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And I'll go to work, and I'll go to sleep
And I'll love the littler things
I'll love some littler things. - mitski, a burning hill
Late Saturday mornings, they go grocery shopping. It’s a short walk to the grocery store: the epicenter of their small corner of the universe. Alone, Seungmin could make the walk in fifteen minutes, but today, with Jeongin’s hand wrapped loosely around his own, they’ll drag it to twenty-five.
It’s nice, Seungmin thinks, to indulge in the walk. It would be hard to ignore this joy, when it’s been hand picked off sun dappled sidewalks and pressed between their swinging palms.
Beside him, Jeongin is the very manifestation of beauty. The soft glow of the sun is magnetized to his perimeter, leaving an auburn ring at the tips of his hair. He must have been an angel once, Seungmin decides, some divine savior with an affinity for light. Or maybe he’s just a good, earnest man sculpted from soil and coffee grounds like all the rest of them.
The door opens to a lazy stream of people, weaving through the store. There are no strangers in this town. He spots the old couple that lives two doors down, some teenage boys he sees at work sometimes, a mother bargaining with a crying toddler in the candy aisle, all people to be regarded with a distinct part-way familiarity.
Jeongin’s hand returns to his own before he’s even processed the absence. He’s spoiled, truly. Seungmin can’t remember the last time he’s had to open a door.
He lets Jeongin take the lead as they wander around the store, taking it upon himself to make occasional, increasingly absurd suggestions.
“Oh look, there’s mayo flavored soda,” Seungmin points past where Jeongin is reaching for a carton of milk. “Or, I saw they have pudding with octopus chunks inside. We should try that. I think you’d like it.”
Jeongin starts walking away.
“But it’s octopus shaped!” Seungmin calls, running after him. “It’s cute.”
Jeongin doesn’t slow down or turn around, but when Seungmin finally catches up to him, he loops his arm around Seungmin’s.
“Don’t worry, Innie. You’re still the cutest,” Seungmin coos, relishing in the way Jeongin’s face scrunches in mock disgust.
Jeongin huffs, “And you’re the ugliest.” His voice is fond, though, “I think we’ve got everything.”
Seungmin knows better, “You forgot eggs, Innie. Seriously, you need to start making a shopping list.”
“I’ve got you though,” Jeongin grins, “don’t need anything else.”
He blames the good weather and the carefree mood it’s put him in for how long it takes Seungmin to realize something is wrong. Once he does, however, every detail becomes glaringly obvious. It’s in the way Jeongin is sitting awkwardly on the kitchen stool, fingers drumming against the island. Any other day, he’d be a nuisance leaning against the side cabinet while Seungmin sorts the groceries into the fridge.
“What’s wrong with you,” Seungmin asks, closing the fridge door, and finally shutting up the incessant warning beeps: an intended reminder against leaving the fridge door open, but in practice, just a ticking time bomb that always detonates too soon.
Jeongin’s head jerks over to face him. Deer in headlights. An angel bathed in heavenly light.
Seungmin watches as he clears his throat. Once. Twice. Jeongin takes a deep breath and Seungmin subconsciously mirrors the action. Shoulders rolling back, spine pulled taught, stomach tight. “You know, there’s an opening—at the school,” he pauses, searching for the right wording, “they’re looking for a baseball coach.”
Oh. That’s what it was. He kind of regrets asking now.
“It’d be good for you,” he says, but Seungmin barely hears. He hates Jeongin just a little for bringing such an abrupt ending to their idyllic morning.
The world around him is frozen and dizzying at the same time, a superposition of the most intolerable parts of idleness and movement.
“I’ll think about it,” he chokes out eventually.
To his credit, he does think about it.
There's no shame in it, Jeongin tells him. He’d like it, Jeongin says.
It’s not that easy, Seungmin wants to reply: this bastardization of a once-dream is a nightmare too bitter for Seungmin to confront. He holds his tongue though, maybe because Jeongin had appeared so hopeful and he doesn’t think he can handle losing the only person who doesn’t yet regard him with disappointment.
He feels the buzz beneath his skin, sometimes, a residual longing for resonance. He wants to feel the deafening bass again, the way the city’s heartbeat had rumbled under his feet. Oh, how alive it all was. It gets his blood pumping and head spinning until the roaring in his ears blocks out everything else. It had blocked out everything important, too.
Once upon a time he’d wanted to be big. Live a life large enough to cover billboards and magazine spreads and yogurt drinks sold in small town convenience stores. Until he was forced to swallow down his starry-eyed dreams and realise he was never meant to live loudly.
When it gets too much Jeongin takes him to the corner store. “Puppy needs to be walked or he gets overactive,” he ribs. Gently though, as always.
There’s nothing they need to buy, not really. They’d gone grocery shopping just a few days ago. But it’d be a shame to leave empty handed and tomatoes are on sale today and maybe Jeongin knows he needs something to do with his hands. Something to hold that can’t fade away.
Jeongin tells him something funny one of his kids said at school today.
He’s not brave enough to agree, but too cowardly to tell Jeongin no, so instead he sits in a purgatory of his own making.
Tomatoes don’t taste right in the city, so far removed from the soil to which they were born. It’s what he missed the most in the time he was away.
He can just barely make out the lines of Jeongin’s broad back beneath his loose-hung shirt. These are shoulders wasted on a kindergarten classroom, Seungmin thinks, and wonders if he's not the only one wasting potential. He wonders what Jeongin would’ve looked like on the field, skin tanned by a different sun.
It’s not a matter of potential, though. If it had been, Jeongin would’ve been the star. Those are shoulders wide enough for big dreams. But it’s a matter of want, as fickle and unreliable as it is, and Jeongin’s wants are far simpler. Fit neatly within their dimly lit kitchen.
He wonders, then, what kind of great man can want so little.
Jeongin could shoulder universes, but as it stands, he’s only ever wanted to shoulder Seungmin’s burdens. Maybe Seungmin should consider letting him.
Outside, the setting sun paints the sky an expansive red. Seungmin watches as Jeongin takes a bite from the tomato he’d been washing.
When their eyes meet, Jeongin smiles, the gaps between his teeth have been dyed brilliant and red. Tomato juice drips down his forearm to meet his haphazardly rolled shirt sleeve. The scene is so blinding, Seungmin feels disconcerted for a moment and then he’s leaning forward into Jeongin’s space, sucking gently at the juice before sinking teeth into soft flesh.
Flavor blooms into his mouth: like red, like summer. It tastes like waking up on Saturday mornings with Jeongin’s hand intertwined in his own.
And really, what can be done? He’d gone and tried and lived and failed. And now, he’s back. To where the taste of tomato and the brief brush of Jeongin’s finger against his bottom lip shroud around him–long after the sun sets.
In the end, it was no one's fault but his own. He couldn’t keep up with the unrelenting enormity of the city—a small town star turned champagne dreamer forever stuck below the vinculum—so he came running back with his tail between his legs and bet all his chips on a years old letter.
(“I’ll wait for you, hyung! When you’re having dinner with famous actresses and sports legends, remember Yang Jeongin from your hometown will always know you best.”
It’d hit a little too true, cut a little too deep, so he never wrote back. He’s always been a little too much of a coward. Maybe that’s why he never made it.)
His departure had been loud: Kim Seungmin, baseball prodigy. There had been a local newspaper run on him and banners put up by the school. They were all proud, to think someone made from the same small town soil and paint-peeled fences would soon be a smash hit wonder. He despises them sometimes, thinks maybe he wouldn't have drowned if he wasn’t carrying the quixotic reveries of a whole town.
He texted Jeongin. “Innie-ah, I’m coming home,” and then, “I’m sorry.”
That’s all it took. The foreboding cavity, years and miles wide, bridged by a simple text.
His return was quiet. There had been a moment, when he stepped into that familiar train station, where he was scared he had become unrecognizable. But then he watched as Jeongin’s vision shutter-focused and met his own eyes. And there he was.
They’re trying to start a garden, and so far, Seungmin thinks he enjoys it.
It started with a sprig of green onion submerged in a glass on the window sill. Then, tomato saplings from the woman next door. “They’re resilient,” she had said, “just put them in soil, and they’ll grow.”
Now, baby cabbages and lettuce bloom from terracotta pots scattered around the porch. Besides them, is a menagerie of vines: snap peas, peppers, eggplant. And in the corner, where the sun hits first each morning, are his tomato plants.
When Jeongin returns, he’s halfway through repotting the tomatoes. They’re growing quickly, though no matter what Seungmin does they refuse to coil onto the wire stakes. Instead the tendrils intertwine, curling into one another like fingers.
Come summer, when Jeongin has the time to spare, they’ll build a garden bed so the plants can spread their roots deeper. But for now, the mismatched pots and the sprouts that inhabit them are young and nascent.
“You look like a thief searching for the spare keys,” Jeongin greets him, rolling up his sleeves as he crouches down next to Seungmin.
He hums, leaning into Jeongin’s space to let their shoulders knock together as a silent greeting.
“Hey, hyung.” Jeongin calls, poking at his cheek when Seungmin ignores him. The mud cool and wet slides onto his face. This brat, Seungmin thinks.
“Hyung hyung hyung-”
“Yah! Yang Jeongin,” Seungmin glares, “if you’re going to be a bother, at least help out.”
Jeongin grins, not looking the least bit chastised. Still, he reaches to take the shovel from Seungmin's hands, turning away towards the second plant. An opening.
The second Jeongin’s turned away, Seungmin grabs the watering can, emptying it over Jeongin’s head. He cackles at the betrayed squawk Jeongin lets out.
“I have to make sure all my plants get enough water,” he grins, fingers making a mess of Jeongin’s hair, “how else will they grow big and strong.”
Soon, they end up sprawled on the ground, clothes wet and covered in mud. He can’t really bring himself to care too much, when all he can hear is Jeongin’s boisterous laughter, free and uncaring.
Like this, they could almost be school boys again. Soon to face stern scoldings from exasperated mothers for wrestling in the mud.
On days too large for Seungmin to hold, he’s tethered here under Jeongin’s watchful gaze and the warm soil caked beneath his nails.
They’d gifted him a new glove when he’d signed to his professional team. It was soft, in the way only expensive leather can be, with his name along the side in sky blue embroidery. They heard his favourite color was blue, his new manager had said, and hoped it’d be a welcomed gesture of goodwill.
Now it sits untouched in his closet, collecting dust.
Some days, he wishes to destroy it—to rip along the uniform seams and scratch the leather—to compensate for the way it won’t be weathered by time and good use. He can hardly stand to see it, can hardly stand to know it’s there, the final skeleton of his past life doomed forever to haunt his closet. Perhaps he could burn it. He could almost imagine the way the flames would overtake the glove, how it would break down the fibers and leave nothing but ash. He can almost smell the smoke, the acrid fumes of burning leather and the way they’d hit deep in the throat.
A catharsis, almost.
“Grief leaves no space for dignity,” his aunt had told him once. Back before he was old enough to understand what grief or dignity meant, only that his mom now cries at odd times and he won’t be seeing his grandfather again.
This feels a lot like that.
It’s embarrassing, a little ridiculous maybe, to feel this way. But maybe he’s grieving the boy he once found on a dusty baseball field. Or the boy he lost to the faceless city crowd.
He supposes he is.
It’s a new day. The sunlit sidewalk is beautiful, as is the bright smell of grass. Love, too, is a kind of beautiful—love sustained and love lost, love persisted—in all the forms it holds him with.
It’s simple, really: he still loves baseball.
“Hey, Jeongin, do you think—is that position at the school still open?”
And, Jeongin’s smile is beautiful.
They live small lives. Peaceful. They buy tomatoes from the store.
It can be enough.