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Donghyun’s mom texts him daily. She’s usually met with a short description of his day back, but today’s text is a series of pictures that instantly grab Donghyun’s attention and so his response changes, too.
Mostly in the way of him not responding at all. Which, yeah, isn’t a very perfect son thing of him to do, but he genuinely forgot okay!
Because on his screen two toddlers stare right at him with eyes and mouths showing laughter and joy. It’s him from when he was young and Jaeho, right there with him on their couch, so happy to show off that they’d grown another year together, ready to be put in the yearly photobook for both of their moms.
Donghyun scrolls through the rest, pictures of them at the beach that one summer they were allowed to go together, both of their families going to Jeju together to make their sons happy. Donghyun and Jaeho with small backpacks on their equally small backs, walking towards their middle school. Completely new territory.
Next comes a text: do you remember? It’s been about twenty years since you met. With an image attached of the two of them with their hands full of various colors of paint and a little smudged on their soft cheeks, too, most of the paint being on them instead of the pieces of paper meant for it in front of them that were meant for it, their first ever activity together. Meeting on the first day at kindergarten. Instantly becoming friends and never leaving.
Donghyun kicks Jaeho lightly trying to get his attention. He gets it, but with it comes a grumble and a glare. Donghyun can’t blame him. Jaeho had been furiously typing away on his phone, clearly busy. “What?”
“Do you remember this?” Donghyun shows him his phone, with the last picture
“I was barely conscious at that time.” Jaeho’s about to
“Mom said it’s been twenty years since, she thinks. Do you think that’s true.” Jaeho doesn’t really respond so Donghyun starts counting on his fingers. 2003, 1, 2004, 2… Jaeho startles when Donghyun yells out, excited and his joy too large for his body, jumping up as gracefully as he can while staying seated on the couch. “It is twenty!”
Despite feeling greatly inconvienced and wanting to go back to the long message he’s sending one of his other friends about what his latests crush said to him yesterday—in his mid-twenties but still hopeless—he laughs at Donghyun’s enthusiasm. “Twenty years is a crazy long time.”
Donghyun slaps Jaeho’s knee in sudden thought. “We should celebrate it. Isn’t it around school entry time now. It’s seriously twenty years now. We should do something for it.”
Jaeho puts his phone away at last and gives Donghyun most of his attention. There is still a little part of his brain that is stuck on that text message and the contents of it but he’s choosing to focus on Donghyun instead. Indulging him is one of the things you can’t not do if you want to stay friends with the guy for twenty years. Sometimes you need to give him the benefit of the doubt. Usually it pays off.
“Like?”
“We should throw a big party! Invite everyone we know.”
And sometimes it doesn’t pay off.
“I don’t know about that…” Jaeho turns his body away from Donghyun, facing the coffee table in front of the couch instead of Donghyun now. “I’m not big on showing off, you know.”
“I know,” Donghyun starts, moving towards Jaeho instead, hand on his knee to keep his attention, although Jaeho is sure he’s not doing that on purpose. “But it’ll be just this once. It’s a big thing, you know, staying friends for something that feels like basically a lifetime. That’s crazy. We did that!” Donghyun squeezes his knee and smiles at Jaeho in a way that makes it almost impossible for Jaeho to say no.
He does it anyway, because everything in him tells him he doesn’t want to spend another night in their cramped apartment and all their friends and family clashing. They’ve tried it before, horribly planning their housewarming, fresh adults and great at making flawed decisions like inviting everyone with different tastes and tempers at the same time in a place that can generally hold ten people at max.
“Can’t we go a little smaller? You know it didn’t end well last time.”
“It’ll be different this time.” With the way Donghyun’s eyes light up, Jaeho can tell he’s already envisioning everything. He doesn’t usually like planning stuff like this, but when Donghyun’s on, he’s on and it’s hard to turn him off. Not that Jaeho wants to dim his light. He just wants his light to be shining on something else. Like a smaller party. Or no party at all.
Jaeho hesitates. “Are you sure you want to celebrate it at all?”
Donghyun sighs, letting his head fall back on the couch for a moment to be dramatic. “This is big. I want to feel how cool it is that we still have each other.”
“We live together and everything…”
“That’s what I mean!” Jaeho has to admit he likes seeing Donghyun so enthusiastic. He just wishes it was for something he was more interested in. “Do you really not want a big party? We can do it somewhere else if you don’t want to repeat the last one, all cramped up and stuff in here.”
Jaeho appreciates that. Donghyun’s never too difficult to deal with, even when he has his eyes set on something. Or his ears. Carpooling when Donghyun has the aux is nearly impossible. Jaeho can usually get one or two songs in himself if Donghyun will let him. But in the end Donghyun always gives Jaeho the final song choice. He’s reasonable. In his own way.
Jaeho thinks he’s being pretty reasonable himself here, too. “I don’t really want to celebrate something like this with other people. They’re not a part of us. Not really.”
Donghyun’s hand is still on Jaeho’s knee, which they both only realize when Donghyun squeezes his knee really hard at the thought of Jaeho simply cherishing him a lot.
“You could’ve just said that you didn’t want to share me with anyone.”
“That is so not what I said,” Jaeho tries to get out of the hug Donghyun’s giving, basically jumping on top of him, suffocating Jaeho who can’t even pretend to hate it. Donghyun’s body warmth is a nice addition to his usual coldness. Besides, Donghyun’s a pretty good hugger and while they don’t often hug because neither likes it that much that often, it is pretty nice to hold him close. Cherish him. “Fine. Maybe I like having you close.”
“Literally,” Donghyun laughs. “You won’t let me go,” he says, despite being the one to go as Jaeho does let him go.
When Donghyun’s safely squared away, back in his seat, he sighs softly, but not in a way that makes Jaeho thinks he’s complaining. He sounds rather content.
“We can throw a party another time,” Jaeho tries. “Separate groups of people and not here, but we can do it another time.”
“We’ll see.” Donghyun’s smile grows and he throws it Jaeho’s way. “Now let’s talk you and me. What do you want to do? When? Maybe we can buy some paint and recreate the first ever picture taken of the both of us.”
Jaeho’s polite in the framing of his message. “You’re horrible at art.”
Donghyun scoffs “Excuse me? You’re worse.” To which Jaeho scoffs. “Okay, fine, you pick something then. As long as we won’t be eating bad noodles at a PC bang like we always do, I’m okay with it.” He singsongs, “as long as you like it.”
“Why can’t we just do that?” Jaeho laughs when Donghyun looks at him like he’s asking him how he can say that in such a serious tone without breaking, but Jaeho means it. “Seriously, that’s like, our whole thing. Okay, maybe not our thing, but it’s integral to us and our friendship. Bad food and silly games. We’ve been doing that since forever.”
“Your dad’s weekly pancakes were pretty terrible.”
“I know!” Now it’s Jaeho’s turn to look at Donghyun with untamed enthusiasm. “So? PC bang and dinner tomorrow? I’ll buy you a cupcake if you want to make it special.”
Donghyun thinks for a moment, biting his lip, but a smile escapes anyway. “I’ll bake you a cupcake. A whole batch, really, but I’ll give you one and let my mom distribute the rest. She did alert of us of this afterall.”
“Deal.” Jaeho smiles and while Donghyun initially does so as well, his eyes grow big in realization quickly.
“Right. I should definitely text her back. She’s going to love this.”