count down. They stare at the numbers, less than a minute left on Dongmin’s phone, and as the comments flood with early Happy New Years or words of anticipation, Dongmin prepares to shove twelve grapes in his mouth.
Finally— the timer runs to zero, and 2D confetti explodes on the small screen, Dongmin shoving two grapes in his mouth and eating them as fast as possible. Donghyun is just as enthusiastic, mainly spurred on by Dongmin’s own excitement. They probably look stupid to anyone who would be able to see inside of the car, but the thought of luck and tradition counts more than appearances.
Dongmin manages to finish in forty seconds, and Donghyun fifty, probably because he had one less grape to eat in the first place. They sit there, watching the last ten seconds go until the clock hits one minute into the new year, and Donghyun turns to face the other.
“You know, you only had eleven grapes.” He says.
Dongmin tilts his head in confusion. “Yeah? There weren’t enough grapes.”
“But I still want you to get good luck.”
“It’s alright, I don’t really believe in that stuff anyway.”
“But I think you deserve to have good luck.”
He pauses, slightly taken aback. “Okay? So?”
“Can we kiss?”
Dongmin stills. Then, he thinks about it for a few minutes, and the words are incredibly less daunting than he originally believed they were. They’ve kissed before, and it’s a common tradition on New Year’s Eve for good luck. “Yeah. Sure.”
Donghyun smiles, and he wastes no time leaning in, closing the distance between them. It doesn’t even last a minute— not like it needs to in the first place, and the message is clearly sent as Dongmin is smiling, eyes wide and glimmering with joy when they pull apart.
“For good luck, right?” He asks. Donghyun laughs.
“Yeah.” He answers, “Though we could kiss for other reasons, too.”
Dongmin, still smiling, stares at him and blinks slow, once. It seems he likes that idea. “Okay.”