Work Text:
i miss how you'd sigh yourself to sleep
when I'd rake the springtime across your sheets
(NEKO CASE)
When we imagine love, we never imagine it as quiet.
Love is like fireworks, bursting into brightness and loudness and colour. It’s the crash of a wave along the shore, the caress of wet sand it leaves behind as it pulls aways. The way we imagine love is a light that burns the brightest, a fruit that tastes the sweetest, a song you forgot was your favourite played on the radio after so many years. Love is the distinct and vehement reminder that you are alive. Or at least, we imagine it that way.
Junhui and Jihoon fall in love quietly, between and an imitation of the slow slide from season to season. Jihoon meets Junhui when the leaves are going from orange to brown and somehow finds himself in love before the snow melts.
(Maybe they fall apart because their love was small and it was quiet and slow. Maybe that was the problem to begin with. Maybe this was over before it even started.)
Jihoon meets Junhui on a day in autumn that’s been cornered by winter. The first snowfall is in the air, everyone can feel it in the crisp chill, and it’s only a matter of time before it paints the town white. Jihoon meets Junhui in a army green spring jacket he wears to cut the wind, beige chinos and a pair of sneakers.
He wasn’t much to look at. Jihoon will never understand what about him drew Junhui in that day.
(On a day between the first one and the last one, on the slope of the rise before the pitfall, Junhui will answer this question. He’ll say, “I just knew there was something about you. I knew knowing you would be worth it.”)
(On a day closer to the last one, it will be storming outside their apartment window, dark inside of it, and Jihoon will say, “was it? Was it worth it?”)
They kiss for the first time after a date at a Italian restaurant and a few glasses of wine. Junhui picked the restaurant because he took culinary arts in school and writes restaurant reviews and fancies himself a bit of a foodie. Jihoon relents in letting Junhui picks his main course and in return Junhui asks Jihoon to pick his favourite from the wine list.
It’s winter by now. They’ve hung icicle lights from street lamp to street lamo and started salting the sidewalks. When they leave the restaurant it’s just after eight at night and it’s snowing. Snowflakes keep collecting in Junhui’s hair. Jihoon laughs and stands on his tippy-toes to shake them off.
Junhui catches Jihoon’s wrist as he pulls his hand away, tugs Jihoon a little closer. Jihoon lets himself be pulled, feeling like a moon caught in the orbit of its planet. They’re meant to be hailing a cab, it’s so cold and Jihoon had wanted to get out of the chill and into his apartment, but Junhui is warm too. His fingers are a little cold around Jihoon’s wrist, maybe, but his mouth is warm. He kisses Jihoon’s cheek, then his mouth, slow and experimental. Jihoon sighs into it. Despite the cold he feels like he’s melting, warmed from the inside.
Junhui’s mouth moves from calm and testing to a little more insistent and hard. Jihoon lets him, lets him push a hand against the small of his back and push his tongue past Jihoon’s teeth.
“Oh,” Jihoon breathes out when they finally pull apart. There are snowflakes against Jihoon’s lashes. Junhui cups Jihoon’s face in his hands and wipes them away with his thumbs.
Falling in love with Junhui is easy. It’s light. As a father, that’s the way Jihoon would describe it. It doesn’t feel like a tight fist around his heart when he’s around Junhui, constricting and heavy. It feels like the freedom to let it beat out of time and not pay it any mind. Junhui smiles like the sun and his hands and his kisses are soft, like he thinks Jihoon is special and amazing and beautiful. Jihoon, in return, thinks the world of Junhui. Like he hung the moon in the sky. That’s dangerous, and he’ll regret it later, but in these moments Jihoon can’t bring himself to care.
Junhui tells Jihoon he loves him after four months. They’re kissing, lying on the couch in Junhui’s apartment, remnants of dinner cooling on plates on the coffee table. Jihoon has found, in the time since they started dating, that Junhui’s home cooked meals are better than any restaurant.
“Hey,” Junhui says, pulling away from Jihoon, who chases his mouth with his eyes closed and his lip pursed. “Hey,” Junhui, more insistent, and runs a thumb against the slope of Jihoon’s cheekbone.
Jihoon opens his eyes, settling back into the couch cushions. “What?”
Junhui smiles, bites his lip. He runs the thumb across Jihoon’s face once, twice more. “I love you,” he says quietly, so the words stay caught between the press of him and Jihoon’s bodies.
Jihoon sucks in a breath, surprised, but words come tumbling out of his mouth fast and without him willing it. “I love you too,” he replies.
Junhui laughs, relief bubbling up through his chest and coming out in an exhale. Jihoon smiles. It’s been awhile since Jihoon has been in love. In that moment he feels like he may never fall in love with anyone else besides Junhui again.
They move in together in the summer, heat unforgiving, after Jihoon suggests in jest and Junhui takes him seriously. It’s odd at first but Jihoon would never describe his feelings for it as anything negative. It just - takes adjusting.
They fight a little bit. When they put together complicated furniture and Junhui accidentally breaks one of the drawers in the bed frame and again, when Jihoon is trying to hang photos in the hallway and Junhui keeps insisting they aren’t straight.
It’s a stressful two months before they settle in. One morning, Jihoon wakes up to the smell of something sweet and the sounds of something sizzling in a pan. He finds Junhui making breakfast, bare feet padding out a rhythm on their kitchen tiles. Jihoon wraps his arms around Junhui’s wrist from behind, laying his cheek against the curve of his spine.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Junhui hums. Jihoon can feel Junhui’s voice rumbling through his chest. “I made you breakfast, tell me how this tastes?”
The moment feels entirely, ridiculously, beautifully domestic. They have house plants in the window of their kitchen they both take turns watering, the fridge and cupboards filled with both their favourite foods. Jihoon is wearing one of Junhui’s too big for him sleep shirts while Junhui spoon feeds him a tiny portion of scrambled eggs and smiles.
The apartment has never felt more like there's then it does in this moment. Filled up with their things, their lives, the two of them and whatever future they decide to build within it’s walls. They fought, just a little, and Jihoon hated every minute of it, but when Junhui pulls the spoon away from his mouth and replaces it with a chaste press of his lips, Jihoon decides it was worth it.
“We should get a puppy,” Junhui says one day. It’s early morning. A quiet ease permeates the air. Jihoon and Junhui watch each other from either sides of their shared bed, playing with each other’s fingers.
Jihoon laughs, “a puppy? I don’t need one. I have you.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too,” Jihoon smiles. “This building doesn’t allow pets.”
“When our lease is up,” Junhui pushes Jihoon’s hair behind his ears, lets his finger linger on the shell of them, “let’s get a bigger place. And let’s get a puppy.”
“Okay.”
Growth will always end in decay. There’s no way to escape it. Decay is innate part of existing. All things are want to do it.
Everything rots, from fruit to bodies to feelings.
“Junhui,” Jihoon whispers. He says because he needs too and he whispers because maybe, maybe if Junhui doesn’t hear Jihoon won’t have to keep talking.
But the apartment is quiet, Junhui curled on a corner of the couch and typing up a review of the Greek place he took Jihoon to the other night. Junhui hears Jihoon speak, no matter how small and tight his voice is. “Jihoon?”
Jihoon hands shake. If falling in love with Junhui was light then this is the heaviest weight Jihoon has ever carried. “I think,” Jihoon starts and his own tongue trips him up, “I think we should break up.”
Jihoon and Junhui fell in love quietly. They fall out of it the same way.
(“Jihoon,” Wonwoo will say later, in that way, that voice that makes him sound like Jihoon’s concerned older sibling. It’s placating, not comforting, and Jihoon hates it. “Jihoon, why did you do it?”
“I don’t know. I -” Jihoon stutters. His throat is so tight, eyes and cheeks wet with tears. He wishes Junhui was still the person in Jihoon’s life who could kiss him and hold him and make him feel his own worth. But, but, “I felt it happening. I felt myself - I felt myself falling out of love with him.”
“I didn’t want this to end with us hating each other,” Jihoon continues, words pouring out his mouth like a faucet turned to the highest pressure and the hottest temperature. They burn as they pour out, all these words. “I couldn’t let this end with him hating me. I wouldn’t be able to bare if he hated me.”)
“Hey, where were you last night?” Wonwoo asks. They’re having lunch, some tiny little place where Junhui told Jihoon the sandwiches were good. “I tried calling, you didn’t answer.”
“Oh,” Jihoon says around a bite. He swallows, wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Junhui and I went to the movies.”
Wonwoo stops eating. His forehead creases, eyebrows knitting together, and he frowns. “You know that’s weird, right?”
“What’s weird?”
“You and Junhui,” Wonwoo continues, “you aren’t together anymore. You broke up two months ago.”
“I know that,” Jihoon rolls his eyes, takes a sip of his ice water. “Obviously, I know that.”
“People who broke up don’t go on dates, Jihoon,” Wonwoo says it’s so incredulously, like he can’t believe Jihoon doesn’t see what he sees. But Wonwoo doesn’t know them, he doesn’t know Jihoon and Junhui the way they know each other.
“It wasn’t a date,” Jihoon scoffs. He shakes his head, tearing off a piece of the crust of his bread. Junhui was right, the sandwiches are good, with bread they make fresh daily and spreads with special recipes. “We’re friends. He’s my best friend. Just because we aren’t together anymore doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”
Wonwoo looks unconvinced but he doesn’t press. Eventually he goes back to his sandwich.
Jihoon is bringing in two big paper bags of groceries when he spots Junhui, dressed smart in and ironed shirt and dark slacks. “You look fancy,” Jihoon calls from the kitchen, dropping groceries onto the counter.
They still live together. Wonwoo has told Jihoon that that’s weird too. Jihoon shrugged him off with a wave of his hand, insistence that if Junhui didn’t want him around he would say it and that the housing market was dreadful right now.
“Where are you going,” Jihoon asks, smiling as he steps back into the living room. Junhui fidgets with the buttons of his sleeves. “Work tonight?”
“No, Jihoon. I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” Junhui’s fidgeting pushes a button of his sleeve through a loop. Without thinking Jihoon is crossing the room to fix it.
“What is it?” He asks, one hand against Junhui’s wrists while the fingers of his other hand tend to Junhui’s sleeve. “You seem nervous. Is everything okay?”
Junhui visibly swallows. “Jihoon,” He says quietly. Jihoon lifts his eyes to meets Junhui’s and finds Junhui’s gaze already burrowing into the soft planes of Jihoon’s face. “I’m going on a date.”
Suddenly it feels like Jihoon is too close to Junhui. They’re sharing too much space, to much body heat. If this were months ago the lack of space would mean Junhui was about to kiss him. If this were months ago Junhui wouldn’t be going on a date with someone who wasn’t Jihoon in the first place.
Jihoon steps back, drops his hand from where they rested around Junhui’s wrist and pull them behind his back. “Oh,” he says, in the steadiest voice he can manage. Junhui’s face crumbles, hurt painting itself over all his features. It’s ugly. Jihoon hates it. “I mean,” Jihoon tries to recover, “that’s good, Junhui. That’s really good. I’m glad.”
Junhui reaches a hand and then he pulls it back, like he was about to touch Jihoon but thought better of it. Jihoon tries not to let a sob force it’s way out of his mouth. He reminds himself he has no claim over Junhui these days, Junhui doesn’t owe him anything. And that’s fine, Jihoon can live with that. He know he can. He wouldn’t have broken it off if he thought he couldn’t.
Jihoon and Junhui are silent for a long time. Only a few steps separate them but it’s farthest Jihoon has ever felt from him. Farther then when Junhui to a food convention three hours away and for two days all Jihoon had of him was rushed texts and late night phone calls.
“I,” Jihoon manages, feeling like he’s about to choke on the sob in his throat. He tries to swallow it down but it stuck, right there, behind his adam’s apple and vocal chords. “I’m going to put the groceries away. The milk - the milk’s going to go bad. Have a nice night, Junhui.”
Jihoon swears he hears Junhui call after him but he can’t be sure and he doesn’t want to stop and turn around and find out, so he presses on.
Later, when Jihoon hears the door shut behind Junhui, he finally lets the broken, tiny sob escape from him.
The problem with being with someone for so long is that everything starts to have the capacity to remind you of them. Jihoon sees Junhui in the weather, in the window display of shops he passes, in the colour yellow, in every piece of food they’ve shared together.
Jihoon refuses to let himself be convinced he made a mistake. Refuses to believe that this moment, right now, isn’t a better situation than the alternative: letting the relationship run it’s course, until one or both of them built up animosity, and ending in an ugly, fiery blaze of anger and hurt.
This is better, the quiet heartbreak as they try to patch themselves back together in a way where they don’t want to be together anymore.
This is better. It has to be.
Jihoon is on the couch, halfway through a bottle of wine and half-watching some movie he just happened upon while channel surfing. Junhui wasn’t home when Jihoon got back from work and Jihoon can only assume he’s gone on another date. If that’s contributing to his drinking right now, Jihoon won’t admit it.
It’s 10PM when Junhui comes off, toeing off his shoes and hanging up his jacket. “You look nice,” Jihoon says, a little slurred. And Junhui does, hair coiffed and wearing a nice shirt tucked into a nice pair of jeans. “Were you on a date?”
Junhui shakes his head. He swats Jihoon’s feet off the couch so he can sit and when he does he sighs and melts into the cushions. “Work,” Junhui explains, “This Moroccan place that just opened. It was - mediocre.”
Jihoon curls in on himself a little more, so he can pull his feet back up onto the couch. They end up slid a little bit under Junhui’s thighs, but that’s okay. “I’ve never had Moroccan food before.”
“Hard to get right,” Junhui hums, “and I never really wanted to take you on date some place the food was bad.”
Jihoon chuckles. They sit in silence and Jihoon thinks it’s a nice silence, not awkward or pressing in on them. A smooth, easy silence, the kind you fall into just before sleep. Eventually, Junhui breaks it, leaning forward to pick up the bottle of wine Jihoon left on the table.
“This is good wine,” Junhui says, examining the label.
Jihoon hums, “it was our one year anniversary gift from my mom. You should have some, it was your present too.”
“Oh, you think you’ve had enough?” Junhui jokes. He disappears into their kitchen and reappears quickly with a wine glass. He pours it nearly to the lip, about to spill over, and then throws back half the glass.
Jihoon kicks him in the gut for it. “You savour a good wine, asshole. My mom did not buy us a fifty dollar wine for you to drink it like you’re at a frat party.”
They finish the bottle of wine, crack open and get mostly through a second bottle. Jihoon has moved to sit up on the couch, pretending to watch the movie but really just savouring the feeling of resting his head on Junhui’s shoulder.
“You know,” Jihoon says, walking his fingers up Junhui’s bare arm. He leaves goosebumps in his wake. “I’m glad we’re still friends. My life would be really awful without you.”
“Me too,” Junhui replies. He catches Jihoon’s hand in his own, threading their fingers together. Jihoon lets it happen because his mouth and his inhibitions are stained with wine and he still likes Junhui.
He hasn’t forgotten how good it is to be the object of Junhui’s affection. It made him feel important, worthy of good things, a person worth knowing. That was so dangerous and so stupid, thinking of Junhui as the only tether Jihoon had to self-worth. Putting him up on pedestal, the man who put the moon in the sky. Jihoon thought he could get over it, thought this would be better. And maybe it is better but it still feels awful.
Maybe that’s Jihoon kisses him, maybe he’s desperate to remember what it was like before he and Junhui become separate entities. They aren’t even really seperate now, they still live together and buy each other groceries. They still sleep in the same bed. And sure, they’ll explain it away with how they don’t have a guest bedroom and the couch isn’t comfortable but they both know neither of them want to sleep alone.
Jihoon kisses Junhui first and that will hurt later, it’ll hurt the both of them, but right now it feels like the only thing Jihoon can do to stop himself from hurting. Jihoon lets himself be pushed, gently, so he’s lying on the couch again. Junhui’s body cages his, from the arms that trap his shoulders to the press of thighs that trap his legs. Jihoon likes it, the feeling that Junhui wants to keep him for as long as he can.
Jihoon lets him. Lets him kiss and touch him like they still mean the most to each other out of everyone in the whole world.
(Jihoon wakes the little spoon to Junhui’s big spoon, bones and muscles tight from sleeping on the couch, head pounding from what probably works out to a whole bottle of wine. He notices the pile of clothes that lay strewn on the floor near the couch and thinks
Oh. Oh shit).
Junhui finds Jihoon brushing his teeth after throwing back two asprin. He wraps his arms arounds Jihoon’s middle, hugging from behind. Their height difference means Junhui’s whole frame engulfs Jihoon.
Jihoon freezes, watches in the bathroom mirror as Junhui settles with a smile into the curve of Jihoon’s neck and kisses him there, once or twice.
“Junhui,” Jihoon says, gently removing Junhui’s arms from around his waist and turning to face him. “I - I’m sorry.”
Junhui’s whole demeanour crumbles and Jihoon feels awful, disgusting and evil. They were the picture of domesticity, just then, and for a second Jihoon entertained having his old life back. He could, if he wanted too, Junhui would let him. And it would be easy, to settle back into that routine. But it wouldn’t be real, or worth it. It would be a band-aid over a wound that needed stitches, would be like hanging a picture frame over a hole you punched into your drywall. Eventually it will just end up worse.
“What are you saying?” Junhui asks. His voice is impossibly sad, like Jihoon sucked every last bit of hope out of him and then left him all of Junhui’s memories of hope too.
“I’m saying,” Jihoon closes his eyes, breathes in a slow inhale and exhale, and prepares himself for the reaction his words will bring. “I’m saying I’m sorry about last night, I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“Let it,” Junhui breathes out in disbelief. He steps back from cornering Jihoon against the counter. There’s that familiar distance that Jihoon could cross with two steps but feels like galaxies apart. “Let it happen - you - you kissed me first.”
“I know,” Jihoon sighs, putting his head in his hand. His headache is coming back. “I know, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, that’s what I’m trying to say, I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” Junhui spits. The hard edge almost makes Jihoon jump. He hadn’t meant to hurt Junhui, to make him angry or sad, Jihoon would never. He didn’t mean to.
It doesn’t matter, does it? He did it. It doesn’t matter if he didn’t want to do it, at the end of the day.
“Did you think we’re going to go - Junhui, I - we broke up,” Junhui flinches. “You went on dates. You met other people.”
“Because I thought it would knock some sense into you,” Junhui is frantic now and he’s not quite yelling but he’s almost there. “You - you broke up with me and I knew you still cared about me. So, I thought, oh, Jihoon’s just confused. Jihoon doesn’t know what he wants. That’s okay, that’s okay I can wait.”
“But then it,” Junhui continues. Jihoon can feel a sob building up in his chest. “But then months went by and you still lived here. And you kept acting like nothing was wrong but I - I couldn’t treat you like I did before. Because we weren’t together anymore and I though, maybe Jihoon’s forgot. Maybe he’s tricked himself into thinking we’re still together. So I wanted to remind you, I wanted you to remember so I went on three awful dates and hated every second of it.”
“I didn’t ask you to wait for me,” Jihoon’s voice is trembling, his fingers too. He makes a fist and digs his nails into his palm in an effort to get them to stop.
“Jihoon,” Junhui steps forward, grabs Jihoon’s shoulders. Forces Jihoon to look up and meet his eyes. “Jihoon, wake up. What was I supposed to think? We still live together, we hang out all the time. We still sleep in the same fucking bed.”
“I’m sorry,” There’s that sob. It sounds awful and hopeless, Jihoon hates it. Hates that that noise came from him. “I’m sorry. I just - I thought we could still be friends.”
“Friends don’t act like this,” Junhui lets go off Jihoon, “you know they don’t.”
And with that Junhui leaves the bathroom, slamming the door behind him so hard Jihoon flinches.
They fight a lot after that. Ugly, rabid fights that last for hours. The kind where they always say things they regret, the kind that makes their stomach acid turn to guilt that rises in their throats. They both know so much about each other, each tiny insecurity and deplorable habit. It’s so easy for them to sink their teeth into each other and tear, leave with chunks of the other person’s self-worth.
It’s horrible. As much as they hate each other when it’s happening, they hate themselves even more when it’s over.
One time Jihoon throws a mug, remnants of his morning coffee still stained against the bottom, and it smashes against the wall near Junhui’s head. Jihoon cries for nearly two hours over his broken mug and his broken heart. Junhui picks up the tiny pieces of ceramic left all over their floor. Jihoon’s heart is not so easy to mend, or sweep away into the trash.
But somehow, that night, like every night, Jihoon will crawl into bed beside Junhui and fall asleep. They fight almost everyday but not once have they secluded themselves to the couch, or felt the distinct want to be left alone emanating from their partner by the time the night rolled around. They’ve shared their bed every night.
They don’t know how to stop. Like this, it’s easy to pretend nothing’s wrong.
“Sometimes I wonder if you ever loved me at all,” Junhui says, voice sharp like fangs and dipped in poison. It’s one of those fights. When they feel like they have something prove, when it’s a contest of who can hurt who more.
“How can you,” Jihoon starts, voice shaky. He balls his hands into fists, steadies out his vocal chords. “Fuck you. You know I did.”
Jihoon knows he did. When he was in love he could feel it leaking out of every pore, every fiber of him reaching out towards any part of Junhui he could touch. He might have forgotten that, trudging through the swamp that is their relationship now, but Jihoon knows he loved him. He couldn’t forget. This wouldn’t hurt this bad if he didn’t.
That night, Junhui crawls into bed next to Jihoon and puts an arm around his waist. Familiar or foreign, Jihoon doesn’t know how to describe skin contact with Junhui these days.
“I’m sorry,” Junhui whispers into Jihoon’s hair, breath a warm contrast to his cold fingers.
“I did love you,” Jihoon insists, “I loved you so much.”
Junhui quiets him. Jihoon is embarrassed by the strain his emotions put on his voice. “I know you did,” Junhui replies, insists, “I’m sorry. I know you did.”
I still do, Jihoon thinks. I still do. You can love someone and not want to be with them anymore. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I love you so much it’s breaking my heart.
Jihoon falls asleep without another word, Junhui’s arms are still wrapped around him.
When Jihoon wakes, blinds splitting the sunlight that comes in through the bedroom window, Junhui is gone.
There are calms, sometimes, in the storminess of their life. A desert island in an angry sea. They don’t always hate each other.
(Jihoon never hates Junhui. Never. He always loves him.)
“You haven’t kissed me in months,” Jihoon says. His voice is not sad, it does not shake over the words or drop to a volume that Junhui can barely hear. Jihoon does not sound sad, he’s perfected the ability to not sound sad, but he is sad.
“You’ve been keeping track?” Junhui responds. It’s not meant to be cutting, it’s light-hearted. A little jab to the side of Jihoon’s ribs.
“It was an estimate, you jackass,” Jihoon considers launching a soggy spoon of his breakfast cereal at Junhui, before he considers the clean up and thinks better of it. “I was just - thinking. That’s all.”
“Thinking about me?”
Jihoon huffs, “you know, every time I think I might miss you a little bit you remind me you’re an asshole.”
They both laugh. Jihoon finishes his cereal, rinses out the bowl and leaves it in the sink. “I do,” he says quietly, just as he’s about to leave the kitchen. “By the way, I do.”
“You do what?”
“Miss you.”
“I miss you too,” Junhui’s reply makes Jihoon’s heart flutter.
It’s not enough. It’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough.
Each day in this apartment that’s turned into a museum, a relic or a fossil of Jihoon and Junhui’s happiness, down to silverware and photo frames and housewarming pgifts. Everyday trapped in here Jihoon feels bits of himself crumble off into nothingness.
They’re eating dinner when he says it. Junhui’s cooked pasta with mushrooms in the tomato sauce. Jihoon stabs a fork through a mushroom, he hates mushrooms, and says, “I’m going to move out.”
Junhui freezes, a bite of spaghetti twirled around his fork and stopped mid-way to his mouth. Junhui clears his throat, Jihoon watches him roll back his shoulders. “Alright,” he finally manages to reply, “have you found a place yet?”
“I signed a lease yesterday,” It feels like a dirty confession. Like those kind of lies you insist aren’t lies because no one ever asked you to tell the truth. Jihoon reminds himself he doesn’t owe Junhui anything anymore. It’s hard to remember, when they still share a bed and meals and a life. They haven’t been together, in the traditional sense of the word, in months. Junhui is still the most constant thing in Jihoon’s life.
Moving out will be a good thing.
“Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?” Junhui asks.
“Junhui,” Jihoon breathes out, heart aching. His dinner does not sit right in his stomach. It’s not just the mushroom. “Junhui, we’re not - we’re not together anymore.”
Jihoon sees Junhui falter, almost reer back like he’s been hit. But he catches himself, grips the edge of the table and flexes his fingers against it. “I know,” Junhui says, “Obviously, I know.”
“Sometimes,” Jihoon starts, “sometimes you say things that make me think you forget.”
Jihoon moves out a week later.
“You know, it’s a good thing we never got a puppy,” Junhui says.
“Why?”
“I don’t know if I could survive a custody battle right now, Jihoon,”
Jihoon punches Junhui playfully in the shoulder. They both smile, neither one of them reaching their eyes with it.
Jihoon’s new place is small but it suits him fine. There’s no big kitchen with the breakfast bar like he used to have and the bathroom has no bathtub, just a shower. But it’s okay, it’s all okay. Jihoon’s smaller bed is okay, if a little chilly sometimes. But he adjusts, he stops leaving the window open at night, buys a thicker blanket.
Jihoon and Junhui have not spoke since Jihoon moved out. As much as Jihoon would like to pretend they left off amicably, he can’t fool himself once months and months go by without a single call or text. Jihoon would be angry, if only he weren’t making any effort to contact Junhui either.
Learning to live without Junhui is hard. But Jihoon lives without him for years before they met and those were good years, Jihoon has a lot of nice memories of the years before he met Junhui. He refuses to compare the saturation of nice memories before Junhui to the nice memories he experience with Junhui. He’s learning to live without Junhui, Jihoon reminds himself, and thinking about him all the time won’t help.
Jihoon meets Seungcheol in a bookstore. He’s looking at cookbooks, refiling through the selection to find one that best suits his tastes. Junhui spoiled him that time they were together with extravagant meals of a finer palette. Jihoon doesn’t have the innate talent for that, but he’s trying.
It’s the beginnings of fall. The sun is still bright and the leaves still green but the air has a chill. Jihoon’s wearing a jacket and a thin scarf. That’s how Seungcheol meets him.
Jihoon is flipping through the pages of an Italian cookbook when a voice says, “you like pasta?”
Jihoon turns his head in the direction of the voice and finds a sunny, happy looking stranger watching Jihoon’s cookbook over Jihoon’s shoulder. Jihoon slams it shut, “I like it well enough.”
The stranger laughs, “I’m Seungcheol.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Seungcheol. I’m Jihoon.” Seungcheol is cute. His smile and the way his eyes crease when he laughs. He has pretty, soft and smooth looking black hair. All of him looks soft, actually, like something worth hugging.
“Do you cook, Jihoon?” Seungcheol asks, gesturing to the shelves and shelves of cookbooks in front of them.
“Not really,” Jihoon admits, “but I’m learning.”
Seungcheol nods. “You know,” Seungcheol plucks the Italian cookbook out of Jihoon’s hands and starts flicking through the pages, “I ask about the pasta because there’s this great Italian place, I heard, and I’m looking for someone to go with me.”
Oh. Jihoon is a little floored. Is someone asking him out on a date, right now? He hasn’t gone on one since Junhui, telling himself over and over that he wasn’t ready for it. He couldn’t put himself out there right now, not after how things turned out with Junhui. But apparently he didn’t need to do anything because here’s someone who wants to take him on a date, fallen right into his lap. Seungcheol is so cute, too. Jihoon thinks he might be worth the chance.
“Sure,” Jihoon replies. Seungcheol looks surprised and Jihoon chuckles. “But one thing?”
“Anything.”
“How do you feel about Moroccan food?”
epilogue.
“Jihoon,” Seungcheol plasters himself against Jihoon’s side, nose in his neck and smile pressed into his shoulder. They’re at this gallery opening Seungcheol’s been invited to, one too many flutes of champagne thrown back to pass the time.
Jihoon sighs into Seungcheol’s embrace a little more than he would normally allow himself, but the lights are low and the music is loud and no one is watching them. “What?” Jihoon asks.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Seungcheol replies, mouth against the shell of Jihoon’s ear.
Jihoon lets himself be guided, an arm around his waist, to the corner of room Seungcheol had just come from. “Jihoon, this is -”
“Junhui,” Jihoon cuts Seungcheol off, as soon as he takes in the sharp features and puts a name to them. Junhui, dressed smartly in black with red accents, hair dyed blonde. He looks so different from when Jihoon last saw him, but somehow exactly the same.
“Uh, no,” Seungcheol corrects. He gestures to the man to the left of Junhui, the one who has a hand possessively curled around Junhui’s bicep. “This is Soonyoung. This is his gallery.”
“Oh,” Jihoon says lamely. He manages to pull his eyes away from Junhui, to shake hands with Soonyoung, who has a round, cute face. Pretty eyes, a bright smile. When Jihoon’s eyes track back to Junhui, he thinks they made a good fit.
“You two know each other?” Soonyoung asks, looking up at Junhui.
Junhui looks down at his boyfriend, his new boyfriend, not Jihoon, and smiles. It’s a smile so soft at the edges, warm and the simple happiness that comes from love. Jihoon wonders if, at one point, people would look at him and Junhui and see the same thing he sees now.
“You could say that,” Junhui finally says. He turns back to Jihoon, still smiling. It’s a different smile but still, a good smile. A content smile, nothing hiding behind it, nothing below the surface that changes it’s meaning.
“Yeah,” Jihoon echoes, smiling back, “you could say that.”
For the first time in forever Jihoon thinks, Jihoon decides, Jihoon knows - that he and Junhui had been worth it.